Brick Lane (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	97:40 (Case: 101)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (49:49)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Sarah Gavron
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Tannishtha Chatterjee Satish Kaushik Christopher Simpson
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Jocelyn Pook

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Starting in the mid-1980s, a 17 year old Bengali girl, named Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee), is sent to London after the shocking death of her mother. She is to marry an older, educated man named Chanu (Satish Kaushik). The most difficult part of this transition is not the loss of her mother, but the fact she has to leave her younger sister behind.

    16 years later, in 2001, Nazneen finds herself trapped in the same loveless marriage, looking after her two teenage girls in their cramped flat on Brick Lane (home of London's largest Bangladeshi community). Nazneen relyies on occasional correspondence from her long lost sister to get her through her monotonous life and is desperate to return home to see her sister again. Her husband is a stubborn academic snob, who has never reached the level of income or respect he believes he deserves. Most of his frustration is taken out in verbal tirades to his long-suffering wife.

    Nazneen stumbles upon an opportunity to make herself some pocket money, hoping to get enough for a trip to Bangladesh, sewing knock-off clothes for a young local entrepeneur, second generation Londoner Karim (Christopher Simpson). The pair steadily form a love for one another, but their affair is complicated when a crooked local money lender gets wind of the affair and the September 11 attacks elevate racial tentions in London.

    Brick Lane is based on a novel by Monica Ali. Both the film and book sparked controversy in the UK upon their respective releases, leading to protests from the Bangladeshi community. The centre of the controversy wasn't the affair or the general plot, but the oafish, cliched characters that populate the story. Protesting the work is perhaps a little over the top, but in many regards it is easy to understand where the complaint lies and sympathise with it.

    The characters are hard to swallow. Their circumstances towards the start of the film are implausible, particularly given the timeframes the film works with, and the progressions the characters make are unbelievable and occasionally illogical, at least as far as we see onscreen. Nazneen, for example, acts like someone who has struggled in a new country for a couple of years, not 16.

    The film does succeed on some levels. It certainly does a good job of drawing attention to a lesser know community that is thriving in London. The romantic angle, and the acting in general, is very well played. Though the story jumps around without any apparent direction, the flow of the narrative is surprisingly easy to swallow.

    Brick Lane is certainly worth a look for anyone who wants to look into a different walk of life, but most viewers will be left wanting a deeper and more acurate flavour of the culture they are sampling.

Video

    The film is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, which is an open matte of the theatrical 2.45:1 aspect ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video is of a particularly high standard. The image is sharp and free from noticeable grain and low level noise. The video features plenty of detail in shadows and dark areas.

    The rich, vibrant colour scheme of the film looks excellent.

    There is no sign of film artefacts or compression related artefacts in the video.

    English subtitles are present for non-English portions of the feature, but not the whole film.

    This is a RSDL disc. The layer break occurs at 49:49 but was not noticeable on my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A single English/Hindi Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kbps) audio track is present for the film.

    The audio sounds clear and cleanly mixed, but somewhat flat and lifeless thanks to the limited stereo in the mix. The dialogue is easy to understand and appears to be well snchronised to the video.

    The film features a fitting score from composer Jocelyn Pook, which pulls together traditional Bengali instruments and chants to a standard piano/orchestral score.

    There is no surround speaker use or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Deleted Scenes (10:47)

    A series of fairly bland deleted scenes, none of which add terribly much to the film (probably why they were deleted). Presented in a non 16x9 enhanced, 1.78:1 ratio.

Theatrical Trailer (2:12)

    A fairly routine dramatic trailer for the film.

    Brick Lane is not yet available in Region 1.

    The region 2 edition features several additional extras to those found on the Region 4 edition, clearly making it the version of choice. They are:

• A conversation with Monica Ali and Hanif Kureishi at the ICA,
• Exploring Brick Lane,
• Interview with Sarah Gavron,
• Interview with Tannishtha Chatterjee and Christopher Simpson,
• Interview with Satish Kaushik,
• Commentary by Sarah Gavron (director) and Chris Collins (producer)

    A hit-and-miss exploration of a young Bangladeshi woman finding her place in her London community.

    The video is excellent. The audio is flat 2.0 stereo, but is serviceable for what it is. The extras are light-on.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall