wr. & dir. Damien O'Donnel
One version of the event: A charming little film form the land of something
and something else. Sensitive performances and great craft make the film
more than a mere tele-movie. A gem of a movie, and an insightful one at
that.
Version Two: Sure, fair enough, You've got a point. On one level
its all a sitcom and a bit of a tele-movie, but hell, this sort of kitchen
sink drama is done so well by the brits that you might as well let 'em wallow
in their particular skills and let us instead focus our attention on our
respective jobs. Like not making any more films about a night in the life
of a group of inner-city twenty-somethings. Somewhere, my suburban dog is
annoying the neighbours with her starved whine and wondering where in the
good-goddamned I am. Living the life puppy. Acting my age.
So, East is East, a film made of seemingly generic parts yet quite
a lovely little effort nonetheless. Oooh, I really don't like that phrase,
"little film". I might as well just tap it on the head and then set it out
to SBS pasture. "There you go little one, find a nice timeslot and charm
the middle-aged with your thorough yet sensitive depiction of a struggle
no doubt totally removed from their own situation". Still, that's what it
is, and for many that suggestion of compact entertainment is a real turn-on.
If you stumbled out of Gladiator into a film like this you could
easily take its lack of tigers and chariots as a sign of real artistic integrity.
"Oh, I'm so sick of these big-budget Hollywood spectacles" she cries, casting
a wide but snug blanket. "I just want something which doesn't blare away
at me". So every week the wares are brought into the market, the shiny product
and the delicate art. Ah fuck it, money and noise are beautiful, were beautiful,
still can be beautiful, must be beautiful, can never be beautiful again.
Money and noise are Spectorsound, and "Da Doo Ron Ron" flattens any elegant
symphony that dares to cross its rambunctious path.
The problem is that neither Gladiator or East is East are
meaty enough on their own to write about at any great length unless I resort
to penny-a-word plot description or an interview with someone who once got
Oliver Reed a cup of tea. It's a pretty fundamental split down the middle.
The posters and Lowing reviews will tell you what you're going to get for
both films. Be excited or provoked, relatively. Be bought or sold. And then
if you want both, you take a day off work and spend some time with the people.
In retrospect, I had a better time at East is East than at Gladiator.
I felt cheated after Gladiator, a sort of miserable 4 p.m. at Fox
Studios with overcast weather kind of piss and moan that just irritates
your companion and resorts to a speedy break-up. East is East is
perhaps a simpler film to pull off, but it lacks that essence or indefinable
spirit that we're all chasing in every movie and are privately disappointed
not to find in almost everything we take in every day of our cinema-going
(and otherwise) lives. We're just nice about the rest of bullshit we paddle
through, taking down the good performances (the best moments of East
is East) or the special effects (one guess) to tide us over until we
get to a film life The Straight Story. Then words just won't cut
it. Or perhaps just my words.
Adam Rivett
reviews | features | archive
str. Om Puri, Linda Basset, Jordan
Routledge
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