Bricklane Reaction Paper

Bricklane Reaction Paper

Reaction to the movie “Brick Lane”

The film “Brick Lane” centers on a very traditional woman from India with strict moral principals that define her character.   Nazneen, who came to England from Bangladesh as a teenager for an arranged marriage, moves through her East London neighborhood as if determined to attract as little attention as possible. While at home, in her cramped apartment, she quietly makes sure the needs of her husband and two daughters are taken care of.   The way this movie frames the conflict between new world and old, fate and self-determination, is the main story.   It's set up by the contrast between the arranged husband and the affair she has with a young textile salesmen, which eventually leads to Nazneen having to chose which life to follow.
While living in Britain, Nazneen dreams constantly of her homeland. The movie is filled with vivid flashbacks of her youth with her sister, and in her mind, how at home and comfortable she felt in Bangladesh. Nazneen's early life, however, wasn't perfect. The opening scene sets the tone for the entire movie.   Before Nazneen’s depressed mother drowns herself, she says to her kids, don’t run from fate.   She also mentions that men ask the questions and Nazneen’s fate was decided when she was born a girl. Even with such sorrow at the beginning of the movie, Bangladesh is presented as being lush, and a place vibrating with life and color. Then, a teenage Nazneen, adorned from head to toe, drifts away, in more meanings that just one, on a small boat in a river. She is bound for an arranged marriage, and, with it, a home in Brick Lane, a predominantly Bengali neighborhood of London.
The movie shifts to a dreary setting in London, years later, where we meet her arranged husband who we can tell from that instant she does not have a passionate love for. Nazneen's arranged husband, is an overweight, gentle, slightly ignorant man who snores at night and goes on about some philosopher, during the day, but has...