While watching Brick Lane I suspected that the actors in the film were not from Bangladesh, and found myself wondering about the extent to which Bangladeshi people have interacted with Western film, and even film in general. Here's what I've found out:
According to IMDB, the three main actors in Brick Lane are not in fact Bangladeshi. The woman who plays Nazneen, Tannishtha Chatterjee, and the man who plays Chanu, Satish Kaushik, are both Indian. (Satish Kaushik is also a writer, producer, and director of films). The actor who plays Karim, Christopher Simpson, was born in Dublin to an Irish father and a Greek-Rwandan mother.
As for Bangladesh actors in Western film. I found a few articles claiming that Sumalya Ahmed is cast to be the first Bangladeshi actress to play a heroine role in a Hollywood movie "Humble River", which is supposed to come out in 2013 (although it should be noted that most of these articles were from slightly sketchy-looking sources). It seems that Bangladeshi actors are quite integrated into Bollywood movies, though. If you go down Wikipedia's list of Bangladeshi actors, probably about eighty percent of them have the word "Bollywood" next to their name. I found a few who have dappled in some Western works, mostly TV, such as Lisa Ray(who guest-starred in Psych, apparently!).
My third curiosity-- the presence of a Bangladeshi film industry-- turned up results, although it is interesting that initially typing "Bangladeshi film" into Google gave me a bunch of hits for sites where I could download "Bangla movies for free!" Bangladesh does have its own thriving film industry, sometimes known as "Dhallywood" (as in Dhaka + Hollywood), and according to good old Wikipedia produces about 50 movies a year. There is a Bangladesh Film Archive that can be accessed online here: http://www.bfa.gov.bd/
Would it have added value, in your estimation, if the actors had hailed from Bangladesh?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. It could have added an extra degree of authenticity, perhaps? This is not to say that I didn't find the actors "authentic". When watching, I came to the realization that because my knowledge of Bangladesh is so limited that I couldn't tell if they were actually from Bangladesh or not, and if they weren't if their performance as someone from Bangladesh was accurate. Thus, my curiosity.
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
ReplyDeletethis information does seem to carry some weight with me. India has a bustling movie industry in Bollywood. I am sure it must be disheartening as a Bengali actor or actress to be brought up with a less famous, less reputable film industry in Dhallywood. While I don't know if having Bengali actors would have added value to the movie, I do think that a movie like Brick Lane has the opportunity in casting to give someone without a lot of experience a good first major role.
The issue of authenticity in a situation like this really is a fascinating one. Although I like the idea that I am viewing a wholly accurate representation of Bangladesh and its people living in London, I'm not sure, like Melissa said, that I would have any ability to discern the accuracy of its depiction. That being said, it begs the question of what value authenticity would have in a film adaptation of a novel like Brick Lane. Does the lack of Bangladeshi actors distort the intention of the book? I don't think so.
ReplyDelete