{"id":2953,"date":"2008-05-13T21:20:40","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T05:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=2953"},"modified":"2008-08-28T18:30:40","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T02:30:40","slug":"brick-lane-is-a-beautiful-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=2953","title":{"rendered":"Brick Lane Is A Beautiful Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

From its opening scene all the way through to the picturesque end, this is a sweet humane story. Video<\/a><\/p>\n

I kept fearing that things would get ugly but they didn’t. Sure there was pain, but this movie is about people who love each other.<\/p>\n

Every scene builds to the next and the film ends in a satisfying climax.<\/p>\n

Everybody seemed to leave the media screening in a happy mellow state.<\/p>\n

Chris Docker writes on imdb.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Sony Classics:<\/p>\n

Published to great acclaim in 2003, Monica Ali’s debut novel Brick Lane garnered rapturous reviews and
\ncountless award nominations both in the UK and internationally. A sharply observed story about the life
\nof a Bangladeshi immigrant girl who comes to London to marry, it is ultimately a universal story about life,
\nlove, cultural difference and the power of the human spirit.
\nOn reading the novel, producer Alison Owen was immediately attracted to the story and saw its potential
\nas a film: “I read ‘Brick Lane’ and I fell in love with it, and enquired about the option straight away.
\nHowever, it wasn’t an easy project and so I didn’t follow it up immediately, but it just haunted me for the
\nnext couple of months. I kept thinking about it and eventually I just gave into the urge, bought the rights
\nand started putting the package together.”
\nOnce a first draft of the screenplay had been completed, Owen could see the direction that the project
\nwas taking, but realizing that it still needed a lot of work, she thought it a good time to bring a director on
\nboard, and approached Sarah Gavron. Explains Owen: “Sarah’s a director with extremely strong vision.
\nWe sent her a copy of the script as well as the book, which it turned out she’d already read and was
\npassionate about.” Adds Gavron: “I read the draft and thought it showed lots of potential and came on
\nboard at that stage. What really appealed to me was Nazneen’s journey. The story of a woman finding
\nher place in the world, and finding a voice, so beautifully told, with such compassion, wit and emotional
\ndepth.”
\nTrying to condense a 500 page novel which focuses on the inner thoughts of its central character into a
\nscreenplay, that still maintained the heart of Nazneen’s voyage of discovery, was always going to be a
\nchallenge, but Gavron and screenwriter Abi Morgan made some bold decisions. Says Gavron: “We tried
\nto be very faithful to the spirit of the book. But it was impossible to include everything. It’s a very
\ncomplicated process because there’s so much that you do want to include. But in the end, we chose to
\ncompress the time frame of the novel and set it all in 2001 with some flashbacks and back story – and
\nthat unlocked for us the scriptwriting process. We went through many drafts before we made that
\ndecision, and it was rather daunting. There’s so much wonderful texture to the novel, but in terms of the
\nnarrative, really it kicked off in 2001 when Nazneen met Karim and her life began to change.”
\nAdds Morgan: “If you’re trying to distil something down then you have to be quite disciplined with yourself
\nabout what’s really essential, and the film is a very simple journey of a woman finding herself and finding
\nher own voice. Somehow, that felt like it could be contained in 2001 with 9\/11 being the catalyst, so that
\nthe wider world starts to reflect Nazneen’s inner, personal world. There was also a very simple,
\norganising principle in terms of that complete year, that we could start in spring and end in winter, and I
\nlove the idea that we have a very vivid, bright Bangladesh of her childhood at the beginning set against
\nthe cold, snowy, clean landscape of London at the end of the film.”
\nGavron found her collaboration with writer Abi Morgan extremely satisfying: “Abi’s a wonderful, instinctive
\nwriter, who has very strong ideas and lots of rather ingenious solutions. It was a very involved, close,
\nfulfilling process.” Adds Morgan: “Sarah’s really a writer’s director and Alison Owen is very good at
\ngetting the right alchemy of people together, and I think that was the biggest attraction for me.”
\nWith the final draft of a screenplay in hand, the next hurdle was to find a cast who could take on such
\ninteresting and unusual roles.
\nTHE CASTING PROCESS
\nAbi Morgan outlines: “The relationship between Chanu and Nazneen was so beautifully and wittily written
\nin the book, and with such compassion. It was a gift to have a character like Chanu, who is so funny and
\ndidactic, and you set that character against that of Nazneen who is so contained and sophisticated in her
\nthinking and the collision of that with Karim, this empowered, young, sexual man and it’s very potent. Key
\nin the film was this notion of two kinds of love; the young, passionate love that takes your breath away
\nand that changes things, and then, ‘The kind that you don’t notice at first, but which adds a little bit to
\nitself every day, like an oyster makes a pearl.’ It was essential therefore, to cast the film with actors whose
\nperformances could bring out the nuances, complexities and demands of the roles whilst depicting
\ncharacters that are already known to the book reading audience.
\nTo this end, a worldwide search began. Says director Gavron: “We spent a long time casting and looked
\nvery, very widely, watching the work or meeting up with every possible actor in Britain, India, Bangladesh
\nand some from the United States. We even met non-actors and did some street casting. When you’re
\nadapting a book, it feels like you’ve got much less leeway in the casting process, because you know the
\ncharacters so well. So it was very hard to find the right people for the right parts. We really met
\nwonderful people and I think the cast we’ve got reflects that process actually, because we’ve got some
\nBangladeshi Muslim actors, some who were born in India and some non-actors who are acting for the first
\ntime.”
\nCasting Nazneen was obviously extremely crucial and a challenge for any actress to be able to depict so
\nmuch inner emotion with relatively few words. Producer Chris Collins explains: “We saw a lot of actors for
\nthe role of Nazneen and interestingly the very first person we saw when we did our first casting trip to
\nIndia was Tannishtha Chatterjee, and because she was the first person, even though we thought she was
\nfantastic, we then saw everyone else and saw her several times more before we actually cast her. It
\nseemed too good to be true, that she should walk in first thing on the first day.”
\nTannishtha Chatterjee trained at the National School of Drama in Delhi and is known in India for a variety
\nof film and theatre roles. She has already appeared in two European films in Germany and France and
\nhas toured in theatre around Europe. She was thrilled when she found out that she was to play Nazneen,
\nexplaining: “It’s a dream role for any actress – from the beginning of her journey to the end is a drastic
\nchange, but the challenge is to make her changes subtle. Her story is universal to a lot of women I have
\nmet in Britain. They come here and marry someone. They leave home, feel lonely and don’t speak the
\nlanguage. It’s a new world for them and so different from their previous lives. Nazneen was lucky that
\nher husband was a nice person. She starts off as someone who is unsure of herself and through her
\nstrength she becomes independent, questioning things out of her experience in life, which is something
\nvery unique.”
\nWhen Chatterjee arrived in the UK she immediately set her mind to preparing and researching the role.
\nTo this end, she met a lot of Bengali women and spent time walking around the Brick Lane area, steeping
\nherself in the Bengali-UK cross culture. She says: “The language was something I had to work on.
\nThough I am Indian, I speak English in a different way from the way Bengali women here speak. And I
\nalso wanted to research the religious part of it, because Islam has a different lifestyle the moment you go
\nto Bangladesh, Islam changes as there are different influences.”
\nWorking with a British director for the first time, Chatterjee was pleasantly surprised by how collaborative
\nSarah Gavron was: “She is not a dictator. She doesn’t tell you to walk three feet here, look right and
\nexpress this. She lets you do something first and then she says what she likes and what she doesn’t. So
\nas an actor I feel like I’m also a creative artist here, where I am continuously giving my input.”
\nThe role of Chanu was an equally difficult one to cast, given that his character requires a comic
\nphysicality but also the need for dramatic gravitas.
\nThe production team were extremely fortunate to find Satish Kaushik. Explains Chris Collins: “Satish is
\nan actor who’s very well known in India for his comic parts but for the last four or five years he’s been
\ndirecting, so he didn’t immediately appear on the radar of any of our casting directors. But, at the very
\nlast minute, an inspired leap of imagination from one of them led to a call and a weekend dash to Delhi
\nand instantly Sarah and I knew that he was Chanu.”
\nKaushik feels that his comic background stands him in good stead for the challenge of playing such a
\ndifferent role: “I’ve played a lot of comic parts in India, but talk to any actor and they will tell you that tragic
\nparts can be played by comic actors. Tragedy comes out of comedy, and comedy comes out of tragedy.
\nSo I think that being a comic actor helped me to get into the skin of Chanu, because he is a character
\nwho can be very funny.” He continues: “There is a little bit of Chanu in everyone, especially people who
\ncome with a lot of dreams, hopes and ambitions. I can relate to Chanu in terms of a bigger canvas –
\nChaplin, Roberto Benigni in ‘Life is Beautiful’, Willy Loman in ‘Death of a Salesman’. These are all
\ndreamer characters, like Chanu, who lives on hope. He’s an optimist and yet he is a failure. But he
\ndoesn’t show that failure to people or to his family – and that is where you feel for Chanu.”
\nTannishtha Chatterjee was delighted to have the opportunity to work with Kaushik: “Satish and I are from
\nthe same drama institute in India. Although obviously he’s my senior and I knew of him, we’d never
\nworked together. But it’s really nice that we come from the same theatrical background, so we were able
\nto improvise things, and when you have such an innovative actor performing with you it enhances your
\nperformance. He is also such a funny person and always kept us entertained.”
\nChristopher Simpson \/ Karim
\nThe character of Karim provides an important bridge between the Bengali and UK Bengali culture,
\nbetween tradition and progress and between duty and passion. To that end it was essential that the role
\nbe filled by somebody who could combine such dichotomies.
\nChristopher Simpson was aware of the challenges of the role that he took on because of Karim’s
\nimportance in the narrative. He explains: “Karim is a young man from the streets of London with great
\naspirations both for himself and for his community. He’s a young radical, but also a character with a great
\ndeal of compassion for Nazneen, and I think in many ways he is a catalyst to her discovering herself. I
\nsee his role in the film as very much being someone who invites her to speak for herself and to discover
\nherself.”
\nSimpson was always concerned with ensuring that he motivated the character effectively and describes
\nhow Sarah Gavron helped him: “There were times in the process of filming that I felt deeply frustrated
\nbecause I wondered whether Karim had all the ire, the anger, the frustration and the sense of being
\ndisaffected, of not having a voice and whether all of this was translating onto the screen. Sarah was very
\nkeen to point out to me that we do know the angry young man, that we have seen him everywhere in film,
\nbooks and culture. So for her, what was more interesting was to see a potent ally and at times a volatile
\nyouth who is politically engaged and who does have aspirations for himself and for his community, who
\nhas the edge of the street, but who is also compassionate enough to be able to elicit from a very delicate
\nwoman her story and her heart. I think that’s part of his charm for me.”
\nbrick lane
\nBrick Lane is a real street located in East London in the shadow of the City (financial district) with its modern
\ntower blocks dedicated to the world of business and its ancient historical roots that go back to Roman times.
\nThe street itself can be seen as the symbolic heart of the film, ever changing and evolving into something
\nnew.
\nBrick Lane has offered refuge to immigrants into London for 400 years and these communities have all left
\ntheir own distinctive mark on the area over the centuries. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, the street
\nhas become the centre of the biggest Bengali community outside of Bangladesh, mainly from the Sylhet
\nregion.
\nThe area has always been regarded as a safe haven for those escaping persecution from abroad. During the
\n17th and 18th centuries the Protestant Huguenot population were terrorised in Catholic France and many fled
\nto England, settling in the Spitalfields area close to Brick Lane. The Huguenots were fine craftsmen and
\nweavers, and these wealthy refugees built new homes for themselves with a wonderfully distinctive
\narchitecture, many of which can still be seen today in the roads around Brick Lane, particularly Fournier
\nStreet.
\nBy the late 19th century a new wave of immigration brought Jewish families escaping from Holland, Germany,
\nRussia and Poland and, for the next century, Brick Lane was the centre of the East End Jewish community
\nand the heart of the rag trade.
\nIt was to work in the clothing factories around Brick Lane that the young male Bengali workers arrived in the
\nlate 1950s and through the 1960s. As they prospered, many brought over their families and established a
\nnew community in Brick Lane.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From its opening scene all the way through to the picturesque end, this is a sweet humane story. Video I kept fearing that things would get ugly but they didn’t. Sure there was pain, but this movie is about people … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[4425,7255,7251,7254,7250,7249,2177,7248,7258,7252,7259,7247,7262,7256,7261,722,7253,7257,7260,7263],"class_list":["post-2953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hollywood","tag-authenticity","tag-bangladeshi-community","tag-beautiful-love-story","tag-brick-lane","tag-bricks-and-mortar","tag-chris-docker","tag-climax","tag-deepa-mehta","tag-east-london","tag-islamic-extremism","tag-jane-austen","tag-jane-austen-novel","tag-masterpieces","tag-plot-device","tag-portrayal","tag-quot","tag-sarah-gavron","tag-spokespeople","tag-subplot","tag-young-girl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4212,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953\/revisions\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}