Viewing British Films Critically ELTeCS Tambov Film Project

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Viewing British Films CriticallyELTeCS Tambov
Film Project

• Study guide for My Beautiful Laundrette

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Cross-cultural discussion The rationale behind
the projects discussion group. Daniel
Barenboim, the famous Jewish pianist and
conductor, interviewed recently on German TV
about his special orchestra in which Israeli and
Palestinian young people play music together
said Of course playing Beethoven together
doesnt mean they automatically stop hating each
other. But by playing music together they learn
something, and they learn something about each
other. And I believe that ignorance is the basis
of hate.
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Study notes for My Beautiful Laundrette

• Aims of the course
• We hope you, get practice in understanding
  spoken English and find out something about
  modern Britain and modern British films, but the
  main aim of this course is
• to encourage you to discuss issues arising
  from the films.
• Often these will be conflicts been cultures
  or generations. Other students will be posting to
  the list in the same period as you and you should
  either respond, or start off a discussion by
  making some kind of statement about the film.
  Some later slides will give some useful phrases
  for starting a discussion.
• The film-discussion list is at
• http//www.film-viewing.yahoogroups.com

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• My Beautiful Laundrette
• This guide will be divided into 6 parts
• List of main characters
• Summary of story
• Pre-viewing activities
• While-viewing activities
• Post-viewing activities
• Supplementary, optional activities,

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List of main characters

• Nasser Omars uncle
• Papa Omars father
• Johnny Omars friend
• Omar
• Salim Omars cousin
• Tania Uncle Nasser's daughter
• Cherry Salims wife
• Genghis Johnnys fascist friend
• Rachel Omars uncles mistress

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2. Summary of the story

• My Beautiful Laundrette isnt really a film with
  a story that has a neat beginning, middle and
  end. It shows some scenes from the lives of the
  characters it presents.
• Johnny is thrown out of a squat that he sharing
  with a friend, Genghis.
• As it happens, though Johnny doesnt know it at
  the time, the person who is charge of the
  eviction is Omar's cousin, Salim.
• Omar, who is waiting to go to College, is looking
  after his alcoholic father (Papa). His mother has
  committed suicide.
• Omar's father is worried about him and phones
  his brother, Omars uncle Nasser, to give him a
  temporary job in his garage.
• One night, driving his cousin and wife home Omar
  encounters Johnny and some of his right-wing,
  fascist friends. Omar and Johnny went to school
  together and were formerly friends.
• 
  (continued)

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• 2.1
  (continued)
• Omar asks his uncle to let him manage a
  run-down laundrette in a poor area of London. His
  uncle agrees.
• Omar and Johnny meet again and Omar employs
  Johnny to help transform the laundrette.
• At one point Omar, sent to collect something
  for his cousin, keeps the drugs (hidden inside a
  false beard) and Johnny sells them. They use the
  money for the laundrette.
• Omars uncle is quite keen for him to marry his
  daughter. Tania. But Johnny and Omar have already
  become lovers and dont intend to part.
• Johnnys ex-friends become increasingly angry
  with him for leaving them and when Omars cousin
  deliberately runs into Genghis with his car and
  breaks his leg they take revenge. They wreck much
  of the laundrette, they wreck Omar's cousin's car
  and they beat him up badly.

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3. Pre-viewing activities

• See the next three slides.
• 
  (Continued)

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A reminder Screen images and good actors are very
compelling. But dont forget that the people you
see on the screen are actors and the rooms in
flats and houses you see are built in a film
studio and probably dont have four walls or a
ceiling. The actors are real people, but the
characters they play are not. Omars real name is
Gordon Warnecke and Johnnys real name is Daniel
Day Lewis. Omars father, in the film, isnt
really his father, of course, and he certainly
doesnt live in a noisy flat next to several
railway lines because he is a successful film
actor, Roshan Seth, and can afford something
better! The words Gordon and Daniel speak and
their actions were invented for them by Hanif
Kureishi, who wrote the script .
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Nevertheless.. Many critics think that one of
the reasons why Kureishis film is so successful
is that it does relate to real life, to life as
experienced by Pakistanis like Omar, and young
white men like Johnny who lived in London in
the 1980s. And weve included this film in the
Tambov Project Course in the belief that many
features of life in London for people like Omar
and Johnny havent changed totally and are
similar in the year 2004. To find out a little
more about life in Britain in the 1980s, Margaret
Thatcher, Paki- bashing, skin-heads and the
National Front, click on the links on the next
slide.
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Skin-heads Paki-bashing in the 1980s
http//www.meta-religion.com/Extremism/White_ex
tremism/Skinheads/skinheads.htm Margaret
Thatcher http//www.boycottliberalism.com/Thatc
her.htm http//www.britain.tv/ukpolitics_prime_m
inisters_margaret_thatcher.shtml
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4. While-viewing activities

• Watch the film as attentively as you can
  taking mental note of how characters look at each
  other and behave to each other as well as to what
  they say.
• I know what I am about to write will seem a
  bit strange, even silly, but try, in the
  semi-darkness, to scribble down very short
  written notes for yourself to remind you of
  points you want to make during the following
  discussion on the film-viewing list.
• ENJOY THE FILM!!!

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5. Post-viewing activities

• Read the next three slides.

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5.1 Starting off a discussion

• These are not comprehension questions to be
  answered. One by one. They are points for you to
  think about to guide you towards articulating
  your own thoughts.
• IF YOU HAVE A POINT OF YOUR OWN TO MAKE YOU MAY
  NOT NEED WHAT FOLLOWS
• Do you think people should live in squats i.e.
  living for free paying no rent - like Johnny
  was doing at the beginning of the film?
• Do you think the owner had the right to use force
  to get Johnny and his friends out of the house?
• Was the owner right to throw someone's
  possessions out of the window?
• What do you think of the way Omar treats his
  father? (cont)

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5.2 Some further points to get you thinking

• Which characters did you particularly
  like/dislike?
• Did you identify with one particular character?
  Which one? Can you say why?
• What do you think about Omars uncle having a
  mistress?
• Where would you rather live and why in Omars
  flat, in Johnnys room, in Omars cousins home,
  or in his uncles house?

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5.3 Prompt questions continued

• Were Omar and Johnny right to steal something
  from Omar's cousin to help finance the
  laundrette?
• Were Johnny's ex-friends right to beat up Omar's
  cousin so badly?
• Were you embarrassed to see pictures of Omar and
  Johnny kissing so intimately?
• Does it make you lose sympathy with Omar and
  Johnny that they obviously had sex together?

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5.4 Post a message

• Use your email program to post a message to
• Film-viewing_at_yahoogroups.com

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6. Supplementary activities

• For those of you with easy, fast access to
  the Internet there is a simple webquest. You use
  the web to answer the questions asked in the
  exercise.
• You will find the webquest at
• http//www.dennisnewson.de/wq1.htm