Yasmin (DVD)

Yasmin was never released in UK cinemas but I saw it on TV last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. As it was repeated on Channel 4 recently I felt I had to watch it again.


~*CAST/CREDITS/TECHNICAL STUFF *~

Screen-written by Simon Beaufoy and stars Archie Panjabi with strong support from Shahid Ahmed, Steve Jackson and Syed Ahmed.

Yasmin was released in 2004 and was produced by Sally Hibbin, directed ...
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Yasmin is rated 15.


~*PLOT SUMMARY/TEASER*~

The film opens with Yasmin's father opening up his TV repair shop. Some vandals have spray painted 'Pakis go home' on the shutters. He is resigned to this as a regular occurrence and sighs and gets on with cleaning it.

Yasmin (Panjabi) is a young Pakistani woman having been brought up in West Yorkshire whose attempts to please both her ... more

Yasmin was never released in UK cinemas but I saw it on TV last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. As it was repeated on Channel 4 recently I felt I had to watch it again.

~*CAST/CREDITS/TECHNICAL STUFF *~

Screen-written by Simon Beaufoy and stars Archie Panjabi with strong support from Shahid Ahmed, Steve Jackson and Syed Ahmed.

Yasmin was released in 2004 and was produced by Sally Hibbin, directed by Kenny Glenaan and runs for just over 80 minutes.

Yasmin is rated 15.

~*PLOT SUMMARY/TEASER*~

The film opens with Yasmin's father opening up his TV repair shop. Some vandals have spray painted 'Pakis go home' on the shutters. He is resigned to this as a regular occurrence and sighs and gets on with cleaning it.

Yasmin (Panjabi) is a young Pakistani woman having been brought up in West Yorkshire whose attempts to please both her family and still enjoy a western way of life makes the start of this film quite amusing. She is married to her cousin from Pakistan, a goat herder who she has a platonic relationship with and intends to divorce him as soon as his permanent residency papers come through. She lives in a house bought for her by her father who lives across the road with her cheeky younger brother who, by day, puts on a show of being quite religious by starting off morning prayers at the local mosque and, by night, along with his friend sells weed to local teenage girls. Yasmin leaves her house daily wearing traditional clothing (a hijab) and on her way to work she changes into jeans and a blouse, letting her hair down and wearing makeup. She lives both an eastern and western life and is happy with that.

Yasmin has a close male friend at work, who has no idea that Yasmin is married, and who has a very soft spot for her. She keeps indicating to him that she has family issues to sort out before she can go out with him as a boyfriend. He is supportive and patient, even tells her off for buying a sporty little car which he considers she wasted her money on when she could have purchased a sensible more reliable car that he recommended. She goes to the pub with her colleagues and attends parties at work but doesn't consume alcohol. She smokes cigarettes and has a love hate relationship with her younger brother but is very affectionate towards him and often shares a cigarette with him and pleads with him to spend more time with her at home as she pretty much ignores her husband and leads a separate life. You see her husband calling Pakistan to speak with his relatives when his wife is out at work to catch up on the gossip as he is really homesick and lonely. Each evening Yasmin cooks for the whole family and they eat together at her father's house.

One day in the pub, the shocking news of 9/11 is heard on the news on the pub TV. There is a deadly silence as the awful news sinks in and this is the turning point of the film. Yasmin has no idea who Osama Bin Laden is and is pretty confused when she finds notes stuck to her locker at work saying things like "Yasmin loves Osama". Gradually she starts to feel ostracised by her work colleagues who had hitherto considered friends as well. She has a confrontation with a group of them in the pub, after getting drunk, she apologises personally for the terrorists' activities and storms out of the pub. She goes off sick from work and becomes a recluse at home.

Shortly afterwards her husband is falsely arrested on charges of terrorism and held without charge and from here on in you see how unjust the system can be and you also see the change in Yasmin's attitude to her whole life and her religion.

~*ACTING*~

Archie Panjabi, is, in my opinion an extremely versatile actress who can turn her hand to a variety of roles with ease. She was extremely convincing in her role and is a pleasure to watch. I found her very entertaining in Bend it Like Beckham and also in East in East.

The main character in the film was Yasmin and as such everyone else in the film was supporting her role. The roles were all played very well and the actors were well suited to their roles.

~*MY THOUGHTS*~

This was definitely a very topical film when it was first shown on TV and more recently again it was shown at a time when racial intolerance is at a high in the UK. The relationship Yasmin has with the different men in her life is dealt with very sensitively - the intense dislike she has for the man she was forced to marry (we shockingly hear her call him "thick Paki" and "banana-boat"), the real affection and respect (most of the time) she has for her dad, the sparring but protective relationship with her younger brother and the feelings she has for her work (boy)friend - even to the extent of feeling extremely jealous when other girls at work flirt with him.

The film tries to and succeeds in portraying how people leading their everyday lives whilst balancing two different cultures - one east and one west - can be forced to abandon western culture and feel forced to retreat into themselves and re-evaluate their loyalties. You see Yasmin's brother going from a happy-go-lucky lazy teenager smoking pot and chatting up the local teenage girls to becoming a Muslim extremist wanting to go abroad to fight for "the cause". The scene between Yasmin and her brother when he asks for her blessing to leave is very touching, especially when she asks him quite sadly "You're not coming back are ya?"

The goat-loving non-English speaking husband is quite funny. He tries to flirt with her and calls her "sweetheart" and she throws something at him and tells him to get out of her room. You see him coming home one day with a goat that's he stolen from somewhere (???!!!) and he treats the goat like his wife! Well, not in the way you're thinking, but he dotes on her and feeds her and looks after her as his actual wife does not allow him to be part of her life.

Yasmin's father dreams of going to live in Pakistan some day far in the future when his house out there is built. It appears the building of this house has been in progress for a long time and he often sits looking at pictures yearning for his retirement.

Yasmin's (boy)friend from work is very supportive of her through most of the film, UNTIL he finds out she's married. He feels betrayed when he realises the "family issues" she said she had to sort out was a husband. There is a very sad scene between the two of them at the end of the film, which I won't disclose for fear of being stoned with tomatoes…

All in all, I found Yasmin to be a very powerful film, which was extremely well written and acted. My only worry was that it portrayed all of Yasmin's colleagues as Islamaphobes - something which was possibly done for effect, but I'm not convinced that people behaved like this after 9/11. Not all people anyway…

Forgive me if you feel I have given away too much of the plot but I've avoided telling you some of the key things that happen at the end of the film. You have to watch it to find out - it really is well worth it.

~*WHERE YOU CAN GET IT*~

You can wait for Yasmin to be repeated on TV again (as I'm sure it will be) or purchase it from eBay very cheap or get your own brand new version on DVD from virginmegastores.co.uk for £15.99 or for just £6.99 from play.com.

 

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