Contains very mild spoilers. The characters in Brick Lane appear boxed into a confined, restricting little world (aren't we all...?). The film's main character is a housewife, Nazneen (played by Tannistha Chatterjee), who habitually recalls childhood memories of green, open spaces and rural life in Bangladesh and shares her private sadness with the viewer that her soul is denied a sense of freedom. Tensions, frustrations and puzzlement about life and where it is going has as it's main back-drop, the interior of a small East London flat.
Nazneen's proud, precise, well-read husband is not immediately endearing (in what appears to be a loveless marriage), but subsequently reveals his hidden depths on two occasions in particular; one concerning his Faith (in the presence of his community), in the wake of '9/11' (2001); the other concerning a significant choice about his family's future.
Nazneen's sister is never far from her thoughts and the arrival of her letters from Bangladesh have the effect of sustaining Nazneen in the belief that her sister has found love and happiness. Nazneen's only expression of real defiance directed at her husband concerns one of the letters. The correspondence between the sisters remarks on how we tend to put the reader's feelings before our own, when posting a little piece of our world overseas.
The film explores how one discovers a hidden self and qualities that duty, force of habit, the day-to-day, and the expectations of others, forces us to deny and conceal - ultimately to our own personal loss, leaving our relationships with those we love the poorer for it.
One character in the film is a corrupt elder in the community described as a 'userer' (loan shark!). She supplies a fascinating, malevolent contribution - until Nazneen, waking up to her own inner strengths, challenges her.
The film can perhaps best be summarised by the words of Nazneen's husband who later concludes admiringly that the woman he married (who has lived in his shadow some twenty years), was not a 'girl from the village'; implying that Nazneen's simple rural roots belied her wit and savvy. Another important point that should not be lost, is that Nazneen's place (for the most part denied her), in shaping the family's destiny influences their young daughter's lives; growing up essentially in two cultures.
Expect a small, compelling cast; admirably directed, scripted and acted throughout. A brave, beautiful film that handled sensitive issues with sensitivity, brought a tear to the eye...and a measure of hope.
Nazneen's proud, precise, well-read husband is not immediately endearing (in what appears to be a loveless marriage), but subsequently reveals his hidden depths on two occasions in particular; one concerning his Faith (in the presence of his community), in the wake of '9/11' (2001); the other concerning a significant choice about his family's future.
Nazneen's sister is never far from her thoughts and the arrival of her letters from Bangladesh have the effect of sustaining Nazneen in the belief that her sister has found love and happiness. Nazneen's only expression of real defiance directed at her husband concerns one of the letters. The correspondence between the sisters remarks on how we tend to put the reader's feelings before our own, when posting a little piece of our world overseas.
The film explores how one discovers a hidden self and qualities that duty, force of habit, the day-to-day, and the expectations of others, forces us to deny and conceal - ultimately to our own personal loss, leaving our relationships with those we love the poorer for it.
One character in the film is a corrupt elder in the community described as a 'userer' (loan shark!). She supplies a fascinating, malevolent contribution - until Nazneen, waking up to her own inner strengths, challenges her.
The film can perhaps best be summarised by the words of Nazneen's husband who later concludes admiringly that the woman he married (who has lived in his shadow some twenty years), was not a 'girl from the village'; implying that Nazneen's simple rural roots belied her wit and savvy. Another important point that should not be lost, is that Nazneen's place (for the most part denied her), in shaping the family's destiny influences their young daughter's lives; growing up essentially in two cultures.
Expect a small, compelling cast; admirably directed, scripted and acted throughout. A brave, beautiful film that handled sensitive issues with sensitivity, brought a tear to the eye...and a measure of hope.