Only a few weeks after watching the Beatles-themed Yesterday, several of us went went to see Blinded by the Light featuring the music of Bruce Springsteen. Like the Beatles's songbook, music of The Boss functions like a narrator in Blinded by the Light. Yet more than we saw in Yesterday, Springsteen's oeuvre captures the heart of young Javed (played by Viveik Kalra) as he navigates life as a second-generation Pakistani in 1980s working class England.
Decades earlier Javed's father and mother, Malik and Noor, emigrated from Pakistan as a young couple and now live with their three children in Luton, a small city in southeastern England. Malik's goal is to maintain a traditional Pakistani patriarchal family in an increasingly egalitarian England. His father's goal for Javed is upward financial mobility and for his two daughters a good match made by dad and mom. All the while Malik and Javed endure daily humiliations from the young members of the National Front who live in their neighborhood.
Upon entering high school, Javed's desire to write is encouraged by his teacher, to the great consternation of his father. Without friends, until he meets Roops, a Sikh and only other South Asian in the school, who introduces him to the music of Bruce Springsteen, Javed seems destined for a crushed will or an explosive blow up. Javed finds in the working-class music of Springsteen a voice through which he channels his inner and outer conflicts into writing that eventually lands him a scholarship at university.
Loosely based on the life of Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded by the Light features plenty of situational humor, personal humiliations, and an ultimate triumph including reconciliation. It is regrettably marred by the one-dimensional, poster-board characterization of the Tory parents of Javed's girlfriend. I found even that forgivable, however, because of the careful interweaving of Springsteen songs into the foreground of the film. It even encouraged me to listen to my Springsteen albums at home.
I was also interested to see how the manner of dress of Pakistani Muslims was more similar to Indian Hindus than to the Arab Muslims of the Middle East.
In any event, catch it while you can.
Decades earlier Javed's father and mother, Malik and Noor, emigrated from Pakistan as a young couple and now live with their three children in Luton, a small city in southeastern England. Malik's goal is to maintain a traditional Pakistani patriarchal family in an increasingly egalitarian England. His father's goal for Javed is upward financial mobility and for his two daughters a good match made by dad and mom. All the while Malik and Javed endure daily humiliations from the young members of the National Front who live in their neighborhood.
Upon entering high school, Javed's desire to write is encouraged by his teacher, to the great consternation of his father. Without friends, until he meets Roops, a Sikh and only other South Asian in the school, who introduces him to the music of Bruce Springsteen, Javed seems destined for a crushed will or an explosive blow up. Javed finds in the working-class music of Springsteen a voice through which he channels his inner and outer conflicts into writing that eventually lands him a scholarship at university.
Loosely based on the life of Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded by the Light features plenty of situational humor, personal humiliations, and an ultimate triumph including reconciliation. It is regrettably marred by the one-dimensional, poster-board characterization of the Tory parents of Javed's girlfriend. I found even that forgivable, however, because of the careful interweaving of Springsteen songs into the foreground of the film. It even encouraged me to listen to my Springsteen albums at home.
In any event, catch it while you can.
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