nwasianweekly.com
July 5, 2008

Photo by Joss Barratt/Sony Pictures Classics

Prelude to a kiss: Christopher Simpson (left) and Tannishtha Chatterjee begin an affair in “Brick Lane.”

Follow the “Brick Lane” to this highly-acclaimed movie

By N.P. Thompson
Northwest Asian Weekly

This adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel “Brick Lane” begins with a fairy tale reverie of a prologue in which two teenaged sisters, clad in vibrant colors of yellow and purple, lovingly race alongside each other through an emerald field outside their village in Bangladesh. Soon enough, the reverie ends.

There’s an overhead shot of children plunging into a murky pond, frolicking and splashing; they can’t see that, downstream, the girls’ mother solemnly wades in carrying a golden urn. She lets the vessel fill up with water, and clutching it, she descends beneath the surface and drowns. Her lifeless body returns to float among the lily pads. The elder girl, Nazneen, then finds herself swept away into an arranged marriage in another country.

The movie leaps forward in time to the grown-up Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) now living with two daughters of her own in a crowded tenement on London’s East End, a neighborhood thriving with Bengali immigrants and curry shops that line the boulevard. And she is married — to the obese Chanu (Satish Kaushik), an overbearing, vainglorious man so heavy-set as to suggest a sagging mountain. Chanu’s bulbous nose resembles a snout. He breathes heavily and advances slowly, like a lumbering beast. Nazneen, whose only connection to her sister lies in the letters they exchange, outwardly goes through the motions of her marriage, yet inwardly retreats to memories, to bits of a fairy tale about “a princess who lived seven seas and 13 rivers away” that she and her sister told each other as children. In a performance well-attuned to the character’s interior state, Chatterjee cradles these fragments of myth — Nazneen’s life preserver, as it were.

The director, Sarah Gavron, shows a real strength for observation. Her touch seems most sure in casual moments, such as a scene at an outdoor market where Chanu, who fancies himself a great philosopher, bores his wife blind with ruminations when she’d rather be looking at saris in store windows.

Into this isolated couple’s world arrives the multicultural hottie Karim (Christopher Simpson), a swaggering Desi equivalent to Jude Law who sports a Cockney accent and three-day stubble. Nazneen, who takes in sewing after Chanu loses his job, begins to look forward to Karim’s deliveries of denim fabric to be stitched into blue jeans; in a perceptive visualization of her need to share this news, Nazneen has fantasies of her sister speaking to her across continents, as if in the same room.

Venturing out, she attends one of Karim’s political meetings, a race advocacy group that christens itself “Bengal Tigers.” Up front, he’s charismatic, a natural leader. Back at her apartment, both resist their burgeoning attraction, but his devastating smile and her radiant joy cannot be denied. Later, Karim spies Nazneen across a bazaar and he’s smitten — how well the actors and the filmmaker capture that unmistakable yet difficult to duplicate look.

“Why do you like me?” Nazneen asks. Karim tells her (this may be the movie’s most astutely written exchange) that there are two types of girls: one being a tart, the other being the religious type who just wants to argue. “What about me?” she follows through, and he replies, “You — you’re the real thing.”

“Brick Lane” unfortunately takes a melodramatic spiral in its final third, complete with feverish montage and a headlong maze of neon-blurred jump cuts that are too Jane Campion-esque to register emotional sense. Yet an impassioned aria emerges out of this. Chanu accompanies Nazneen to Karim’s rally of radicalized young Muslims and challenges them: “You think Islam unites us all? Islam isn’t a country.” He proceeds to give historical perspective on racial injustice. “The only Islam is in here,” he points to his heart, “the only place where it’s worth defending.” It’s a terrific speech, and of course, the bearded activists resent him for it. But Gavron, in extending her generosity from the lovers to Chanu, has allowed her buffoon his moment as a heroic figure.

“Brick Lane” opens July 4 at Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th, Seattle. For showtimes, call 206-781-5755.

N.P. Thompson can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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