My Son the Fanatic (1997)

Boring

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

"My Son the Fanatic," writer Hanif Kureishi and director Udayan Prasad's 1997 film about Farid, an English-born Pakistani boy who becomes a devout Muslim who firebombs a brothel, is a train wreck. Its art is shoddy and its politics are repugnant. But Om Puri as Parvez, the taxi- driver father of the fanatic son, gives a performance that is solid gold. Rachel Griffiths, as a prostitute, is brilliant. Parvez (Om Puri) is a taxi driver in a depressed English mill town. He befriends Bettina (Griffiths) a prostitute. He works for a monstrous German sex tourist named S---t. Parvez's son, Farid, is engaged to the lovely Madeline Fingerhut, daughter of the chief of police. Farid breaks off his engagement and becomes the Muslim "fanatic" of the title. Parvez tries to stop his son's fanaticism. He also enters into an affair with Bettina, the prostitute, who loves him. "My Son the Fanatic" struggles to combine several disparate themes and subplots. It is never successful because it never probes deeply enough into any of its material. The film ends ambiguously; the viewer has no idea how any of the story strands will resolve themselves. The two most powerful features of the film, the only real reason to see the film, are Om Puri and Rachel Griffiths. They are very different and they are both powerhouses. Om Puri feels like a beating heart. He is totally believable, irresistibly lovable, and charismatic. Puri had smallpox when he was two and his face is cratered. These scars just make you stare at him all the more.Rachel Griffiths is perfect as Bettina, the stereotypical "hooker with a heart of gold." She's smart, and she's in pain. In spite of their age and culture differences, Parvez and Bettina's love is completely believable and poignant. It's clear that Parvez's wife Minoo is not providing him with passion, respect, or either emotional or physical intimacy. She calls him a "useless idiot," and at one point it appears she may leave him to go back to Pakistan. While Parvez resists his son's fanaticism, Minoo supports it. You really want to know – can a man fall in love with a prostitute? Parvez's friend Fizzy reminds him cruelly that Bettina has been penetrated by thousands of men. Could Parvez ever get over that? Could Parvez and Minoo separate in a way that worked for them both and spared them both great pain? Could Bettina settle down with one man? Could the couple survive the disdain of respectable people? Again, the chemistry between Parvez and Bettina is so compelling you really want the film to attempt to answer any of these questions. In fact, it answers none. Sadly, Parvez and Bettina are merely Hanif Kureishi's little wind-up toys. He has zero respect or affection for his own characters. Kureishi created Parvez and Bettina just to make his own, repugnant, political point. They are agitprop. With the exception of Madeline Fingerhut, who is on screen for about 120 seconds, every last Westerner the innocent Muslims encounter is a racist, a prostitute, or a monster. The thrust of "My Son the Fanatic" is this. Innocent, decent Pakistani Muslims immigrate to England and are confronted by orgies, naked women selling their bodies in the streets, racism, violence, and booze. The film is graphic and disgusting. There are gratuitous scenes of Bettina being used by her johns. The German sex tourist S– is depicted abusing men and women and hosting orgies. There is no logic in this; this man is shown to be ridiculously wealthy. A sex tourist with that kind of money would not travel to some grim northern English mill town. S–-, the German sex tourist for whom Parvez works, is named after feces. He is utterly disgusting. There are graphic scenes of his exploitation of Bettina. Later, she is shown with bruises from his beatings. He also beats Parvez. When Parvez goes out, he is cruelly mocked by an English comedian. There is no other English life depicted in "My Son the Fanatic." Not a single English person is kind to children or animals. The English are all violent, sexually perverse, racist scum. Farid becomes a fanatic after Madeline's father is rude to him. "You are the only pig I've ever wanted to eat," Farid tells his future father-in-law. All this graphic perversion is thrust into the viewer's face to emphasize: innocent, decent Muslims are forced by Western ugliness to become terrorists.Okay, let's rejoin planet Earth, shall we? On May 21, 2013, the BBC reported on 54 separate child sex slave rings in England run by Pakistani men. The descriptions of the activities of these gangs are nightmarish. Western Civilization did not corrupt these men; their corruption was already installed. And as for the charge that racism forces otherwise innocent men to become fanatics; please see Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarneav, two beloved, funded, coddled, immigrants who arrived in the US as "refugees." The refuge the US gave these men was used by them to murder innocents. The London Times named Hanif Kureishi one of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945." Given the shoddiness of the plotting and characterization of "My Son the Fanatic," and its skewed politics, one has to wonder why.

Unremittingly difficult to sit through this one. Whoever finds any comic relief in its minor ironies ("Fingerhut," "Mr. Shits," etc.) is just not concentrating on the main theme. This is a film about people living out their lives in more or less distinct states of alienation from those around them as well as from their own self-concepts. As with all such stories, there is nothing to laugh about.Be that as it may, the actors and the direction are first-rate. While nothing much happens to develop plot, a great deal comes into view in progressively more intimate sketches that delineate character and advance one's awareness of just how "out of synch" everyone is. Central to appreciating it all is how easily universal values of love, compassion, integrity, and objectivity come unstuck when someone heeds the call of looking for greener pastures.Specifically, the problem of ambitious people moving out of their native countries to find a better life elsewhere is one that we find in history and literature from the beginning of time. And even more specifically, the clash of one culture or religion with another -- together with elements of racism and competition -- are certainly nothing new to cinematic representations. This is a kind of story with neither end nor beginning, only one bitter scene fading into another.A very dark film indeed.

I was pleasantly surprised when I just saw "My Son the Fanatic" (I write this as the video rewinds!). I'm quite averse to watching gratuitous violence and listening to obscenities, and I looked askance at the cover jacket of this video at my public library, thinking it may be akin to films like "East is East", "Sammy and Rosie", and "My Beautiful Laundrette". Like those films, this one explores English lower middle class South Asian immigrants, but I found "My Son the Fanatic" to be much more palatable - and in fact endearing and more interesting - than the others.The story is of Parvez (played by Om Puri), a Pakistani who has immigrated to England 25 or 30 years ago. He is a taxi driver and is very proud of his son, Farid (Akbar Kurtha), who appears to be in his mid-20s. The film opens with Parvez, his wife Minoo (Gopi Desai), and Farid all meeting the family of Madelaine (Sarah-Jane Potts), Farid's girlfriend. Madelaine's father is chief of police, and Parvez is enthusiastic for the marriage presumably because the young couple love each other, but also, it seems, because of the status of the chief inspector.Parvez is a hard-working, kind, and friendly man. Some of his customers are prostitutes, and he honorably befriends one, Bettina (Rachel Griffiths), maintaining a respectful and supportive platonic relationship.Life is turned upside down when Farid abandons his engagement and school when religious fundamentalism beckons him. This forms the framework for the climax and resolution of the film.Om Puri, consistent with his reputation, puts in an excellent and believable performance of a parent trying to provide a good life for his family and looking to harness qualities from both his traditional and adopted cultures. Though she seems to be stuck at home, Minoo is more dimensional than other S.Asian mothers are often portrayed to be. I think more could have been done to have developed the son's character, and Bettina had a radiance, charm, and optimism that made it hard to believe her to be a prostitute."My Son the Fanatic" is a film that I enjoyed seeing. It's neither uplifting nor depressing, but the story is interesting and believable, and Om Puri's credible acting is a delight to see.

While this film is superficially about East Indian immigrants in Yorkshire, its themes are universal. Anyone who is or is related to an immigrant should feel at home here.As far as religion goes, these characters could be Jewish or Christian as easily as Moslem. The mediaevalist/modernist conflict is the same. There's no reason why the audience for this film should be just a parochial one.Om Puri gives a brilliant and nuanced performance as the central character, the resilient Punjabi cab driver. Rachel Griffiths is very fine as always as his kindred spirit, a hooker, although her character here is a little more limited in scope than those she portrayed in "Muriel's Wedding" and especially "Hilary and Jackie". Stellan Skarsgård also steps into a pair of shoes a few sizes smaller than those he has worn in the past.Unheralded though it may have been, this is another thoughtful comedy-drama from Hanif Kureishi, author of "My Beautiful Laundrette" amongst others.