Go East, Young Man

The debut feature of local lad Damien O'Donnell, East Is East looks set to be one of the surprise 'sleeper' hits of the season. Based on the acclaimed play by Anglo-Asian writer Ayub Khan-Din, it's a raucous clash-of-cultures comedy about an immigrant Pakistani patriarch's attempts to insulate his seven kids from the corrupting influences of Manchester society in the '70s - and though not without its serious moments, it is certainly one of the most riotous comedies Britain has produced thus far this decade.
On the stress-versus-enjoyment spectrum, how does Damien recall the making of East Is East?
"No comment (laughs loudly). I was really frank in the Irish Times interview about my experiences on the film, and subsequently got a solicitor's letter from the producers. Ouch! So I'm obviously not allowed to answer that one without risking a court injunction. Next question?"
Were you worried about the pitfalls of patronising or misrepresenting the (Pakistani immigrant) culture?
"Yeah, very much. It was the biggest single worry hanging over it. We were very cautious about it - and coming from outside that culture myself, I personally bent over backwards, I'd say I was extra-sensitive to anything that could have been interpreted that way.
"To make sure we were accurate, we consulted as many writers from that culture as we could find, and we also had a Muslim adviser, who would give us advice on the mosque scenes and what kind of language to use, things like that. We even went so far as to build a mosque in this shed, which is true to what happened in '70s Manchester and Bradford - there were no purpose-built mosques so they just took over whatever spaces they could find, and used them as mosques. And we even took the precaution of building the set facing towards Mecca, for the benefit of anyone on the set who thought it sacrilegious not to. That's the kind of detail we went to. And then we did, in fact, make a mistake eventually - in the chicken-slaughtering scene, we used the wrong knife. So we had to just cut that scene out." (Nice one, it sounds horrible -C.F.).
How much did you know about Islam beforehand, and how do you feel about it now?
"I'd never studied it, I'd read bits and pieces about it - as much as anyone else - and as part of the preparation, I gave myself a bit of an education on Pakistan, on Islam and northern English culture. I did enough research to become familiar with it, but I'm not an expert on the whole thing and I'd never claim to be. But I developed a greater respect for the culture through working on this, and I've now made friends from that community, which I'd never had before."
The film certainly seems, though, to present Islam as primarily an oppressive and destructive force.
"It's not really for you or me to say so, though - that's the whole thing about this stuff," he counters. "It's coming from the point of view of the writer, he's telling his own story, which is very personal, in fact it's practically autobiographical. The writer is Sajid, essentially. He's basically re-telling his own childhood, and he has a particular point of view on it which he's entitled to, and I think everything he says is fair comment. The film has its own opinion, that's not exactly hidden. And I don't think at all that the film portrays the culture in a negative, unsympathetic way - it's about one bigot, really, and bigots are as likely to be found in any culture, like their neighbour across the road with his Enoch Powell posters in the window. The film could just as easily be about Irish ghettoes in America in the '20s or whatever."
On a personal level, did you feel any sympathy at all for the lead character George, who struck me throughout as a monstrous pig whose behaviour couldn't be excused by any amount of cultural relativism?
"I can see your point. I know for a fact that Ayub was kind of come to terms with his father largely through writing the play and making this film - he's purged himself of any hatred he had for him.
The real George was a very difficult and very harsh man: at all times in the film, he puts his idea of his family's standing in Muslim society above the welfare of his children. And he's a man who never learns, because after his first son runs away, you can tell that it provokes some soul-searching inside him, but he comes to the wrong conclusions. My problem is, having made the film and cast someone as good as Om Puri - (pause) - I find it really hard to distinguish between Om and the character in the film, because he just jumped in and got him completely, and captured this air of authority and threat that just makes you freeze if you're in the same room. And yet Om is a wonderfully warm and kind man, and brought some of that to the part. And I think Om was genuinely upset by some of the stormier scenes, which required him to be quite brutal, and couldn't have been very pleasant for him.
"So in a sense I had some sympathy for the character, as far as I knew him, but it was a different character from the one you saw. Do you know what I mean? It's difficult. When you're directing a film, it's impossible to see it for the first time."
Warming to the theme, O'Donnell confesses to a sense of complete confusion regarding his own feelings for the film:
"My opinions of the film have been slightly muddled by the experience of making it. I'm jealous, in some ways - I'd love to know what I think of this film, but I really haven't a clue how I'd react if I went to see it for the first time. I feel positive about it and I've been very heartened by the reaction at test screenings, watching hundreds of people laugh loudly and breaking into spontaneous rounds of applause.
"Up until then I had doubts, cause you can get too familiar with a film when you work on it, you lose perspective and you're highly unlikely to find it funny. But while we were making it, no-one knew what we had, and we half-expected it to end up showing for a week at two screens in London and one in Bradford. It's now on something like two hundred screens, it's the biggest release that Film Four have ever done of one of their own films, so they've taken quite a chance with it."
Have you noticed any positive feedback from younger Asians, or any offended outrage from their parents?
"Eh - we've had a number of individual responses, rather than any mass catharsis. The people who really love a film will always come up and tell you so, anyway, and you never meet anyone who hates a film so much that they'll tell you to your face. So far, it seems we've got away with it - I haven't been chased down the street by any screaming mullahs yet, anyway. I'm not the new Salman Rushdie.
"Having said that, it will generate a response, as the play did, and people will come out and take a point of view. The closing scene, especially, is bound to polarise opinions - one of the actors in that scene, who played Mrs. Shah, was very unhappy about that scene and how it portrayed Asian women. She felt that it cast them in a very poor light. The scene itself is entirely farcical, but there were things we couldn't avoid doing, and I can see where it's open to criticism. People have commented on the daughters, for instance - did they have to be so ugly? And the thing is, yes, they had to be, that was the whole point. To show George's motivation, that he wanted his sons married no matter how they felt about it, you had to put him in a situation where he chooses women who are just completely unattractive."
How much of a dictator were you on set?
"I don't think I was dictatorial at all. The only time would have been when I realised we only had an hour left to finish a couple of scenes. The whole process was so slow and the weather was shit so we ended up being behind schedule quite a lot, playing catch-up, so you just go 'right, I want this, this, this and then we're out of here.' And obviously you find you shout more at the young, inexperienced actors than someone like Om Puri, who's done a hundred movies.
"But most of the time, I was fairly laidback. I prefer to bring performances out, and there was plenty of lively debate between the actors. And the more input you have from the actors, the better the film is, that's logical. They were all fairly forthcoming, with all their own ideas, and there was nothing abrasive or vociferous about the way they expressed them. So I didn't have to worry, I wasn't taking it home at night, half the time I just went home and got pissed and went to bed. n