The Pakistani-British writer Hanif Kureishi remains best known for writing the scenario for "My Beautiful Laundrette," though he also adapted his novel The Buddha of Suburbia as a BBC miniseries and his novel Intimacy and another story of his as a film, published one other superb novel, (The Black Album), directed a film ("England Kills Me"), and written the screenplay for "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid," as well as adapting his short story (collected in Love in a Blue Time "My Son, the Fanatic," to the screen (directed by Udayan Prasad) in 1997.

The story is only thirteen pages long with a lot of dialogue that is not used in the film--which is unfortunate. I think that more of the dialogue from the story should have been used, since it makes the view of the son clearer than what is in the film does. The screenplay considerably expands the part of the sensible English prostitute, Bettina (played by Rachel Griffith (Academy Award nominee playing Hilary du Pré in "Hilary and Jackie," Golden Globe winner for her role in "Six Feet Under"), but remains almost entirely about the father: "Parvez [who] had been a taxi driver for twenty years [in Bradford, England].... Like him, most of the other drivers were Punjabis. They preferred to work at night: the roads were clearer and the money better. They slept during the day, avoiding their wives. Together, they led almost a boy's life."

Parvez -- played by the estimable Om Puri (East is East, City of Joy, etc.) with his strong, lived-in face -- is very proud of his son, Farid (Akbar Kurtha, who was in "Bhaji on the Beach"), Farid has grown up in Angland, excelled at school and at cricket, and is engaged to marry a beautiful English girl, the daugher of a police chief inspector. This last is the ultimate sign of successful assimilation for Parvez (as for many other South Asian emigrés).

However, Farid is acting strangely: he no longer revels in rock music, then he breaks the engagement, and starts wearing the garb of South Asian Muslims, praying five times a day, hanging out with hyper-observant Muslims instead of going to classes, etc. Parvez is horrified by this embrace of a religion he took in small doses, and by the rejection of the assimilation he has struggled hard to make possible for his son.

The smouldering Farid becomes very judgemental toward his father. His new-found and (therefore all the more) vigorous puritanism is portrayed as joining a cult, though the charge that his father is a kind of pimp arranging debauchery is not without foundation. And it is certainly true that Parvez's friend and confidante is a prostitute. The film does not explore Farid's anguish, though it implies that Farid is in an alliance with his long-suffering mother (Minoo, played subtly by Gopi Desai). She shows herself to be quite iwilling to be secluded when an imam (Maulvi) from Lahore comes and stays in the house, which is then overrun with fundamentalist zealots.

Minoo defends Farid, and Farid's attack on Bettina seems to be as much on her behalf as his own. Minoo also accuses Parvez of putting self before family, though the same charge could be directed as Farid's new ultra-orthodoxy (which is supposed to include respect for one's father).

The film takes quite a while to get going, and Minoo does not really emerge as a character until the penultimate scene. The series of confrontations in the last half hour are compelling. The intercultural conflicts within a family are fascinating. I have seen similar embraces of more rigorist (than their parents') observations of Judaism, and Christianity, as well as of Islam as in the film, and I at least know that "fundamentalist" Hinduism has drawn some retribalizing children of secular, cosmopolitan parents.

There is nothing technically remarkable and o special effects. There is lots of dialogue. The performers (including Harish Patel as Fizzy, Parvez's more successful friend from home) are uniformly excellent. The dialogue is in English, but some American viewers may want to turn on the subtitles.

Being able to turn on subtitles is the only DVD advantage. The DVD includes no extra features. I wish there was an interview with Kureishi, asking him about shifting the focus from the family to the night-time revels Parvez serves, mostly without participating in. Parvez's putting up with the German client (aptly named Schitz) would seem enough warrant for Farid turning his back on his father's milieu (though Farid does not observe it).

Since 9/11 — and especially in the absence of capturing Osama bin-Laden or any other al-Queda leader and the failure to indict any of his financiers or the sender of anthrax-laden letters — there has been considerable interest in those rejecting the modernism in which they have lived in North America or western Europe to embrace puritanical Islam. "My Son, the Fanatic," thus, is "topical" to more people than it was when it was released in 1997, though it would be more so if it focused on the boy rather than on his shocked father.
(The Black Album focuses on a boy who is drawn from his fascination with pop culture to Islamicist fanaticism, but ultimately rejects it when he sees an attack very much like the one Farid joins.)

© Stephen O. Murray, 2002.. All rights other than initial online posting reserved by the author.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD