Blue Tower is another film which suggests that the most interesting movie-making coming out of the UK is taking place in the obscure margins of the independent sector, where the demands of genre and accountancy hold less sway.
Blue Tower is a low budget film which has taken three years to get from production to completion. It's a quirky film, set in Southall, a predominantly Asian corner of London. The lead character, the febrile Mohan, is a second generation Asian played with edgy unease by Abhin Galeya. However, whilst this may be a British film steeped in Asian Britain, capturing aspects of that culture, this is not its raison d'etre. At its heart Blue Tower is an acute character study of a man whose apparently stable life is slowly falling to pieces, as his marriage, his car, his inheritance and his social world all gradually disintegrate.
Mohan's last remaining relative is his aunt, Kamla. Inidira Joshi captures the bedridden widow in all her vanity, luxuriating in the power contained in the money hoarded in shoe boxes in her cupboard. She's sent a white NHS nurse, Judy, who Mohan falls for, beginning an affair which seems like further evidence of his alienation. Mohan realises how far his life has slipped from its predicted course when the Red Tower, a reassuring sight from his local skyline, is replaced by a vast, threatening blue gasworks tower. The towers look like something out of a De Chirico painting, each possessing a looming inanimate force, the planets of Mohan's fragile solar system.
Bhide's narrative is peppered with twists and turns which ensure that Mohan's eventual fate, whilst always heading in the direction one would have expected the gods to have ordained, is never clear-cut. The unpredictable lurks around the corner both for him and the audience. At the same time the film offers a succinct portrayal of the world Mohan seems to be striving to escape, the Balti house loafers and the vainglorious family patriarch who is his father-in-law (who lives in the ironically named 'White House'). Bhide has an easy flair with set piece scenes, the Indian party and the excursion to the Southall horse market standing out in particular.
Blue Tower is far from perfect. There may be one or two narrative twists too many, and there's some of the inevitable whimsicality of a first time director. However, the film brings out a succession of impressive performances, and the relationships, no matter how heightened their circumstances, are always convincing. Above and beyond this, there is something inordinately refreshing in watching a film that's trying to do something different; that's not giving the audience what they expect. Its an Asian film that's prepared to offer a critical take of Asian family life; it's a film set in a clearly defined community which is all about the lead character's deeply individualistic journey.
Through it's carefully constructed account of Mohan's trials and tribulations, Blue Tower helps to re-examine the notion of the marginal in our society, moving beyond recently established understandings of that term. Mohan seems to no more identify with his 'Indian-ness' than his 'English-ness'. He's as lost as a Camus anti-hero, desperately hoping that someone (in this case a cunning but not obviously intelligent white NHS nurse) will help him find a way out of the labyrinth. As it describes Mohan's fate, the film opens up a vista for the issues that will confront a globalised culture when it moves beyond the second, third or fourth generation, and a 'national identity' will have become even more of a fragmentary concept.
Although it explores these notions in the most entertaining of fashions, the film's willingness to play with narrative and genre expectations could well mean that Blue Tower proves to be a hard sell for its producers. But, unless these films are made (and as mentioned above it seems like the only place they're liable to be made in this country right now will be in the low-budget sector) how is an audience ever supposed to find out whether or not it might have an appetite for something off the beaten track? Blue Tower's idiosyncrasy may not intially appear be a commercial asset, but it's what marks it out as a film with a distinctive cinematic verve which will resonate long after the candy floss has been forgotten.
Blue Tower is a low budget film which has taken three years to get from production to completion. It's a quirky film, set in Southall, a predominantly Asian corner of London. The lead character, the febrile Mohan, is a second generation Asian played with edgy unease by Abhin Galeya. However, whilst this may be a British film steeped in Asian Britain, capturing aspects of that culture, this is not its raison d'etre. At its heart Blue Tower is an acute character study of a man whose apparently stable life is slowly falling to pieces, as his marriage, his car, his inheritance and his social world all gradually disintegrate.
Mohan's last remaining relative is his aunt, Kamla. Inidira Joshi captures the bedridden widow in all her vanity, luxuriating in the power contained in the money hoarded in shoe boxes in her cupboard. She's sent a white NHS nurse, Judy, who Mohan falls for, beginning an affair which seems like further evidence of his alienation. Mohan realises how far his life has slipped from its predicted course when the Red Tower, a reassuring sight from his local skyline, is replaced by a vast, threatening blue gasworks tower. The towers look like something out of a De Chirico painting, each possessing a looming inanimate force, the planets of Mohan's fragile solar system.
Bhide's narrative is peppered with twists and turns which ensure that Mohan's eventual fate, whilst always heading in the direction one would have expected the gods to have ordained, is never clear-cut. The unpredictable lurks around the corner both for him and the audience. At the same time the film offers a succinct portrayal of the world Mohan seems to be striving to escape, the Balti house loafers and the vainglorious family patriarch who is his father-in-law (who lives in the ironically named 'White House'). Bhide has an easy flair with set piece scenes, the Indian party and the excursion to the Southall horse market standing out in particular.
Blue Tower is far from perfect. There may be one or two narrative twists too many, and there's some of the inevitable whimsicality of a first time director. However, the film brings out a succession of impressive performances, and the relationships, no matter how heightened their circumstances, are always convincing. Above and beyond this, there is something inordinately refreshing in watching a film that's trying to do something different; that's not giving the audience what they expect. Its an Asian film that's prepared to offer a critical take of Asian family life; it's a film set in a clearly defined community which is all about the lead character's deeply individualistic journey.
Through it's carefully constructed account of Mohan's trials and tribulations, Blue Tower helps to re-examine the notion of the marginal in our society, moving beyond recently established understandings of that term. Mohan seems to no more identify with his 'Indian-ness' than his 'English-ness'. He's as lost as a Camus anti-hero, desperately hoping that someone (in this case a cunning but not obviously intelligent white NHS nurse) will help him find a way out of the labyrinth. As it describes Mohan's fate, the film opens up a vista for the issues that will confront a globalised culture when it moves beyond the second, third or fourth generation, and a 'national identity' will have become even more of a fragmentary concept.
Although it explores these notions in the most entertaining of fashions, the film's willingness to play with narrative and genre expectations could well mean that Blue Tower proves to be a hard sell for its producers. But, unless these films are made (and as mentioned above it seems like the only place they're liable to be made in this country right now will be in the low-budget sector) how is an audience ever supposed to find out whether or not it might have an appetite for something off the beaten track? Blue Tower's idiosyncrasy may not intially appear be a commercial asset, but it's what marks it out as a film with a distinctive cinematic verve which will resonate long after the candy floss has been forgotten.
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