Asian - British Cinema

Lumping together filmmakers of any kind within a single cultural grouping is fraught with difficulty, so the term 'British-Asian' may, for example, fail to recognise individual artistic voices (such as those British-Asian filmmakers who are not making Asian-themed films). Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a notion of British Asian film, and these films do often have Asian themes and may be seen to share a number of features, including relatively low budgets.

It is clear that, over the last twenty years, attitudes in Britain towards Asian cultures have shifted, as has the taste of mainstream audiences for Asian-themed films such as East is East (1999) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002). The latter became one of the most popular British films ever and was a far cry from the colonially-obsessed images of Asians depicted in mainstream British cinema and television in the 1980s and earlier.

Asian-themed commercial films of the '90s have many similarities thematically with mainstream British features, not least feel good-comedy elements such as in East is East or Bhaji on The Beach. British notions of class and regionality are also played out, particularly a preoccupation with the post-industrial 'north' and all its incumbent stereotypes. Udayan Prasad's Brothers In Trouble (1996), for instance, depicts the troubled existence of illegal Pakistani immigrants in the early 1960s mill towns; East is East also delights in a romp through northern stereotypes. Another common feature of commercial Asian films of the '90s is an homage to Bollywood, perhaps in deference to its popularity with Asian audiences. Chadha's Bhaji on the Beach has a surreal romantic interlude in which a White man and Asian woman dance Hindi-style around a tree. In East is East, the Khan family make a day trip to Bradford to catch a Bollywood movie, while the teenage daughter flounces around the backyard with a broom to the classic Bombay song 'Inhi logon ne' from Pakeezah (India, 1972; instantly recognised by Asian audiences around the world). Inter-racial romance is also a common narrative obsession, with cross-racial encounters in Bhaji, Brothers in Trouble and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, while in Shani Grewal's Guru in Seven (1997), Sanjay (Nitin Chandra Ganatra) aims to score with a range of women. Today, 'Asian', once unfashionable, has become fashionable and almost 'sexy' in the Western media culture. In the USA, 1960s Swamis have been re-incarnated in the form of the 'life guru' Deepak Chopra. Madonna wears saris and mehndi, and calls to the youth accompanied by Hindi violins. Meanwhile, British-Asian musicians Nitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh are now established in the British music charts. The British film industry has gradually begun to wake up to the 'brown pound'. British Asians are watching so many Hindi films that since 1998 these films have regularly entered the British top ten box-office charts. Director Gurinder Chadha has noted the change in attitudes between the release of her first film, Bhaji on the Beach (1994), and her third, Bend it Like Beckham (2002): "People are much more aware of difference, what was once foreign is now familiar".