Secret engagements and the dolour of Maneer

Summary:

A really important scene of the film “East is East” of Damien O'Donnell is the scene when Sajid, the youngest son of the family, discloses his secret to his elder brothers and his sister, Meenah. His secret – that Tariq and Abdul were engaged with Pakistanis by their father George – shocks all the children profoundly.

Especially Tariq can't believe Sajid, he runs to the fathers chest where he finds a lot of clothes belonging to a traditional Pakistani marriage, then he begins to dig into the chest and destroys angrily one of the watches he finds.

He accuses Maneer, the religious brother who's also called Ghandi, because he thinks that he knows about the engagements, but yonder refuses this vehemently. The other siblings try to calm Tariq when he returns to the chest in order to destroy other marriage utilities until Sajid sees the father coming down the street. Everybody runs hectically away except Maneer. He returns to the chest and tries to reorder the marriage clothes.

George comes into his room and sees how Maneer tries hectically to hide what happens. He becomes angry and takes his son and brings him to the chip shop where Ella works. When she sees her son she's confused and tries to defend him against the fathers beats and hits. Therefore she's beaten by George.

Analysis of the camera techniques and the music:

This scene is a very dramatic and sad scene. Abdul and Tariq should marry a women they don't know. Nazir, the eldest son of the family had to do this in an earlier scene of the film and now he's considered as dead because he couldn't live with the decision that he has to marry. So it is very explainable why Tariq is absolutely shocked by the secret of Sajid. He's sad, he's afraid of the future and hates his father trying to decide his whole life, he's disappointed and can't believe what happens. All this tragic feelings are shown through a lot of close-up shots of Tariq which are used in order to let the spectator identify with his feelings and at least with hisself.

In addition to this a dramatical music underlines the sadness and the disappointment all the children go through. Also the quick succession of different shots and angles (for example: low angle to eye-level shot; medium shots, close up shots of different characters) raises the tension and hectic.

Furthermore the destruction of the watch by Tariq which is shown in an extreme close up shot draws the hate of Tariq against George because yonder always tries to convince and to encourage his children with presents like watches. Through the watch Tariq really reveals to the viewer that he doesn't want to be encouraged and then do what his father wants, but he wants to be free in his own decisions.

When Maneer tries to tidy up the room and to take back the things Tariq threw away, he's shown through an overhead shot one time. Here this shot is important because it shows how helpless and how lost Maneer is in this situation. He's a little point in the room, the stuff for the marriage lies all around and his father is coming quickly. One feels that there's no chance for him to hide what's happen.

Moreover when George and Maneer begin to have a conversation in the room, Maneer is very often shown in an high angle position which even shows the helplessness of him. He doesn't want to betray Tariq, but as a consequence he has to stand the beats and the questions of his father (e.g. “Who do this?”).

Also during this aggressive sequence of the scene the spectator is directed through a music that should reveal feelings of compassion and sadness. Deep and slowly sounds conduct the scene until the end.

At least another aspect of the camera technique seems important to me in this scene: When Ella defends his son and becomes the victim of Georges anger herself, there's other than the beats of George a deep conflict between them. For the story of the film the conflict is very important because here Ella says something against George the first time. Therefore during this conflict one should notice well the feelings of both of the parents. So the conclusion is that there are a lot of close up shots again showing nearly the facial expressions of the actors.

All in all one can say that this scene is a very sad scene and shows that the comic film “East is East” deals with serious problems a second generation of immigrants can have. They often live between two worlds and one time in their life they have to decide whether they want to keep their historical family tradition or whether they want to join the culture of the country they live in. This decision often destroys families and generations.