Yasmin

The above title was suggested as a suitable alternative name for the film by one of the crew who was I was chatting to after its screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. David Blunkett's attempts to flout or re-write the law have produced widespread condemnation from civil liberties groups and lawyers - but one of the minority groups most affected is British Muslims.

In this warm, light-hearted comedy, set in a British Muslim community immediately around and immediately after 9/11, we see the horror of what members of that community were faced with as a result of the social, institutional and (shamefully) police and legal disregard for their civil liberties. In explaining the extensive research behind the film, Director Kenneth Glenaan says the examples used (innocent families being awoken by police 'terror' squads, thrusting guns in their faces, detaining them indefinitely etc) were typical of many actual cases, as were the scenes of discrimination and abuse in the workplace and in the street.

In our story, a modern, working Pakistani woman, Yasmin, has a traditional (if lay-about) husband who is falsely imprisoned as a terrorist suspect. It turns out that the rather simple chap, isolated by his poor English, had been making long phone calls to his brother back home – who it so happens was a teacher at a school that had received funds from the Kashmir Liberation Front (which has connections with terrorism). Yasmin was about to divorce him, but the disingenuousness of the authorities eventually leads her to take his side as she realises injustices are being perpetrated against him.

Other members of the family cover a range of attitudes, from the newly-recruited activist son distributing flyers (when not selling hash or working at the local mosque), the father who keeps trying to introduce a note of common sense, to the youths who find their new-found I(if fictitious) aura of ‘potentially dangerous freedom fighters' helps them attract local white girls. We see the way a decent white person woos a Pakistani who is not a practicing Muslim, how she has adapted to western values, yet we also see the bigoted look of shock on his face when she suggests he accompany her to the mosque one day. We see police tactics from the point of view of Muslims who have nothing to hide, the repugnance of those police tactics, yet when we examine them honestly we realise they are quite what we might expect – and we wouldn't have found them repugnant unless we saw them from the receiving end.

But Yasmin is not a diatribe or an ode to the miseries of a disenfranchised group. It is a film about the many positive experiences that everyone can relate to within a small British Muslim community. It takes away much of the mystique and makes everyday Islam a little less arcane to the western newcomer. It uncovers more similarities than differences. It is a film that crosses borders, that lets us enter other peoples' hearts (in a similar way that a Full Monty, by the same writer, did), but it also leaves us with very serious questions to consider.

A few of things I pondered during this film:

In Britain, most white people cannot distinguish (by looking) between a Pakistani, an Iraqi, a Palestinian, a Syrian, etc. Neither can we distinguish the accents (a point also made by Control Room filmmaker Jehane Noujaim - the 'Iraqis' toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein did not appear to be Iraqis).

When we hold our western democracy up as an example for other countries to emulate, it is shameful that our government should be guilty of implementing such unworthy measures as those experienced by British Muslims.

The attitude of the British government has pushed Muslims together, of whatever background: if faced with a choice of two evils, people are more likely to be understanding of family and those of the same or similar culture. The attitude of our government in clamping down unjustly and indiscriminately on Brtitish Muslims in itself helps to foster terrorism, and gives terrorist recruiters more ammunition (just as Bush's actions in Iraq, in immediate practical terms, increased the threat of terrorism).

Not all people in a Muslim community are Muslims! Some haven't been to a mosque for years.

The lies told to the British public over Iraq cause untold suffering to innocent British Muslims. Not only indirectly through prejudices introduced through the system, but they are blamed in a totalitarian way simply because they are Muslim. The real culprits, those with massive oil interests (primarily Osama bin Laden and co and George Bush & co), and those that fund and keep terrorism covert (primarily Saudi Arabia and the CIA) are given a light dusting by the public and the authorities - largely because they are untouchable (and Saudi Arabia's foreign investments are so vast that upsetting them will upset the Western economy).

In the Muslim / Arab's mind, all the Middle East conflicts centre around Palestine. This has been said again and again but is ignored by Westerners. Right Wing USA has no real intention of 'solving' the Israeli/Palestinian conflict except as part of U.S. expansionism, as outlined by the NeoConservatives' blueprints that guide U.S. foreign policy. Anyone wanting a fuller understanding of the East-West Islam-Christianity relations and conflicts need only study and comprehend the Israel-Palestine situation.

Yasmin uses a number of stereotypes, all pushed together into one family. This is its strength and its weakness - to break new ground, especially using the medium of light comedy (which reaches people persuasively without polemic), stereotypes help to focus public awareness. The weakness is that many Muslims may feel patronised by the simplisticness. Many stereotypes are also not covered - the well-educated, middle class British Muslim, for instance. But some of these themes are outwith the scope of the film. Reactions to the movie at the Edinburgh International Film Festival screenings, both ecstatic and critical, show there is still much to be done. But this film opens at least a window of understanding for the white, non-Muslim community on the subject of oppression of British Muslims since 9/11 - a very small window perhaps, but perhaps the first one. At the time of writing, the film has distribution rights secured all over Europe - except, of course, the island where Mr Blunkett happens to live.

The film "Yasmin" by Kenny Glenaan deals with the difficulties of a young Pakistan woman who tries to manage a western life, free of tradition, as well as a religious Muslim life.

Yasmin, protagonist, lives in a mill town in the north of England with her father, Khalid her brother Nasir and isolated Faysal to whom she has been married by her parents so that he can stay in England. Nevertheless Yasmin wants to be divorced as soon as possible. Together with her English colleague John she works for a social service and she seems to be far more away from than she actually is, always trying to distract herself from the problems of her migrant community life. Soon she finds herself facing an unfamiliar experience: Islamophobia caused by the incident of 9/11. John still wants to care and plays down the bullying of their colleagues. Suddenly Faysal is suspected of being involved into 9/11 so that Yasmin and her family and John are taken into custody. This is when John is told by the police that he is friends with a woman who is married to a man that is most likely involved into terror activities.

With "Yasmin" Kenny Gleenan has made a really versatile film that deals with prejudice but makes a most unprejudiced statetment. What I really like is that the viewer is able to comprehend every character's actions and opinion and nobody is judged too harshly. The film also leaves enough space to form your really own opinion. I can imagine that especially viewers of Muslim origin who live in a European country can easily identify with Yasmin's conflict.

Yasmin is a relatively low budget, British-financed and made film about a young, attractive, British Pakistani Muslim woman brought up in northern England. That is an unusual and welcome starting point for a film. However, the film's weaknesses do not overcome this stimulating basis.

Yasmin (Archie Panjabi, with a strong performance that suffers from the script, and who at times seems to be playing more towards her own background rather than Yasmin's) works for some sort of charity or social services. She is in an arranged marriage with Faysal (Shahid Ahmed, playing well given the limitations of his role) and Nasir (newcomer Syed Ahmed in a powerful performance) is a devoted but restrictive father. Her family lives through the attitudes to non-white Britons and to the changes wrought by 9/11.

Given the appropriate shooting style (the first DoP was sacked; replacement Toni Slater-Ling has done a fine job of making things interesting without coating them in sugar), the competent and sometimes excellent direction from former actor Kenny Glenaan and generally fine performances all round, it is on the writing and plotting that criticism must centre.

Unfortunately writer Simon Beaufoy's script is one that flashes with occasional brilliance before subsiding into a hinterland between credibility and exploitation. Much has been made in the publicity for Yasmin about the extensive workshopping process that led to the script. The idea for the film started with the Oldham and Bradford riots of 1999, before morphing into rather different territory under the pressure of 9/11. The film never does manage to balance between these two poles.

A film inspired by those riots would need a sharply observed sense of place, and of the mixture of identities inherent in being born non-white in Britain. Yasmin has the latter, though the identities are rather crudely displayed sometimes, but it does not have the former. The workshops took place "across the north" and the film is set in what is described in the publicity as "a northern mill town". Quite what the presence of a mill has to do with anything in a northern town today - except tourism - is baffling. Yasmin was actually shot in Keighley. Not making the location explicit is understandable, but the idea of an interchangeable 'north' betrays the same lack of precision that afflicts the characters.

To encompass differences of gender, nationality, religion and age is to ask a great deal of any character or script, and it proves too much for either the film or Yasmin to bear. Her character, so central to the film, is forced to display these different identities rather than possess them. She is therefore left with little sense of self to give to the viewer.

The beautifully realised opening, entirely without dialogue for a good few minutes, is the strongest part of the film, but is the base it then goes on to ignore. Yasmin's work is what enables her to escape the binds of the other parts of her identity, and yet we never find out what it is. It funds the Golf cabriolet she drives (there's even a line of dialogue on this); it gives her a life away from her husband and her home; she is employee of the month (which we only find out when someone has drawn an Osama-style beard on the picture). It is about as realistic a portrayal of work as an average Hollywood movie.

Yasmin's work also represents an independence that doesn't seem to fit with an arranged marriage. Quickly it is made clear that the marriage is an unhappy one, her husband Faysal - the "thick Paki" as she describes him - being more concerned with his new goat than in trying to bridge the gap to his wife.

The only character who isn't required to represent things beyond his character, and is therefore the strongest, is the father. Setna infuses the struggles of maintaining a family, traditions and sanity with palpable tastes of loss, confusion and frustration.

Finally, then, Yasmin is a victim of over-ambition. If there had been more time devoted to the atmosphere in Britain between Muslims and Christians before and after 9/11, perhaps we would have heard the two leaders' words in a more different context. If there had been time to explore Yasmin's marriage to Faysal, we might have been able to understand better why she turns to him amidst the difficulties of his and then her arrest. If there had been time to sketch race relations (as opposed to religious ones) in Britain before 9/11 we might have had a better understanding of the film's setting and of the struggles within Yasmin's family. If we had seen more of the role of the mosque in that community, we might have been able to understand better the attraction Nasir feels towards becoming involved with terrorists. As those terrorists tell Nasir, "the war against Islam has gone global". In which case there is all the more need for specifics, for an understanding which can only come through exploration, not display.

Although Yasmin tries to do far too much, it is an interesting to watch it do so. So far there are distributors for most of Europe except the UK, which is something that should change, for this unbalanced and unusual film is worth watching nonetheless.

Yasmin Husseini lives with her father, brother, uncle and her "husband" – her marriage to immigrant Faysal being an arrangement between families as opposed to a relationship. Divorce is on the cards as she is very together and British-born while his poor English and "uncivilised" ways grate on her. Living a traditional Muslim life at home for her father but living like a "Westerner" at work, Yasmin is forced to take sides when a news flash comes onto the TV on the afternoon of September 11th 2001. Treated differently by everyone, Yasmin tries to get on the best she can but soon learns about the true nature of new UK terror laws when it turns out that Faysal who has a brother back home who teaches at a school funded by the KLF.

Described by another reviewer on this site in his name-dropping but useful review on this site as a "light-hearted comedy", this film was clearly not marketed well if that's what people thought it was going to be – rather it is a solid drama that looks at the impact of 11/9/01 on the British Muslim community – many of the younger generation, like Yasmin, have much more in community with western values than with those preached by Bin Laden. On the face of it the film could have been a very PC affair with a load of pandering; however, aside from loads of "white authority" stereotypes the film is pretty balanced and interesting look at the plight of Yasmin. The story is interesting enough and lots of issues are touched on – interracial relationships, fear, old world versus western values, disaffected youth and so on; mostly it all works although the nature of the beast means that Yasmin's situation is quite extreme because so many situations are rolled into the experience of the Husseini family.

The cast is pretty good though and it is mainly their work that keeps it worked and stops their characters just being big clichés. Panjabi is a good actress and her Yasmin is well crafted with conflicting loyalties and desires, making her an interesting character and a good performance. Ahmed's Nas is a good performance, very natural, and it is not his fault that he has to carry the extreme experience of disaffected youth being drawn into terrorism. Jackson is lumbered with a poor character – merely a combination of all the mistrust that we are being old that "all white people" have towards Islam; he tries his best and is natural at the start but once 9/11 occur he is clumsy and poorly written when viewed next to Yasmin.

Overall this is a good film that does a good job of summarising the Muslim experience since they became public enemy #1. Being Northern Irish, I know how it feels (and also know how it feels to suffer under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, as was) and I am not too sympathetic with Muslims groups who play the race card in every discussion on this subject, so I liked that the film didn't do that. The title role is well performed and the film does a good job of pulling a lot together without making it one big clichéd PC mess.

It is a "story" built on top of a "topic". The story is about the consequences of the September 11 attacks on the daily life of a young British Muslim woman. The topic is Islam's shift towards conservatism (and fundamentalism) that many people blame on The West's "fight against terrorism".

As such the story is necessarily incomplete, stereotypical, and unreal. But, as such, it does a pretty good job of making me think of what could be real --- the fear, the hate, the horror of law abuse, the consequences.

The movie is also well balanced: smiles and tears are spared wisely. I just did not like the end.