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A Fond Kiss...

2004, Movie, R, 103 mins

A Fond Kiss...: Review

FOND KISS..., A | AE FOND KISS...
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Those thick Glaswegian brogues springing from the mouths of second-generation Pakistani immigrants says more about the wide diversity of the world's Muslim population that the schoolroom speech that opens this typically earnest, socially conscious film from Ken Loach. The talk is delivered by Sadia Khan (Shamshad Akhtar), a high-school aged Pakistani-Scot who's attempting to explain to her Catholic schoolmates that Islam wears many faces, and not all Muslims should be lumped together. Sadia's father, Tariq (Ahmad Riaz), who runs the corner shop, has been in Scotland for 40 years, and Sadia considers herself not so much a Muslim as a Glaswegian teenager and a big soccer fan. That last bit is too much for the pack of racist schoolboys who later chase Sadia across the school parking lot, jumping on the hood of the car belonging to Sadia's brother, Casim (Atta Yaqub), a local club DJ who's come to pick his kid sister up from school. Casim chases the boys into the music room where part-time music teacher, Roisin Hanlon (Eva Birthistle), is giving a voice lesson. Eyes meet, glances are exchanged, and a few days later Casim and his mates are helping Roisin move an upright piano into her flat. It's clear that Casim the Irish-Catholic Roisin are in love, but what Roisin doesn't yet know — and only finds out while the lovers are on a weekend holiday in Spain — is that Casim is due to be married in just a matter a months to a distant cousin whom he doesn't even know. Like most marriages in this tight-knit Pakistani community, Casim's upcoming wedding to Jasmine (Sunna Mirza) has been arranged by the parents. Roisin can't understand how a grown man can allow his parents to arrange his entire life, and threatens to break up with him unless he defies his parents. Sadia understands her brother's predicament: She herself feels trapped by her parents, who want her to stay in Glasgow and become a doctor when what she really wants to do is study communications in Edinburgh. Sadia's older sister, Tahara (Shaban Bakhsh), however, is less sympathetic. She worries that the shame Casim will bring down on their family will jeopardize her own upcoming nuptials to Amar (Pasha Bocarie). Casim is left facing a terrible choice: Either he calls off the wedding and risks destroying his entire family, or he loses the one woman he truly loves. If this tale of star-crossed lovers sounds at all familiar, it should: It's the good old Romeo and Juliet scenario all over again. Even recasting the family-feud that dooms the young lovers as an ethnic clash isn't particularly new — think of WEST SIDE STORY (1961) and CHINA GIRL (1987) — but the film is beautifully told and superbly acted. More importantly, Paul Laverty's screenplay goes along way toward showing how the traditionalism that can turn a community inward on itself is often a response to racism, and in that sense the film's timing couldn't have been any better. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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