Yasmin

The film "Yasmin" by Kenny Glenaan is about a young Pakistani woman who has to rearrange her world past 9/11. Yasmin, who lives in the Muslim area of a north English town, has a double life. In the Muslim society she is the daughter of the mosque's custodian and a good Muslim wife, but in her job in the "white, English world" she is an atheist and trendy single woman. The truth lies somewhere in between, which she has to face when 9/11 hits her life and people start treating her with mistrust and suspicion.

The conflicted Yasmin has a conservative, religious father. Her brother is also religious but he can easily be influenced and becomes an extremist. In contrast to them there is John, her English friend, who is obviously in love with Yasmin but is finally overtaxed by Yasmin's problems. One of those is Faysal, her bogus husband, who is completely misplaced in England because he is incapable of the language and isolated.

Kenny Glenaan has created a movie which shows a woman finding her identity in the middle of a religious conflict. He shows how prejudices can destroy lives, and how they can affect everyone. But he also explains how extreme situations can make you think about yourself and find your place in the world.

I really liked "Yasmin" because it is about real people, issues and emotions. You can feel that there are real stories behind this fiction.

One could say this movie is too simple, no work of art. But I guess it is in fact this simplicity which makes this film that good, because it is not artificial- it is simply a captivating story. That's enough.

I recommend this film to everyone who is interested in real issues and people, in the problems of our time and the impact they have on us. Everyone fascinated by the complex relations between people will be captivated by this study of microcosm of a conflicted family.

I caught this movie on TV and didn't think it would necessarily appeal to me, but from the very first I was caught up in it and had to watch right to the end. I thought the acting performances were very honest, while the script was true-to-life. I felt as if I was entering Yasmin's world every time she went home.

I particularly liked the friendship she had with John, which played out realistically.

At no point were the events clichéd, and the drama-documentary feel of the film was very effective. There were lots of well-observed details which lent to the authenticity of the film, and nice juxtapositions of the Muslim community living in a northern English town.

I found it compelling and moving.

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.

In England, the Pakistanis Yasmin (Archie Panjabi) lives two lives in two different worlds: in her community, she wears Muslin clothes, cooks for her father and brother and has the traditional behavior of a Muslin woman. Further, she has a non-consumed marriage with the illegal immigrant Faysal to facilitate the British stamp in his passport, and then divorce him. In her job, she changes her clothes and wears like a Westerner, is considered a standard employee and has a good Caucasian friend who likes her. After the September, 11th, the prejudice in her job and the treatment of common people makes her take side and change her life.

"Yasmin" is a powerful drama that exposes the tough life of Muslin immigrants in England after the terrorist attack of September, 11th. The story is very real and well acted, and shows the difficult situation of simple people that suddenly are hated, submitted to interracial intolerance, injustice and prejudice, just because of a group of religious fanatics, causing a generalization of worldwide hate. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Yasmin - Uma Mulher, Dois Mundos" ("Yasmin, A Woman, Two Worlds")

While watching the movie "Yasmin", directed by Kenny Glenaan, you get a realistic picture of a Muslim family from Pakistan living in the north of England. As you can guess from the title, the plot is focused on emancipated Yasmin Husseini, who switches between her traditional Muslim and her modern western life. After the incidents of 9/11, an arranged marriage and a night in prison, she withdraws from her "double-life" and comes back to her Muslim origin.

Without using any spectacular visual effects "Yasmin" catches you with a lot authenticity. All of the different but interesting and individual characters make the film very dynamic. On the one hand, there is the conservative father Khalid, who just tries to conform to his western life without losing his Muslim tradition. Yasmin's brother Nasir, on the other hand, is fed up with his life in the western culture. Another important person is Faisal, the "import" and Yasmin's husband, who is not able to communicate with anyone of the Husseinis but a goat. Yasmin as the main character has to cope with all these family members and tries not to hurt or disappoint anyone. You will see how she manages all that, although going on with her ordinary modern lifestyle.

I want to recommend this movie to all of you because it shows a point of view from "the other side" of dealing with terror and religious identity. You are demanded to think about Muslim culture and our established prejudices.