Ae Fond Kiss - Movie Review Example

Curse Institute Ae fond kiss This film is a romantic drama movie directed by Ken loach; the film stars Eve Birthistle and AttaYaqub. The film explores some of the complications of guys from two different religions fall in love. It entails the story of a young Scottish Pakistani and a catholic immigrant from Ireland. Yaqub plays the Scottish Pakistani with the name Casim while Eve plays the role of the catholic immigrant with the name Roisin. It talks about the love life of the two and the difficulties they face in this life. Both Casim and Roisin live in Glasgow, when they fall in love their different religious and cultural background prove to have fewer problems for them. The problems arise from the confrontation by their members of communities with prejudices and demand. All through the film the writer brings in the themes of racism, religious and cultural intolerance, this form the target of critics loach receives regarding the movie. At the beginning of the movie, loach presents a pluralistic vision of the meaning of what it takes to be British nowadays. In the opening scene, he shows some boys dancing to bhangra in a pub; he later changes the view to show how Gaslow town looks, this culminates in a portrayal of a grocery ran by Pakistani family. He then shows the main character Casim, the portrayals of Casim are that of a hybrid Muslim Glaswegian. His origins as per the movie are Pakistani, he works as a dj in a disco pub in Glasgow, and he plays bhangra, the type of music played by Punjabis. Ken then introduces Tahara, Casim sister, in her first scene she delivers as speech at school based on her cultural experiences as an Islam girl living In British. Through her speech she defended the diversity the Muslims experience all around the world, she accuses the attempts of the western cultures to label the Muslim as terrorists and fundamentalists. In her speech, she describes how their family lives the religion (Islam) in a different way, in this, she describes how the Scottish ways dictates her life, and she has a Scottish accent, a teenager living in Glasgow attending a catholic school. It is after this incident that a group of students attacks her, she however protects herself by chasing away the boys, and she portrays a character of s submissive and passive Asian woman. These incidents result to Casim being called to the school to deal with the issue, at school accidentally meets Roisin, Taharas music teacher. They fall in love with each other and start having a forbidden and secret romance, secret and forbidden because of their contrasting religions one Muslim one Christian. They plan for marriage, but Casim knows that this marriage would fail, and his parents would never accept him to marry a catholic girl. Roisin is white, Irish and on top of all that she is a catholic, in their romance life and the vacations they took resulted to Casim lying about his whereabouts saying he was on a business trip. This raises very conflicted emotions for Casim, he is somewhat confused about what he wants in life, he feels guilty of deceiving his family, he also wants to be the loyal son, but he still cannot ignore what he feels. This results to the pair trying to determine if their love is strong for withstanding the consequences of their romantic relationship. This relationship brings in a lot of conflicts; Tahara classmates do not like her; Rukhsana tries to confront Roisin to make her leave their life, Roisin refuses. At the same time, Roisin priest refuses to give her a letter of approval until she breaks up the relationship she has with Casim. This shows that the existing conflict was not only on the side of Casim family but also on the side of Roisin and the people she lived with. All the people around Casim and Roisin want the relationship stopped Roisin possibility of losing her job is high, the Catholic Church threatens of disowning her, and to them the relationship between a catholic and a Muslim is immoral. The film brings in certain types of conflicts, conflicts between cultures, beliefs, ages, and the main one being between the Christians and the Muslims. To all those involve the love affair brings dishonor to the catholic and to the Muslim. All this conflicts bring in the main theme in the movie, the theme of conflicting identities. Both the Catholics and the Muslim fight for unity in all the religions but as evident this fails in the movie, both the two religions think that associating with either of religion is a dishonor to the religions. The Catholics think that associating with the Muslims is a dishonor to the whole religion and son does the Muslims (Siddiqui, 2008) At some point in the movie Casim visits home, here he finds that his father shows him the newly constructed room for him and his future Pakistani wife (and not Roisin). His father says, "think of 25 years down the road. What happens when you do not have your health, your money, your resources, what happens? She will kick you out (Roisin). Dont let her come between us." This statement shows what the Muslims exactly think about the Catholics; they view them in their negative side, and they believe that if Casim proceeds to marry Roisin, then she will wreck the whole family. Some of the characters in the movie fail to adhere to the teachings taught in the Quran, they fail to follow the taught Muslim ethics, spirituality, practices, and cultures. The teaching mainly based on love unity within the different cultures and different religions. The practices as per the teachings focus on good Islamic ethics. The beliefs for Muslims in the movie violate the teachings about the Muslims beliefs. The movie brings light on the discrepancies and the conflicts in the identity and the cultures the Muslims face in their day-to-day life. These discrepancies tend to move from school, jobs, and relationships while living in the western countries. The director of the film uses the theme of conflict; this theme is mainly between the catholic and the Muslim religion. The conflicts in the movie result from the forbidden relationship between Casim and Roisin, they are both in love, but they belong to a different religion. Both the religions, Islam, and Catholics want the relationship ended; they think it is a dishonor to their religion. This however is wrong as both the religions promote unity and try to abolish conflicts, the book following Mohammed basis its arguments on the new ways to promote unity among cultures. The director portrays the theme also by use of different conflicting identities, in the film there is the Pakistani family where Casim comes from and there is Roisin a catholic girl and the Catholic Church she comes from. The Catholic Church does not want Roisin to continue the relationship she has with Casim to an extent that the church priest refuses to sign the approve letters for Roisin. On the other hand, there are the Pakistani families who already have chosen a wife for Casim, according to Tariq, Casims father marrying the catholic girl would be a dishonor to the family (Ernst, 2003) The director uses belief as a theme; religious beliefs, the two main characters come from different religions possessing different beliefs. Their religions however hold certain beliefs that restrict them to get married to other religions. For the Muslims, they do not believe in marriage outside their religion. They believe that a Muslim should marry another Muslim. For the Catholics marrying a Muslim, will bring dishonor to the church. In the film, Rukhsana (Casims sister) fiancé abandons her as he holds on to the belief that the relationship between Casim and the catholic girl Roisin would bring dishonor to the whole family. He avoids marrying a girl from a dishonored family. A critique towards this theme is that it is wrong as one of the pillars holding the Muslim religion apart from unity is love. They believe that one should love one another even if it is an outsider. This also goes for the Catholics who hold to the Ten Commandments with one of them being to love one another. The film portrays a violation of this theme from both the religions (Ernst, 2003) The movie has several moral issues; these moral issues involve the different beliefs each religion in the movie holds. These moral beliefs bring rise to the issues between the Catholics and the Muslim, at some point in the movie we see Tahara talking about what she thinks about her religion and how she thinks other religions feel about Muslims. She talks about other religions accusing the Muslims of being terrorists and fundamentalists, in a new world she talks about all the difficulties the Muslims face in order to fit in. another point in the movie evident of existence of moral issues is where Casims describes to Roisin the difficulties they face, Casim says " I have seen my father stabbed in front of my eyes and almost bled to death on my eyes." This all results from racist violence, and isolation the Muslim religion faces through their day-to-day life. In addition, Tariq describes what he thinks will happen to Casim when he gets old after he marries Roisin. To the Muslim all, the wealth passes through generation but to Tariq, if Casim brings in an outsider (Roisin) then all they built will be lost in the air. This Catholics also portrayed moral issues; they threaten to disown Roisin if she proceeds with the marriage to Casim (Siddiqui, 2008) One of the main characters possessing the extremist character is Casims father Tariq. Tariq holds on to the strong beliefs of the Muslim religions; he believes that bringing an outsider to the family is a sign of dishonor to the family and to his religion in general. All the values taught to him through his life makes him even a stronger believer in the religion; he and his wife Sadia intend to pass these values to their children (Casim, Rukhsana, and Tahara). In the movie, Tariq asks Casim about his culture, his religion, and even his values. He tries to convince Casim not to throw all this away just for the love of a white catholic girl. Casim also portrays the culture of an extremist in the movie; his confusion shows it all. Confusion overwhelms Casim on whether it is worth leaving his Muslim life to marry the catholic girl Roisin. Casim is confused between his loyalness to his Muslim family; he is "black" but intends to marry an Irish, white girl. The feeling of deceit he feels for his family shows his "extremist" character. Another extremist in the movie is Tahara, Casims sister, he believes that the Muslim religion is oppressed and victimized by other religions. Tahara however holds to the fact that she is Muslim and proud; he says, "I am mixture and proud of it." Rukhsana is also an extremist, she holds strong beliefs in the Muslim religion, she believes that if Casim marries the catholic girl then the family is left shattered and dishonored. She tries to confront Roisin to get out of Casims life in failure (Khalidi, 2008) The film "ae fond kiss" leaves some questions, these questions include; what matters more? What brings us together? Are its religious beliefs? Is it love or unity? Should we hold on to our religious beliefs and forget what are the pillars holding the religions together? What is the basic outlook in life? However, love and unity holds religions together Work cited Ernst, Carl W. Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Chapel Hill (N.C.): U of North Carolina, 2003. Print. Khalidi, Tarif. The Quran: A New Translation. London: Penguin, 2008. Print Siddiqui, M. How to Read the Quran. London: Norton, 2008. Print. "Cinema, Culture & Society." Ae Fond Kiss by Elena Oliete. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. . "Ae Fond Kiss.." A Nook in the Woods. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. . Ae Fond Kiss . A-Film, 2004. Film. Read More