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Plot Summary for
East Is East (1999) More at IMDbPro »
In 1971 Salford fish-and-chip shop owner George Khan expects his family to follow his strict Pakistani Muslim ways. But his children, with an English mother and having been born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father's rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general. Written by Jeremy Perkins <[email protected]>
Jahangir Khan was born in Pakistan and had got married for the first time there. Seeking better prospects, he immigrated to Britain, fell in love with Ella, a Caucasian, married her, and eventually became the father of six sons and one daughter. He wanted all of children to follow Islamic tradition, and would parcel them in the "Masjid van" every Friday for prayers and religious incantations. Arguments with Ella are one-sided and always end when he threatens to bring "Mrs. Khan" from Pakistan. His eldest son, Nadir, comes to know that his dad was going to arrange his marriage and runs away from home. Jahangir, who now calls himself George, disowns him - all the more when he finds that Nadir is gay and is living with a male. While the children have all settled down in the community and have had their respective romantic flings, they do not know that their father has plans to marry off two of his sons to two Pakistani sisters. Nevertheless, the family prepare themselves, and her sons are introduced to these women. After recovering from the initial shock of seeing the women face to face, the family settles down, leaving Khan to negotiate the details. Noticing that the apartment was very small, the brides' mother proposes that both boys should settle in their house after marriage. Watch how chaos takes over, and the manner in which the overbearing Khan attempts to bring his family in line - or at least tries to, all this in the midst of Enoch Powell's announcement that his political party will expel all immigrants and send them back to their respective motherlands. Written by rAjOo ([email protected])
In early 1970's England, a traditional Pakistani father (Om Puri) finds his family spinning in decidedly non-traditional directions. His brood consisting of six sons and one daughter all move in independent-minded directions set off when the eldest son runs away from home rather than keeping to his fate of an arranged marriage. When the next two sons also find out that their father has secretly been arranging marriages for them, they rebel and set off repercussions that forces the family to totally reconsider their family structure. Written by John Sacksteder
<span style="font-weight: bold">West is West </span>starts as it doesn’t mean to go on. The setting is still Salford, but five years on, in 1976. Teenager Sajid (Aqib Khan), who used to go around engulfed by his giant Parka coat, is having a terrible time. At school, he’s patronised by teachers and gets his head flushed in a toilet by bullies; at home, his chip-shop-proprietor dad George (Om Puri) never lets up shouting.
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What’s a kid like him to do? He swears, he steals, he becomes a tearaway. The only solution, according to his dad, a disrespectful chap who’s always yammering on about how he doesn’t get any “bloody respect”, is to send him home to Pakistan for a dose of decent values.
At this point, the filmmakers, director Andy De Emmony and writer Khan Din, move out of their comfort zone, relocating the action from grey, greasy-terraced Lancashire to the sunny expanses of the sub-continent.
Sajid, now sporting an undersized suit, wanders around the dusty track roads of his ancestral village. He’s still truculent. When he arrives, he looks out at all the beggars and street people gathered in front of the airport: “Are they all related to us?” Later he shouts, “F--- off, Mowgli!” to a local kid who tries to befriend him.
West is West has two other storylines. The first involves George’s older son Maneer (Emil Marwa), an earnest Nana Mouskouri-obsessive, who’s been living in the village in the hope of finding a bride. The second, more substantial, features George being forced to confront the wife Basheera (Ila Arun) and children he left behind 30 years earlier when he decamped to England and married a white woman Ella (Linda Bassett).
Where is home? George dithers and dallies. He wants to atone for his cruelties, but is it possible to make amends after so much time has elapsed? What about his duties to Ella? Tired of waiting for him to return, and aghast that he’s plundering their bank account to pay for a new village home, she finally shows up with her best friend (Lesley Nicol), the pair of them resembling Cissie and Ada from The Les Dawson Show.
It’s in the ensuing scenes between Ella and Basheera that the film feels most alive. Tired culture-clash gags are put aside in favour of delicately handled and often very moving exchanges between the two wronged women. They don’t speak a word of each other’s language, but they’re united both by a capacity for suffering and an unquenchable pride.
This – not Maneer’s arranged marriage, not Sajid’s road to enlightenment – is the real heart of the story. To watch Arun and Bassett, sometimes Puri, too, is to be reminded of how rarely cinema portrays grown-up love, love weighed down but also elevated by contradictions, regrets, sacrifices, patience.
West is West is full of delights: Peter Robertson’s airy cinematography is casually gorgeous, the Hindi film songs on the soundtrack are delightful, and the acting consistently top-notch.
But there’s too much going on, not least the inclusion of the gratingly mystic Pir Naseem (Nadim Sawalha), who guides Sajid to a measure of wisdom. By the end, some of the scenes seem to pass by at double speed such is De Emmony’s inability or unwillingness to make hard choices about which elements to leave out.
It’s said that Khan Din is planning a sequel to this sequel. That’s not an unwelcome prospect. But he really needs to rein in his desire to be all things to all people .
<span style="font-weight: bold"> i love both these movies...very eye opening in many a way....</span>