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Commentary - Bend It Like Beckham

Bruce Dawson talked to Gurinder Chadha at the Puchon Film Festival in Korea about her film "Bend It Like Beckham" a major box-office success on both sides of the Atlantic.

The film reveals the world of Jess, an 18-year-old Indian girl in London, who dreams of being a star player like her hero, England's captain David Beckham. The film explores the similarities and contrasts in family, culture and values between the British and Indian communities in contemporary London.

Bruce Dawson: How did you get into filmmaking?

Gurinder Chadha: I wound up doing a dissertation in university on the media creating images of women, and I got very, very interested in how powerful the media was in constructing ideas about people like me and my community. I just thought it was very important to get involved and somehow tell different stories and share different sides. I got a break with the BFI, the British Film Institute, which was doing a new scheme called "The New Directors." If you had a good idea for a movie and showed that you could make it, you could apply even with no training in film.

BD: What is the British conception of "Asia?"

Chadha: Well, when I say "Asia," I mean India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I think it's one of the great things about Britain these days that there are so many debates about what we call ourselves. Now we call ourselves many different things; my work is all about "Why call yourself one thing when you can call yourself 20 different things?"

BD: Is that part of what "Bend It Like Beckham" is about?

Chadha: Exactly. It's about cultural identity, about gender, in terms of who decides what it means to be the perfect woman. With Jess, her mom doesn't think she's a woman unless she cooks perfect Indian food, and her father initially says, "You shouldn't play football, it isn't nice (for a lady)." But in the end, he changes his opinion because he sees how good she is. So it's all about how we see ourselves and how those opinions change.

BD: You said just before the opening, "It's the first time the film will be shown with subtitles, so if nobody laughs, I'll know the subtitles are wrong."

Chadha: It was really interesting to me that all the stuff that had to do with tradition and family, all that really came over to the Korean audience. Plus, all the stuff about sexuality really translated.

BD: How do you tell a good story?

Chadha: What I try to do is show everyone's point of view, where you can sympathize with the parent's generation, the kid's generation, where the boys are coming from, where the girls are coming from. So it's not to say who's right in my films, but to push the audience to look at all the different sides. The Asian, or Indian community, is a really strong, confident one, and people can move freely from the Asian to the British culture. My film is very much showing that world, that unapologetic attitude.

BD: So it's all champagne and roses, then?

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Chadha: I'm not saying there isn't racism or prejudice, of course there is, but for my film to be such a huge hit in Britain and be considered a British film, not an Indian film, it just shows you how Britain has changed culturally. Before we used to say it's come to terms with its cultural diversity, but now I'd say it actively encourages it. In fact, I got a House of Commons bottle of Claret (wine) from (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair, who said he really loved the film!

BD: So what's next: Hollywood or Bollywood?

Chadha: Both (laughs). I've got two projects I'm working on at the moment. One is set in San Francisco and is based on a book called "The Mistress of Spices" about an Indian girl and an American guy, where she has to choose between the spices (tradition) and him. The Bollywood film is a musical set in India, England and the States, and transcends British film, Hollywood and Bollywood.

A version of this article was originally published in The Korea Herald

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