Customer Reviews

The Buddha of Suburbia

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie (miniseries, actually) remains on my top ten list of favorite films. The writing, the acting , the storyline, everything, just leaves me wanting to watch more (after four hours, that is saying a lot!). This film is inventive and captivating without a lot of special effects or high budget - it is just good. The basis of the story is the coming of age in 1960's London, of Kareem, (played by Naveen Andrews, from the English Patient) who is the son of and Englishwoman and Indian man. His place in English culture, in Indian culture, among his respective extended families on each side, as well as his place in life - exploring his career options, his [body], etc. - make this a thoroughly enjoyable experience. This movie is very entertaining and quite funny, especially when Kareem's ... father decides to jump on the East-West Hindu yoga and spirituality bandwagon of the sixties to make money. I just cannot describe all of the amusing and touching scenes from this film that make it such a gem. Very well made, and it has a very good soundtrack as well, featuring some good David Bowie songs. This film is a must-see.

I loved it. Fantastic attention to detail with its 70's setting (Walnut Whip package, teenager room walls, the cars...) Humorous. Insightful, enlightening. Lovely how this care free-drifter type grows assertive and aimful after finding his niche in life. There is more to this movie then what is visually presented to you. Seemingly dynamic main character. I was sad when it was over, only because there wasn't a third tape to put in.

Wonderful BBC film adaptation of the Hanif Kureishi novel of the same name. The translation to the small screen worked well primarily because Kureishi himself co-wrote the screenplay.

A satirical witty look at bi-racial issues in the teeming London (and its suburbs) of the 1970's. The film is unexperimental on a cinematographic level but carried brilliantly by a well writen screenplay and superior acting.

Narrated from the perspective of a selfish young man, this is on the surface a tale of a suburban London youth trying to get laid and make it in the world.

Issues of family and commitment are looked at with a subtlety that is refreshing in a world of films that often try to beat you over the head with their moralizations.

Karim is confussed about the world around him (as young people all are) and trying to balance loyalty to his quirky family with the duality of his racially mixed background. All of this is set upon a backdrop of a young man trying to find sex and excitement and his place in the world.

As a great fan of the novel, it's difficult for me to understand such rave reviews of Naveen Andrews in the role of Karim. He almost ruined this series for me, and his range of expression is limited to three expressions: smug arrogance, self-pitying puppy-dog-eyed loser, and insipid smirk. He is surrounded by amazing talent, especially the actors who play his father, his cousin, and his cousin's wife Changez. The rest of the production is mostly well-done, from setting the scene in 1970s England and portraying the political issues of the time, to creating a believable relationship between Karim's father and his wife and mistress Eva. The fact that Andrews neither looks remotely like the actor playing his father, nor is he biracial, irksomely detracts from the realism of the inner conflict about his identity. Brenda Blethyn plays her typical shuddering, insecure and repressed working-class Brit and is annoying as ever. Watch if you love the novel and for the overall quality of the production, but mindful of the fact that the casting and direction has let the novel down on several key characters.

This movie documents the struggle of Asian-Pakistani immigrants to Britain and how racism, culture and Britain in the 70s and 80s affected this family and the main character Kareem. In many ways this movie reminds me of a American movie Mi Familia that documents the life of a Mexican-American family throught the 70s to present day. It also shows that second generation people have many problems to encounter besides the usual racism and stereotypes. Naveen Andrews is a great actor and has done much for Asian-Indians all over the world. If you have an open mind watch this movie if not there's always the next blockbuster.

A surprising series from the BBC that comes to us from the rather distant time of 1993, but that speaks of the 1970s, the time of punk and the beginning of Margaret Thatcher who was already out when the mini series was produced. And they bring it out in 2007 in the DVD format. At last some may say. These time lags are very interesting because the meaning of the story is completely different according to the time you stand in. At the time of the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, the National Front was a real danger, and the mini-series shows it quite well and it is Margaret Thatcher who thwarted this National Front's ambition completely and utterly by recuperating their votes. It was a time when the left thought along the narrow line of an old model, that of the communist inspired unions, particularly the mineworkers' union, and of the Labor left of Tony Benn, the aristocrat turned a strict socialist. And they needed to be woken up to reality and they were by Margaret Thatcher again. They had to realize the old more or less violent and always intimidating methods were wrong and that the system of the free market economy was not collapsing at all because market economy was not, still is not and will certainly not be collapsing, even if its management is changing and will be changing maybe towards a more controlled, smooth and just functioning. The film looks at the extremely crucial issue of the time: the integration of the massive immigration from South Asia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It considers this movement from a mixed point of view. First of all the point of view of the immigrants themselves, and particularly one young man who is the son of an Indian man and an English woman. His vision is always divided because he is mixing with people from both communities. It shows both his very Indian approach of personal relations that takes sex for what it is, nothing much except some kind of relaxing way of meeting with other people. Then the orientation is not important at all. But at the same time he desires some deep sentimental and emotional commitment and that runs in conflict with the English approach of things that more or less considers commitment like a downfall, a fault, a flaw in the free texture of life at the time. Since he is not an opportunist he ends up stepping out of a group in which sex was some kind of payment for a career, and since his profession is acting, that leads him to some kind of rather aloof position though all the more chased after because he appears hard to catch. At the same time we have the point of view of the white actors and directors who want to give Indians their chance to be well represented on the stage but then these Indians run into the African blacks who do not have the Indian distantiation (the Blacks are not beige enough as this young man says) and who consider a humorous discourse about Indian immigrants to be yielding to the white representation a society they essentially see as racist is imposing onto them. If you add to that the punk music of one of these white friends of the main actor's you have the full picture. This punk movement was definitely on one hand an extreme and excessive denunciation of white fascism but it also led at the time to the antagonistic movement of the skinheads who were racist and violent. In other words that was a time when things were very volatile and changing too fast for anyone to know which way they were going. That was the time of the squatters and the Claimants' Union. Strangely enough though most of these claimants were whites who wanted to use the social protection that had been set up after the war and up to the end of the 60s to live in poor but decent conditions, with no regular profession but plenty of time to prop up all kinds of protest movements. I remember the squats of the White Chapel area and the punk concerts of the Marquee and the Roundhouse of these mid and late mid 70s. That was a time worth living and that is a time worth remembering. This miniseries gives us a fair picture of what could today inspire us slightly more: there is no future for any country and the people of those countries if there is not a fair dose of freedom, diversity and hard work.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Naveen Andrews is great and this is his GREATEST role!!!! The story presents liberal-minded thoughts on racial issues and sexual freedom. The characters are well-developed and bring a true sense of reality to the film. I would recommend this film to anyone!

but perhaps thats what happens when the author writes the screenplay. no one but naveen andrews could have played creamy; no one else can possess quite the same mixture of vulnerability and endearing snottiness and manage to be so sexy at the same time. though the novel and the film are set in the 70s, the genX feeling is overwhelming, allowing me to connect w/ creamy in a way that few other protagonists in contemporary novels/film have allowed me to do. perhaps its kureishi's voice and narrative, perhaps its the presence of an arguably genX actor. but anyway you slice it, _buddha_ is a wonderfully real escape that doesnt end before youre ready--its 4 hours long!

Hanif Kureshi's television film production is wonderfully adapted. I encourage you to read the novel, and then view the film. Both the film and novel are great. Bowie's soundtrack to the film is both creative and different from his usual works. Too bad this film does not have a huge following in the US. I highly reccomend purchasing or viewing this film; rare to find in a video rental shop so buy the video here.

I went to the US Premiere at the Boston MFA a few years ago...the soundtrack is incredible-- original David Bowie..and some great story lines...probably not as good as the book though..