What Do The Critics Say?

"The daily grind of a Brick Lane Bangladeshi is credibly brought to life in this sensitive and intelligent adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel. While films such as East Is East and Mischief Night tackled the immigrant experience with a wry, comic touch, Brick Lane takes a more sober approach. Based on the novel by Monica Ali, it focuses on the claustrophobic life of Nazneen, a wife and mother whose grey, routine East End existence is in sharp contrast to her colourful, free childhood in Bangladesh." Anna Smith EMPIRE MAGAZINE [AUSTRALIASIA] "It’s a debut feature for director Sarah Gavron and, although the pace is somewhat languid at the start, the film really starts coming together in the second half. What I found beautiful about it was the depiction of Chanu, he’s not demonised at all. He’s rather pathetic and sweet. It is, like all immigrant stories, about identity and Nazneen’s journey is both painful and touching." Margaret Pomeranz ABC AT THE MOVIES "Some residents from the Bangladeshi community in Brick Lane threatened to "do whatever it takes to stop this film" based on Monica Ali’s best-selling novel. It's hard to see why? Tannishtha Chatterjee perfectly captures the emotional awakening of shy heroine Nazneen." SUN ON-LINE "I did like it, yes. I believe it's based on a very good book, which I haven't read, but I did like entering this world of these Bangladeshi characters in London, in a particular part of London, and not only just the way they live but, of course, how 9/11 inevitably affected them." David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES "Tannishtha Chatterjee, known in India for film and theatre work, is excellent as the vulnerable, isolated young woman who gradually builds herself into a resilient survivor who can smile and tame the pain of her world. Satish Kauchik, a veteran actor and comedian, is superb, too, as the husband and father who is a bit of a failure but he won't admit it, keeping up a façade of brusque success. There are layers to the film in every respect, and the craftsmanship is first class, with great music to underscore the drama and the relationships." Andrew L Urban URBANCINEFILE

"Brick Lane is beautifully acted and written (by Abi Morgan and Laura Jones) so its themes are touched upon glancingly rather than with full force. "Brick Lane" adds another shrewd, poignant film to a growing genre of immigrant stories. This one stems from Monica Ali's debut novel, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003." Kirk Honeycutt HOLLYWOOD REPORTER "Depth of character, such a distinctive quality of Ali's book, is sacrificed for simpler strokes and shallower dimensions, with an undue emphasis placed by helmer Sarah Gavron and lenser Robbie Ryan on gorgeous pictures. Ryan's luscious cinematography may have been intended to be ironically beautiful, given the somewhat scruffy environs, but the images generally soften and even romanticize the kind of setting class-conscious Brit films are usually skilled at capturing." Robert Koehler VARIETY "Rich and subtle in its characterisation, Brick Lane is an enlightening tale about the breadth and depth of ordinary lives, how they intersect with history, and where they remain hidden away." Matthew De Abaitua CHANNEL 4 FILM "It's a hard heart that isn't immersed by this delicately told tale." Matt Bochenski LITTLE WHITE LIES "..this is an insightful look at a woman searching across cultural barriers for a place to belong. ..a strong story, but it's great to see such an involving film set in London's Asian-Muslim community. The cast is excellent, detailing character subtleties while making sure to include the broader strokes that define the cultural blend. Chatterjee's central role is especially demanding." Rich Cline SHADOWS ON THE WALL

The History of Brick Lane Brick Lane is a real street located in East London in the shadow of the City (financial district) with its modern tower blocks dedicated to the world of business and its ancient historical roots that go back to Roman times. The street itself can be seen as the symbolic heart of the film, ever changing and evolving into something new. Brick Lane has offered refuge to immigrants into London for 400 years and these communities have all left their own distinctive mark on the area over the centuries. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, the street has become the centre of the biggest Bengali community outside of Bangladesh, mainly from the Sylhet region. The area has always been regarded as a safe haven for those escaping persecution from abroad. During the 17th and 18th centuries the Protestant Huguenot population were terrorised in Catholic France and many fled to England, settling in the Spitalfields area close to Brick Lane. The Huguenots were fine craftsmen and weavers, and these wealthy refugees built new homes for themselves with a wonderfully distinctive architecture, many of which can still be seen today in the roads around Brick Lane, particularly Fournier Street. By the late 19th century a new wave of immigration brought Jewish families escaping from Holland, Germany, Russia and Poland and, for the next century, Brick Lane was the centre of the East End Jewish community and the heart of the rag trade. It was to work in the clothing factories around Brick Lane that the young male Bengali workers arrived in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. As they prospered, many brought over their families and established a new community in Brick Lane. The Inside Story Published to great acclaim in 2003, Monica Ali’s debut novel "Brick Lane" garnered rapturous reviews and countless award nominations both in the UK and internationally. A sharply observed story about the life of a Bangladeshi immigrant girl who comes to London to marry, it is ultimately a universal story about life, love, cultural difference and the power of the human spirit. On reading the novel, producer Alison Owen ("Elizabeth" & "The Other Boleyn Girl") was immediately attracted to the story and saw its potential as a film: "I read ‘Brick Lane’ and I fell in love with it, and enquired about the option straight away. However, it wasn’t an easy project and so I didn’t follow it up immediately, but it just haunted me for the next couple of months. I kept thinking about it and eventually I just gave into the urge, bought the rights and started putting the package together." Once a first draft of the screenplay had been completed, Owen could see the direction that the project was taking, but realising that it still needed a lot of work, she thought it a good time to bring a director on board, and approached Sarah Gavron. Explains Owen: "Sarah’s a director with extremely strong vision. We sent her a copy of the script as well as the book, which it turned out she’d already read and was passionate about." Adds Gavron: "I read the draft and thought it showed lots of potential and came on board at that stage. What really appealed to me was Nazneen’s journey. The story of a woman finding her place in the world, and finding a voice, so beautifully told, with such compassion, wit and emotional depth." Trying to condense a 500 page novel which focuses on the inner thoughts of its central character into a screenplay, that still maintained the heart of Nazneen’s voyage of discovery, was always going to be a challenge, but Gavron and screenwriter Abi Morgan (TV'S "Sex Traffic" & "Tsunami: The Aftermath") made some bold decisions. "We tried to be very faithful to the spirit of the book. But it was impossible to include everything," says Gavron. "It’s a very complicated process because there’s so much that you do want to include. But in the end, we chose to compress the time frame of the novel and set it all in 2001 with some flashbacks and back story, and that unlocked for us the scriptwriting process. We went through many drafts before we made that decision, and it was rather daunting. There’s so much wonderful texture to the novel, but in terms of the narrative, really it kicked off in 2001 when Nazneen met Karim and her life began to change." "If you’re trying to distil something down then you have to be quite disciplined with yourself about what’s really essential, and the film is a very simple journey of a woman finding herself and finding her own voice," Morgan notes. "Somehow, that felt like it could be contained in 2001 with 9/11 being the catalyst, so that the wider world starts to reflect Nazneen’s inner, personal world." Gavron recalls, "Abi’s a wonderful, instinctive writer, who has very strong ideas and lots of rather ingenious solutions. It was a very involved, close, fulfilling process." With the screenplay in hand, the next hurdle was to find a cast who could take on such interesting and unusual roles. "It was essential therefore, to cast the film with actors whose performances could bring out the nuances, complexities and demands of the roles whilst depicting characters that are already known to the book reading audience," says Morgan. To this end, a worldwide search began. Gavron recalls: "We spent a long time casting and looked very, very widely, watching the work or meeting up with every possible actor in Britain, India, Bangladesh and some from the United States. We even met non-actors and did some street casting. We really met wonderful people and I think the cast we’ve got reflects that process actually, because we’ve got some Bangladeshi Muslim actors, some who were born in India and some non-actors who are acting for the first time." Casting Nazneen was obviously extremely crucial and a challenge for any actress. "We saw a lot of actors for the role of Nazneen and interestingly the very first person we saw when we did our first casting trip to India was Tannishtha Chatterjee, and because she was the first person, even though we thought she was fantastic, we then saw everyone else and saw her several times more before we actually cast her. It seemed too good to be true, that she should walk in first thing on the first day," Alexander Korda Award (BAFTA) producer Chris Collins ("My Summer of Love") said. When Chatterjee arrived in the UK she immediately set her mind to preparing and researching the role. To this end, she met a lot of Bengali women and spent time walking around the Brick Lane area, steeping herself in the Bengali-UK cross culture. "The language was something I had to work on. Though I am Indian, I speak English in a different way from the way Bengali women here speak. And I also wanted to research the religious part of it, because Islam has a different lifestyle the moment you go to Bangladesh, Islam changes as there are different influences," Chatterjee explained. The role of Chanu was an equally difficult one to cast, given that his character requires a comic physicality but also the need for dramatic gravitas. At the last minute the role went to famed India director and comedian, Satish Kaushik. "He didn’t immediately appear on the radar of any of our casting directors. But, at the very last minute, an inspired leap of imagination from one of them led to a call and a weekend dash to Delhi and instantly Sarah and I knew that he was Chanu," Collins recalls. "I’ve played a lot of comic parts in India, but talk to any actor and they will tell you that tragic parts can be played by comic actors," says Kaushik. "Tragedy comes out of comedy, and comedy comes out of tragedy. So I think that being a comic actor helped me to get into the skin of Chanu, because he is a character who can be very funny." Christopher Simpson was aware of the challenges of the role that he took on because of Karim’s importance in the narrative. "Karim is a young man from the streets of London with great aspirations both for himself and for his community. He’s a young radical, but also a character with a great deal of compassion for Nazneen, and I think in many ways he is a catalyst to her discovering herself. I see his role in the film as very much being someone who invites her to speak for herself and to discover herself." The film went into production in June 2006 and was filmed over the summer on location in London and India and at London's largest studios, Three Mills Studio, East London, which features fifteen studios on a twenty acre site. Threats Don't Deter Director Rarely does a British film arrive burdened by such a weight of political baggage. And rarely have so many people written, argued and blogged about it before sitting down to watch a single scene. But Brick Lane, the adaptation of Monica Ali's best-selling novel, directed by Sarah Gavron, was always going to be this year's most 'controversial' movie, a work that has already inspired acres of fierce, angst-ridden debate, and a round of flying insults among literary giants. Gavron herself, the 37 year old daughter of London's deputy mayor Nicky Gavron and the multi-millionaire publisher Lord Gavron, describes the process of making the movie as "certainly difficult"; and laughs wryly. In her first interview since Brick Lane's UK premiere at the London Film Festival last week, she admits to feeling "terrified" as the movie is finally unveiled. "This film has been a roller-coaster and I go along with it like I'm on one, too. I'm affected by every bit of [the controversy] because that's just who I am. I try to detach myself but it's very hard." The latest twist came courtesy of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, who pulled out of a charity gala screening scheduled for this week. Officially they cited a diary clash, but unofficially it's said that Clarence House feared the event would attract protest. Whatever the reason, for the first time in sixty one years there will be no Royal Film Performance, and Gavron is clearly irked by the last-minute change of plan. "We first heard in July that we'd been picked for the Royal performance, and we thought: brilliant, it's a small British film about the world we live in, about multi-cultural Britain, and what a bold, exciting choice. To have them then cancel was obviously very disappointing. We were also concerned about the message that it sends out." She was told of the cancellation a month ago, she says, "at about the same time it hit the Press". What caused, and continues to cause, such a fuss was the reaction to both novel and film from a group of residents in Brick Lane. As the movie prepared to shoot in 2006, a small group of Brick Lane traders began to make vocal their protests. Led by a handful of traditionalists, they objected principally to the alleged portrayal of Bangladeshi Muslims from the Sylhet region as uneducated and impious; though they were also incensed by the depiction of adultery within the community, and labelled the film "a violation of their human rights". Some even threatened to block filming on "Brick Lane" and, amid veiled threats of violence, the police advised Gavron and her team to stop working in the neighbourhood. Gavron describes that time as "very stressful". "So we decided to shoot some bits away from Brick Lane and then come back later with a smaller crew. It wasn't a big problem, but it wasn't helpful." She insists the film's concept stayed the same throughout the nastiness of 2006 and did not change as a result of protest. "I didn't deliberately set out not to make a controversial film." © 2008 - From the Evening Standard [UK] article published 30/10/07 which subsequently was featured on This Is London in their on-line feature Sunday 06/04/08. Synopsis

Swing little girl on your swing. Comb your beautiful hair. Your bridegroom will come soon. And then he will take you away. At the tender age of seventeen, Nazneen's life is turned upside down. After an arranged marriage to an older man, she exchanges her Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London's East End. In this new world, pining for her home and her sister, she struggles to make sense of her existence - and to do her duty to her husband. A man of inflated ideas (and stomach), he sorely tests her compliance. Told from birth that she must not fight her fate, Nazneen submits, devoting her life to raising her family and slapping down her demons of discontent. Until the day that Karim, a hot-headed local man, bursts into her life. Against a background of escalating racial tension from 9/11, they embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her life.

The Verdict "This strictly 'art-house' film is not for the impatient or those who lack empithy and emotion. Director Sarah Gavron's 'controversial' feature film "Brick Lane" turns out to be not so contrversial after all. Those cast in the lead roles are both engaging and interesting. Those who have had the opportunity to read Monica Ali’s award winning book "Brick Lane" may feel a little miffed that the story-line has been compressed down somewhat. That is the problem many film-makers face when it comes to condensing a massive number of readable pages into a time frame that will hold cinemagoers attention. Writers Abi Morgan and Laura Jones have handled the task of compressing five hundred pages into a very interesting screenplay, exceptionally well. Certainly worth a look at! 4 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes Tannishtha Chatterjee (Nazeen) is emerging as one of India’s leading art house actresses. Her film credits include "Shadows of Time" (2004) directed by Oscar winning German director Florian Gallenberger and "Swaraj" (2002), for which she gained a National Best Supporting Actress nomination. Other award winning features which have screened globally are: "Let the Wind Blow" (2004), an Indo-French venture; "Bas Yun Hi" (2003); "Strings"; "Divorce: Not Between Husband and Wife" (2005); and "Kasturi". Tannishtha’s latest principal role was in "Bibar", based on the famous Bengali novel and has so far netted her the Best Actress awards at Osian’s Cinefan and the Bengal Film Journalists Association Awards, 2006.
Satish Kaushik (Chanu) is one of India’s finest comic actors and best loved film directors. He trained at the National School of Drama, New Delhi and the Film and Television Institute, Pune. He is best known for his performances in Hindi films such as "Ram Lakhan" (1989), "Mr India" (1987), "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron" (2007), "Jalwa" (1987), "Saajan Chale Sasural" (1996), "Hassena Maan Jaayegi" (1999), "Gharwali Baharwali" (1998), "Had Kardi Aapne" (2000) and many more. He won the Filmfare award for Best Comedian for "Ram Lakhan" (1990) and again for "Saajan Chale Sasural" (1997). He has also received Bollywood awards for "Saajan Charle Sasura" (1996) and "Hum Aapake Dil Mein Rehte Hain" (1999).
Christopher Simpson (Karim) has appeared on the stage, film amd television. film credits include Penny Woolcock’s "Mischief Night" (2006), Martha Fiennes’ "Chromophobia" (2005), Michael Winterbottom’s "Code 46" (2003) and Kayvan Mashayekh’s "The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam" (2005). Major television roles include Second Generation, Zadie Smith’s "White Teeth" and "State of Play". Theatre credits include "The Baccae of Baghdad" at the Abbey, Dublin; "Pericles" for the Royal Shakespeare Company and "Ramayana" for the Royal National Theatre.
Director Sarah Gavron began her career in documentaries and is a graduate of the NFTS. In 2003 Gavron directed her first full length drama, the Dennis Potter Award winning "This Little Life" for BBC TV. The film also won Gavron two 2004 BAFTAs for Best Single Drama ("This Little Life" 2003) and Best New Director ("This Little Life" 2003), the RTS and WIFTV Award for Best Newcomer and she was selected as one of Variety’s ten directors to watch at the Sundance International Film Festival. Further to this, Gavron was nominated for the Douglas Hickox Best Directorial Debut Award. Gavron has made many short films which have screened internationally and won major awards. Her films include "The Girl in the Lay-by" (2000), which won a BAFTA nomination and "Losing Touch" (2000), which won the Young Jury Award at the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival, Best Film Award at the London Royal Television Society Awards and Best International Short at the Foyle Film Festival. "Brick Lane" received the 2007 C.I.C.A.E. Award at the 2007 San Sebastián International Film Festival. Who's Who?

Tannishtha Chatterjee Satish Kaushik Christopher Simpson Lalita Ahmed Naeema Begum Bernard Holley Harsh Nayyar Lana Rahman Harvey Virdi Zafreen

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Nazneen Ahmed Chanu Ahmed Karim Mrs Islam Shahana Ahmed News Reporter Dr Azad Bibi Ahmed Razia Hasina

Run Time 101 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2008 - Brick Lane - All Rights Reserved ©2008 All Rights Reserved - Protected by Australian, International, Copyright & Trademark Laws.