East is East symbols
aus Schoolmaster_Wiki, der freien Wissensdatenbank
Watch out for visual symbols in the movie. Identify and describe at least two of them in some detail.
Elisabeth
In the movie "East is East" I found three important visual symbols.
The background of "East is East" is the conflict between the second generation of Pakistani immigrants and the traditional culture one the one hand and western culture in the UK on the other. This conflict is mirrored in the following symbols appearing in some scenes of the movie.
The first symbol is very close to the beginning, after Nazir`s failed wedding. Before the wedding, photos of all the members of the Kahn family were hanging on the wall in the living room. Because of Nazir running away just before the wedding started, George Kahn, the father removes the photo of Nazir. This symbol means that Nazir no longer belongs to the Kahn family. Nazir's photo stands for the person himself. By taking away the son`s photo George Kahn demonstrates that he no longer considers Nazir his son. Nazir put the family to shame, especially George who has arranged the marriage. The behaviour of his son was very embarrassing to Mr. Kahn. So he states later in the movie that one of his sons is dead.
Soon Mr. Kahn arranges marriages for two of his other sons, one for Abdul and the other for Tariq. When the guys get to know that, they first try to refuse to marry their father's choice of women. Because of that there is much trouble in their family. Mr. Kahn beats his wife and Maneer, another son. After the argument, the whole family sits in front of the TV, watching some kind of report. The TV - program is about loneliness on uninhabited planets. This topic really fits the situation within the Khan family. They are sitting together, but they do not speak a word or look at each other. Thus, they all appear to be very lonely and isolated from each other although they belong to one family.
The third symbol appears when the family drives to Bradford in order to organise the wedding for Abdul and Tariq which, however, was unknown for both of them. When they approched to Bradford they recognised that the place-name sign was manipulated. The "ford" was crossed out while "istan" was added. The resulting "Bradistan" should indicate that a large number of Pakistanis is now living in Bradford. I would guess that the English "painter" did it to express his view Bradford was overcrowded by Pakistanis.
