Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’s Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 172 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 172, February 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Bhaji on the Beach
Dir: Gourinder Chadha
Bhaji on the Beach is the kind of film you laugh out loud to. It’s the first feature length film in Britain to be directed by an Asian woman and features a mainly Asian cast.
At first the storyline doesn’t seem too promising. A group of Asian women take a day out from their lives and head off to Blackpool in the local Asian women’s centre’s minibus.
The film is refreshing because it doesn’t just view the women as victims of racism, or entrapped in a male dominated world, but as being able to break out and contradict expectations. And in doing so it springs a few surprises.
The conflicts in the lives of the women – all from different generations and backgrounds – run through the film. Rekha, visiting from Bombay, is dressed up to the nines in Western clothes, discarding the traditional clothes her counterparts in Britain cling to. Middle aged Asha finds romance with a veteran white actor she bumps into on the beach. Hashinda is pregnant by her black boyfriend and has to work out her future. Most hilariously portrayed are the two teenagers, out for a good time and in constant battle with the other women.
The main criticism I have of the film is that it tries too hard to make its points. So incorporated in the plot we have rebellious teenagers, a pregnant student, a grandmother, a feminist and a woman on the run from her violent husband who, along with his brothers, chases her to Blackpool. You end up feeling a bit bombarded with issues, however funnily they are dealt with.
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 7 March 2017