East is East……anyone else not get it?

[sochicsocheap]

I’m early 30s so not sure if this is why I have this opinion….after lots of talk from people I know/online hype I finally watched East is East.
When it ended I was a bit I thought there was another 30 mins left. I don’t get it, I don’t understand the hype…I was sure it was meant to be a comedy? Is it just me? Did I completely miss a hidden plot?

I really enjoyed it - but the issues in it are very similar to where I grew up which had a large Asian population.

I haven't seen it for years, but agree it's very much in the same vein as Brassed Off and The Full Monty, I love all of them.

@LubaLuca

I'll add, I think Linda Bassett is brilliant in it, totally believable.

Yeah so were all the other non white leads. Om Puri etc etc all the cast I suppose...

Watched it years ago and remember enjoying it. No idea if I would enjoy it if I watched it now.

It’s one of my favourite films. It really captured the complexities of family life. It was a very northern film in a way that some of my southern friends didn’t get.
Little voice is another great film.

@mayblossominapril
That's interesting, I'm a southerner and would have imagined it was more of a working class thing; as in the reflection of working class environments makes it funnier from those of us that came from there. I suppose it's all subjective in the end, we either feel those kind of films or we don't.

I think it’s billed as a comedy in the same way as Muriel’s Wedding. Dark themes but with a focus on the lighter ways the characters approach awful situations.

Loved muriejs wedding.

Wasn’t Rita sure and bob too billed as a comedy? I rewatched it as an adult and was 😱

Little voice is another great film

I loved Little Voice!

I loved Muriel’s Wedding! Didn’t think that was a copy either. Clearly I’m no film critic!

@Rummikub

Loved muriejs wedding.

Wasn’t Rita sure and bob too billed as a comedy? I rewatched it as an adult and was 😱

Yes, it was. It was based on the author's own experiences. It's a very bleak film on the whole. The most positive reading of it is that it's a celebration of Rita and Sue's friendship and their ability to remain buoyant as long as they are united.

@FourTeaFallOut

Frigg off and wash your bastard curtains year dirty cow!

If you can remember an insult from a movie decades old, that's a good movie.

I still quote this now 😂👌🏽 (and I'm 39 not exactly ancient!) ... maybe it's a northern thing, where are you from OP?

Parts of it reflected my mixed upbringing. The cooking of the bacon and then wafting away the smell, the DV which happened maybe 3 times in my entire childhood and we don’t see whether this is a regular occurrence for Ella, but it’s likely that it won’t only be Ella who is experiencing it on her street, that isn’t to excuse it and in the film/play it’s used to show him that his children won’t put up it and that they will protect her and he needs to adapt and change. My mum covered for a lot things I got up to etc. I had a stricter upbringing that my cousins in my dad’s home country.

Its a good film, we watched it in RE at school (about 3 times! Also Anita and Me)

I'm 23 and I love it, first watched in when I was about 16 so you're not too young

@BakeOffRewatch

I loved it. Along with “Anita and Me”, “Bend It Like Beckham”, “Bride and Prejudice”, “White Teeth”, directors like Gurinder Chadha I guess it was just vogue at the time to speak to the coming-of-age second generation south Asian British immigrant experience. There’ll be more to “get” if you’ve lived in or are one of those communities - like I guess the recent “Ackley Bridge” does (which I don’t get so much, I “came of age” early 2000s). At the time there was even the parallel to Pop Idol, “Bollywood Star” and Honey Kalaria was everywhere.

I did rewatch East is East as an adult and the sadder parts hit much harder, not just the DV but the circumcision, the distance between the dad and his kids and how they’ll never get each other, the (completely misguided) earnestness of the dad to remember and replicate where he came from - it really spoke to the experience loads of us have, and it totally deserves its critical acclaim in distilling that.

Just want to add “Second Generation” to this list, it has Parminder Nagra from “Bend it Like Beckham” in it and Om Puri from “White Teeth” and “East is East”, as well as the actor who played the son from “White Teeth”. Really harrowing.

Does anyone have insight into why the south Asian experience was mainstream in pop culture then? I was a teen so didn’t have a bigger outlook to get why it was so part of pop culture. Did “East is East” (1999) start it all off?

I thought it was great - a lot of it resonated with the Jewish experience a generation or so back. A lot of northern humour also - It was funny that they thought the family from Bradford were posh.

I wish they made more films like this. Many of them went under the radar like "Brassed Off" but is a cult classic. Perhaps it does resonate more with people who didnt live in the South though.

The late 90s and 00s were all about the Indian summer, fashions were inspired by South Asian clothes, bindis and bangles were par for the course of a night out.

Aside from fashion and pop culture it was also the rise of the second generation who were dealing with all the dilemmas that came up in these films. East is East is inspired by the writer’s own family, for example.

Does anyone have insight into why the south Asian experience was mainstream in pop culture then? I was a teen so didn’t have a bigger outlook to get why it was so part of pop culture. Did “East is East” (1999) start it all off?

As soon as I read your post I immediately thought of Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha which came out in ‘97. It was a huge hit at the time.

As a white European teen, that was my first exposure to South Asian themes in media.

I think the 'second generation' had been coming through in literature and film for a while. Hanif Kureshi and My Beautiful Launderette (1985) for example. Then Gurinder Chadha as a director. I suspect a lot of it was to do with a few successful individuals making their mark.

@LubaLuca

I'll add, I think Linda Bassett is brilliant in it, totally believable.

She’s brilliant ..... her and ‘MRs Patmore’ made a good double act

I’m ashamed of loving such political incorrectness, but Tony Khan’s face when he sees his future wife for the first time makes me cry with laughter every time.

In fact Jimi Mistry is criminally underrated full stop.

Loved it. I was always so sad at the bit where Ella goes to visit another white woman who is also in a mixed marriage and her daughter had been taken to Pakistan for an arranged marriage. It was a small part but the women who played it was amazing. You could feel her sadness and devastation at her daughter being 1000s of miles away and this was not her culture but she had to accept it in the marriage she'd chosen. Have a lump in my throat just thinking about it.

I like the scene where the vicar says 'God bless' to Mr Khan and he beamingly replies 'Allah go with you!' much to the vicar's discomfiture.

Also the scene where Meena dressed in wellies and supposed to be filleting fish, does a very vibrant dance in the grim backyard. Meena is a brilliant character.