At several points, the important work of a fine and caring teacher is noted. At the start is the Springsteen quote: “Talk about a dream. In fact, the film demonstrates ideals for all of us to follow.
#Blinded by the light film movie
Throughout this movie are moments of high-minded goals for teens. Another sequence takes us to a secret daytime rave with Asian teens hiding out from their parents to shed their school uniforms and don spangled costumes and cavort under the colored lights of a covert dancehall. There even are musical scenes that recall John Travolta in Grease. Still, the film doesn’t limit itself to being a drama about prejudice and family disfunction. The town of Luton has skinheads who taunt Pakistanis. The conflicts within the plot do not stop with a family feud. His father really is a piece of work as Javed enters his school, he shouts to his son so that all can hear: “Stay away from the girls and follow the Jews (who he believes are on top academically).” As a result, Javed causes his father even more displeasure. When Javed learns about the life and works of Bruce Stringsteen, he becomes obsessed with the performer – his life and his lyrics. His father, who becomes unemployed after sixteen years with a corporate giant, believes that schooling is for one reason – to get a well-paying job. His bedroom is filled with stacks of poems that he has composed. It’s a dramatic storyline that playwright Samson Raphaelson brought to life with The Jazz Singer in the 1920s – only then the traditionalists were Orthodox Jewish immigrants and the locale was New York City. The basic dilemma is the same as in Bend It Like Beckham – a dilemma that occurs whenever immigrant people settle into new countries, new communities. But his lifestyle, although quite wholesome, does not fit the standards set by his father. He is what most viewers would call a good kid.
Viveik Kalra plays Javed, a likeable lad from Luton, Bedfordshire, in southeast England. In Blinded by the Light, the family is Pakistani Muslim. In Bend It Like Beckham, the family is orthodox Sikh. And it is hard to believe that almost twenty years have passed since that film hit the big screen!īoth Bend It Like Beckham and Blinded by the Light follow the plights of Asian teens from immigrant families who live in Britain, have adapted to British manners and customs, but have to deal with strict, strong-minded parents who have not relaxed or adjusted their traditions to accommodate the ways of their new homeland. The film is written and directed by Gurinder Chadha, who is best known for the very popular film, Bend It Like Beckham. One such film is Blinded by the Light, a 2019 release, the story of a teen-aged Pakistani-British teenager in 1987 who becomes obsessed with the works of Bruce Springsteen.īlinded by the Light is based on the true-life story of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor. They are searching for films that appeal to all ages and spark lively conversation after viewing. But there’s a big difference, courtesy of The Boss-it’s the power of his passionate songs to lift the melancholy high-school student’s spirits, stiffen his spine and fire his imagination.With so many folks staying at home these days, families are planning weekly movie nights. Both kids must contend with rigidly conservative immigrant parents and prejudice against Asians-dangerous prejudice, in Javed’s case, since soaring unemployment has spawned violent nativist gangs. The heroine of the earlier film is a British girl of Indian descent who wants to be a soccer star. Chadha’s exuberant “Bend It Like Beckham” almost two decades ago I called it proof “that movies with feel-good formulas don’t have to be deadening or demeaning.” The same goes for this one, which covers similar cultural territory.
Javed (Viveik Kalra), a British teen of Pakistani descent, wants to be a poet but, lonely and depressed, he’s off to an unpromising start writing songs about nuclear war. The time is 1987, a period of austerity in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain the setting is Luton, a manufacturing town stricken by recession. Gurinder Chadha’s coming-of-age drama transmutes the raw feeling of Bruce Springsteen’s music into another kind of feeling, no less raw but leavened by giddy excitement that culminates in joy.
As you watch “Blinded by the Light,” don’t let its earnest trappings blind you to the beauty of its core.