"Ae Fond Kiss" manages to find appealing freshness in a tale probably older than "Romeo and Juliet."
There have been many, many films that have dealt with the conflicts between young lovers from different ethnic or racial backgrounds and there's strengths and weaknesses in how director Ken Loach and his frequent collaborator writer Paul Laverty avoided some clichés while stridently emphasizing some others.
The fresh POV is that the young Glaswegian Muslim/Catholic couple is not naive teenagers experiencing love for the first time, conflating The Other with sexual discovery, but experienced 20-somethings who know perfectly well about the vagaries of relationships. He even expresses surprise that she had entered into her first marriage at the young age of 19.
In addition, this is the first such genre film I can think of where the one in the couple feeling the pull of traditional responsibilities is the guy; usually it's the girl who is drawn to assimilate by a handsome charmer. The gender switch provides an interesting dynamic that effectively shows how ethnic and racial tensions add to the simple interactions or the usual up and down strains that any new relationship goes through. For example, his seductive reaching out to her on an early date emphasizes his fascination with her wavy blonde hair.
While their relationship is allowed to grow gradually out of a mutual interest in music, they develop a frankly, deliciously sexual relationship, whereas most films in the genre gauzily avoid such aspects of interracial romance, going beyond "Mississippi Marsala." They verbally express their feelings for each other with gentle sparring use of epithets -- this is also the first film in the genre I can think of where despite everything they go through they do not declare "I love you."
Each has complexities and pressures in their personal lives that the relationship complicates. Some effort is made to present the Muslim family's viewpoint as coming out of a protective reflex against experienced bigotry from the violence of the Indian partition on. She points out she can't consider his parents as individuals who are other than bigots if he never lets her meet them.
While a younger sister is a conventional rebel (it's a risible cliché of this genre that she wants to be a writer), the older sister has accommodated herself to her cultural requirements in a way to be content in the contemporary world, but this leads her to be desperately pro-active against the couple.
Poignantly, communication across the divide is almost not possible, that slim reed called love may not conquer all, and there is genuine suspense as they split and reunite and split under the stress.
The lead actors are enormously appealing and believable, so we have great compassion for them. George Fenton's music helps to maintain the romantic atmosphere.
On the strident side, their meeting cute is by her breaking up a fight between his sister and racial taunters. The bigotry angle is hammered home culturally incongruously by displays of the notorious lynching postcards with "Strange Fruit" playing in the background.
The Scottish brogues are mostly comprehensible to American ears, though the specifics of some jocular exchanges are lost.
The cinematography well conveys gritty Glasgow.
There have been many, many films that have dealt with the conflicts between young lovers from different ethnic or racial backgrounds and there's strengths and weaknesses in how director Ken Loach and his frequent collaborator writer Paul Laverty avoided some clichés while stridently emphasizing some others.
The fresh POV is that the young Glaswegian Muslim/Catholic couple is not naive teenagers experiencing love for the first time, conflating The Other with sexual discovery, but experienced 20-somethings who know perfectly well about the vagaries of relationships. He even expresses surprise that she had entered into her first marriage at the young age of 19.
In addition, this is the first such genre film I can think of where the one in the couple feeling the pull of traditional responsibilities is the guy; usually it's the girl who is drawn to assimilate by a handsome charmer. The gender switch provides an interesting dynamic that effectively shows how ethnic and racial tensions add to the simple interactions or the usual up and down strains that any new relationship goes through. For example, his seductive reaching out to her on an early date emphasizes his fascination with her wavy blonde hair.
While their relationship is allowed to grow gradually out of a mutual interest in music, they develop a frankly, deliciously sexual relationship, whereas most films in the genre gauzily avoid such aspects of interracial romance, going beyond "Mississippi Marsala." They verbally express their feelings for each other with gentle sparring use of epithets -- this is also the first film in the genre I can think of where despite everything they go through they do not declare "I love you."
Each has complexities and pressures in their personal lives that the relationship complicates. Some effort is made to present the Muslim family's viewpoint as coming out of a protective reflex against experienced bigotry from the violence of the Indian partition on. She points out she can't consider his parents as individuals who are other than bigots if he never lets her meet them.
While a younger sister is a conventional rebel (it's a risible cliché of this genre that she wants to be a writer), the older sister has accommodated herself to her cultural requirements in a way to be content in the contemporary world, but this leads her to be desperately pro-active against the couple.
Poignantly, communication across the divide is almost not possible, that slim reed called love may not conquer all, and there is genuine suspense as they split and reunite and split under the stress.
The lead actors are enormously appealing and believable, so we have great compassion for them. George Fenton's music helps to maintain the romantic atmosphere.
On the strident side, their meeting cute is by her breaking up a fight between his sister and racial taunters. The bigotry angle is hammered home culturally incongruously by displays of the notorious lynching postcards with "Strange Fruit" playing in the background.
The Scottish brogues are mostly comprehensible to American ears, though the specifics of some jocular exchanges are lost.
The cinematography well conveys gritty Glasgow.