Article 2: FILM; Tilling the Fields of Conflict Into
Middle Age
By PETER KOBEL
Published: June 20, 1999
ONCE
an avatar of youthful rebellion, the writer Hanif Kureishi
is probably best known in the United States for his screenplays for two 1980's
art house films, ''My Beautiful Laundrette,'' an international hit that starred
Daniel Day-Lewis as a gay street punk, and ''Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.'' Both
were fertile collaborations with the director Stephen Frears -- bright, pop
evocations of a
That
Mr. Kureishi is still kicking up sparks is strikingly clear in a new film, ''My
Son the Fanatic,'' for which he wrote the screenplay. Opening on Friday, it's
an unconventional love story about a Pakistani immigrant who strays from wife
and status quo when he falls in love with a young white prostitute.
Deliberately subverting expectations from the get-go, the tale also turns the
tables on the traditional scenario of repressive father versus freedom-loving
son. ''In the old days, I would have written it from the son's point of view,''
Mr. Kureishi, dressed in a Sundance sweatshirt and jeans, says, as he reins in
his wayward son by fastening him back in his stroller, ''but instead I wrote it
from the father's point of view.''
Directed
by Udayan Prasad (''Brothers in Trouble'') and with a
cast that includes Rachel Griffiths, who received an Oscar nomination for
''Hilary and Jackie,'' and Stellan Skarsgard (''Good Will Hunting''), ''My Son the Fanatic''
is based on a short story by Mr. Kureishi that first appeared in
Deftly
mixing cutting satire and a tolerant view of human foibles, Mr. Kureishi stages
a conflict at once concrete and universal, using the intersection of disparate
lives in one small part of the world to tackle broad moral themes with wisdom
and wit. Some of the film's funniest and most poignant scenes may seem foreign
to many Americans. In one, at the son's invitation, a maulvi,
or Muslim teacher, takes over Parvez's home, laughing
uproariously at television cartoons and banishing his host's wife from the
table. But such scenes underscore the universal tensions between love and duty,
moral relativism and absolutism, happiness and personal sacrifice.
''It's
a story that deals with global issues through the life of an incredibly humble
man, a taxi driver,'' says Mr. Prasad, the director. ''Hanif
approaches things obliquely, always pushing his characters into difficult
situations from which they have to extricate themselves.''
Ms.
Griffiths warmly conveys a prostitute whose gray world is suddenly illuminated
by the possibility of love. ''I was a huge fan of Hanif's
fiction and his screenwriting,'' she says. ''I love the combination of an
underlying humanity and a sort of wickedness. His characters are beautifully
drawn. The film is about the power of love to reveal the better parts of ourselves.''
But
love, or the loss of it, can also bring out the worst in people.
Around
the time of the release of ''My Son the Fanatic'' in England last year, Mr.
Kureishi's new novella, ''Intimacy,'' made its debut to a maelstrom of
controversy over how closely and intimately the writer recreated his breakup
with his longtime girlfriend, Tracey Scoffield. While his fiction has not made much of a dent in
America, in Britain Mr. Kureishi is famous enough as a novelist and playwright
to cause quite a stir when his personal life goes awry (a literary map of
London that ran recently in Granta magazine had icons
for Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Will Self and Mr.
Kureishi, who got one of those smiley rave faces).
''Intimacy,''
published in the United States this spring by Scribner, takes place during one
night as the narrator, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter named Jay, prepares to
leave his girlfriend, Susan, who works in publishing, and their two sons for a
younger lover -- ''to step into the unknown.'' A surgical dissection of a
breakup, almost cruel in its candor, the book
provoked the outrage of many reviewers (as well as Ms. Scoffield)
for echoing the author's life so precisely. A few years ago, the
Oscar-nominated Mr. Kureishi left Ms. Scoffield, a
book editor, and their two sons, for a much younger woman, Monique Proudlove, the mother of his son, Kier. Ms. Scoffield told a
Mr.
Kureishi bristles when asked where fact ends and fiction begins. Denying that
''Intimacy'' is anything but a novel, he says: ''Every work of art is a map of
someone's mind. A lot of my friends are talking about marriage breakdowns and
divorces. Male attitudes to relationships and children are changing.
''People
don't enter relationships with the same hope that they'll go on for a long
time. It's better in a way: at least people can get out. It's also created a
lot of extended families, with all the kids from previous marriages, so today
it's more like Indian families.''
MR.
KUREISHI has never shied away from conflict and controversy (he once called
''Nobody
went to see it,'' he said.
As
for his novels, his best remains his first, the charming, hilarious ''Buddha of
Suburbia,'' about Bohemian theater life and bogus
mysticism; it was made into a 1992 BBC miniseries directed by Roger Michell (''Notting Hill,'' ''Persuasion.'').
Mr.
Kureishi may have recently cut the long hair he has sported on his book jacket
flaps, but he is still a bad boy mischievous enough to nip the hand that feeds
him. Speaking of Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax whose film
company picked up ''My Son the Fanatic'' and is distributing it in the United
States, he says: ''Harvey didn't want to release it; he held it for two years
because he wanted a happy ending, although I don't know what that means. Does
that mean the taxi driver leaves his wife or doesn't leave his wife? I think it
has a happy ending. I'm just glad they didn't mess it up.'' A Miramax
spokeswoman said that there had been discussions with the filmmakers about
making changes but that Miramax had decided early on to release the movie
unchanged; it opened in Britain, and then Miramax took it on the festival
circuit for several months.
After
Mr. Kureishi's companion arrives to pick up their son and leaves, he shakes his
head. ''I'm sorry; women are always late,'' he says. Freed from the demands of
the active tot, he relaxes a bit and talks about the cultural landscape that
has produced so much ferment in
''
But
although many of his characters are of Asian heritage, he doesn't see himself
as representative of a community. ''I write the way I write; I can't speak for
anyone else,'' he says.
Mr.
Kureishi has two other films in the works. Patrice Chereau
(''Queen Margot'') is set to film ''Intimacy,'' and Mr. Kureishi has been
working with his old friend Mr. Frears on a script, about an older woman who
falls in love with her daughter's lover. Suspended between the tantalizing
tenderness of ''My Son the Fanatic'' and the bitterness of ''Intimacy,'' Mr.
Kureishi is exploring the emotional terrain of middle age. It should be quite a
trip.
http://movies.nytimes.com/gst/movies/msearch.html?query=articles+published+about+hanif+kureishi
Academic year 2008/2009
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