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These aren’t straight musical numbers – the cast sing along to Springsteen’s vocals rather than going acapella – and that style is a little weird initially, but you’re itching to join in by the end.īlinded By The Light is all about the way it makes you feel, and that’s undeniable. Each musical sequence is injected with kinetic energy, whether it’s the lyrics of ‘The Promised Land’ appearing on screen as Javed experiences the infamous hurricane of 1987 or a euphoric rendition of ‘Born to Run’ while running through the streets and fields of Luton. The Springsteen songbook is the perfect evocation of amplifying a working class voice through music, and Chadha’s film recognises the power of those lyrics. Chadha’s film is far better when allowed to evoke its period through the well-observed and obviously lived-in community it depicts. An early montage of newsreel footage and cultural highlights, soundtracked by the Pet Shop Boys track ‘It’s a Sin’, feels like an obvious trapping of these movies and sits as inferior to Shane Meadows’ This Is England. The film’s 1980s setting is an interesting one, though it feels well-worn given the decade’s ubiquity in modern cinema.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT BRUCE FULL
Ghir’s performance is full of physicality, as if he is carrying the weight of his entire family on his shoulders, even while delivering some of the script’s funniest lines. This puts him constantly at odds with his son, whose heart may as well be sewn permanently on to his sleeve. He’s a man brought up to believe that the man of a house should be its unflappable provider, seldom allowing his rich emotional core to burst out into the world. Kalra is completely believable as an earnest dreamer, while Ghir is a hulking mass of unspoken complexities as Javed’s father. Much of this truth comes from the excellent central performances.
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BLINDED BY THE LIGHT BRUCE MOVIE
There’s a truth and a cultural specifity to everything that happens here, which allows it to be optimistic to a fault without ever slipping into saccharine movie fakery.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT BRUCE TORRENT
Gurinder Chadha, from the director’s chair, brings colourful flair just as she did with coming-of-age classic Bend It Like Beckham and the honesty and sense of fun in the script keeps its head above the raging torrent of potential schmaltz. Suddenly, he is able to embrace his creative heart and challenge the racist world in which he is growing up.Īs that plot summary suggests, Blinded By The Light is always dangling on the precipice of an abyss of unpalatable cheese. A fellow Pakistani in his class (Aaron Phagura) introduces him to the music of Springsteen, which gives Javed a new lease of life. He has dreams of being a writer, which are nurtured by his teacher (Hayley Atwell), but his pushy father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) has other, more practical ideas.
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Viveik Kalra plays Javed, who serves as Manzoor’s surrogate.
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More simply, though, this is an inspiring and joyous tale of a young man finding his voice and his home. Blinded By The Light, co-written by Manzoor, tells that story, with the music of The Boss running alongside an era of political unrest and intolerance. That, however, was the reality for journalist Sarfraz Manzoor when his family emigrated from the province of Punjab to the Bury Park area of Luton in 1979. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the music of American icon Bruce Springsteen is an odd choice of inspiration for a Pakistani teenager in Thatcher’s Britain during the 1980s.