Culutral Transplantation: How to Create a New Lifeby gradyharp

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January 17, 2009: BRICK LANE is one of the more satisfying films about our remaining cultural identity crises. Based on the novel by Monica Ali and adapted for the screen by Laura Jones, this film flows through the lives of young Bangladeshi sisters - one married off to a successful older obese fellow countryman living in London and the other remaining in the family village. The story is at once sensitively private in its communication between the separated sisters whose sole communication is by letters, each longing for the other sister's advantages, and also woven into a public examination of how 'immigrants' adapt in a foreign country, absorbing all the idiosyncrasies of that new land and the altered perception of the world outside as it changes in dramatic ways.

Nazeem (the radiantly beautiful Tannishtha Chatterjee) is married by arrangement to the fat successful Chanu (Satish Kaushik): the two take up residence on the Brick Lane known as London's Little Bangladesh. Nazeem is a quiet and dutiful wife (longing for her sister and her village home), bears Chanu a son (who dies a crib death) and two daughters who comfortably are absorbed into the country of England, the only home they know. The aging Chanu is intelligent but fails to hold jobs, partly because of this outspoken behavior and in part due to prejudice of his employers. Nazeem longs to return to Bangladesh, but when she is required to take in sewing to aid the falling family coffers, she meets the young and handsome Karim (Christopher Simpson). The two fall in love and Nazeem struggles with her duties and moral obligations as a wife and mother and her surfacing realization of her own identity. The Twin Tower tragedy of 9/11 occurs and the people of London turn against the Muslims: Karim is an activist and defends the rights of his fellow Bangladeshi brothers, hoping to encourage Nazeem to join him and remain in London. Nazeem struggles between passion and duty and ultimately finds her own path - becoming a complete woman individual of mature mind. And the results of her growth spell out the ending of the film.

The cast is large and very fine, and the photography by Robbie Ryan captures both the childhood remembered magic of Bangladesh and the raw realism of life in London. The musical score by Jocelyn Pook enhances the changing moods of this touching and significant movie. Director Sarah Gavron has found the perfect balance to tell this story of love, family obligations, and the changes of the world events. It is a film well worth seeing multiple times. Grady Harp