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Europe’s film fete
The iron curtain may have fallen in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but the East-West divide was, up till recently, still a reality in Europe, with the affluent West in a far better situation than the mostly impoverished former communist satellite states of the eastern bloc.
However, in late April of 2004, those divisions supposedly disappeared into thin air as the EU expanded from 15 to 25 states, embracing many of the nations that had once been considered pariahs under Cold War conventional wisdom. And to celebrate the event here in Pakistan, states from the European Union recently organized a film festival in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
A host of movies were screened at the festival, at the Alliance Francaise de Karachi’s small auditorium. There were films from both ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe, with entries from countries as diverse as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, all new members of the European club, along with movies from more regular players such as France, Italy, Germany and the UK.
Set in the early seventies, ‘Anita and Me’ focuses on the Kumar family, a small unit made up of Mr and Mrs Kumar, young Indian émigrés struggling for a better life in Britain, and Meena, their mischievous yet creative pre-teen daughter. Their neighbours are a pleasant but weird lot, yet the Kumars are the ones considered to be eccentrics because of their cultural habits
It was not a film festival in the proper sense of the word, as none of the features were vying for any sort of festival award, as there was none. Rather, it was simply a sampling of European film culture, something we here in Pakistan rarely get to see, thanks to the overbearing presence of the Hollywood and Bollywood machines.
Because most of the films were in tongues other than English, they were subtitled in the language. Yet the movie that this writer watched, Anita and Me (2002), representing the UK, deserved to be subtitled as well due to the strong Midlands accent that the characters conversed in, which, to many non-native English speakers, sounds as alien as Lithuanian. Still, the film, directed by Metin Hüseyin, about whom little is known, and based on the Meera Syal novel of the same name, was enjoyable.
Set in the early seventies, it focuses on the Kumar family, a small unit made up of Mr and Mrs Kumar (Sanjeev Bhaskar and Ayesha Dharker), young Indian émigrés struggling for a better life in Britain, and Meena (Chandeep Uppal), their mischievous yet creative pre-teen daughter. They live in Tollington, a grimy mining village in the Midlands, near Wolverhampton (though shooting actually took place in Nottinghamshire) and are the only Asian family in town. Their neighbours are a pleasant but weird lot – dysfunctional, broken families, greasy rockers, a hippie vicar – among others. Yet the Kumars are the ones considered to be eccentrics because of their cultural habits!
Meena is quite the little troublemaker, a free spirit actually, who wants to escape her bland surroundings and become a glamorous writer and admittedly, she does have a flair for writing. But she is uncomfortable with herself and wants to blend in and be like the local girls, only the thing is when she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t quite like what she sees.
She doesn’t speak Punjabi (her parents’ mother tongue), would rather have fish fingers than curry and wishes she was blonde. To add insult to injury, her writing ability is not recognized in school, when her teacher dismisses one of her essays as being merely ‘florid,’ when it is clearly an outstanding effort. In the middle of all this struts in Anita Rutter, an older wild child of sorts who immediately becomes Meena’s idol.
Things get uglier as a wave of racism sweeps across the nation, and the Kumars’ village is also engulfed in its nasty wake. Friends turn into foes almost overnight. The vile practice known as ‘Paki bashing’ becomes the easiest way for disillusioned, under-educated white youth to get kicks and ‘darkies’ becoming everyone’s favourite whipping boys. Though Meena and Anita get a friendship going, that relationship also experiences fissures as Anita’s skinhead boyfriend begins influencing her more and more.
Anita and Me mixes humour, trauma and drama quite well, with Meera Syal also contributing to the cast as Auntie Shaila, one of Meena’s cagey ‘pretend relatives.’ There is a bit of confusion as to what the girl’s background is, as even though there are references to Hinduism, when Meena’s mother takes her to a temple, what one witnesses is a Sikh ritual. Also, Meena’s feisty Nanima, played by nonagenarian Zohra Sehgal, pulls out a razor sharp kirpan when she and her granddaughter are accosted by a gang of skinhead thugs.
After walking out of the auditorium, one is overwhelmed by a feeling of gloom at watching the plight of Asians as they put up the brave fight for survival as strangers in a strange land. One cannot forget the groovy soundtrack that mixes ’70s classics from David Cassidy, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Cliff and others with the original score by ace Asian massive musician Nitin Sawhney.
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