Bend it Like Beckham (2001, UK)

Director

Gurinder Chadha

Cast

Parminder K. Nagra (Jess Bahmra), Keira Knightley (Julie Paxton), Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anupan Kher (Mr Bhamra), Archie Panjabi, Shaheen Khan (Mrs Bhamra), Juliette Stevenson

Screenplay

Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berger, Guljit Bindra

Format

Live action, colour

Language

English

Running time

108 minutes

Classification

12

Distributor

Helkon SK

Genre

Contemporary drama/teen drama

Setting

London, 2001

Main characters

Jesminda (Jess), Julie and their coach, Joe

Narrative focus

Jess, as she struggles to pursue her footballing ambitions and reconcile the personal conflict with Julie

Synopsis

West London, the present day. Jesminda is an 18-year-old Asian girl with a talent for football. She is spotted by Julie, who plays for a local girls' team, and soon Jess joins the team. Subsequently, she must deal with her family's resistance to her passion as it doesn't conform to the career path her parents expect of her – to study law at university. Complicating matters further, Jess develops a relationship with Julie's boyfriend, Joe, who is the team coach.

Background

Bend It Like Beckham follows the success of East is East and preceded Channel 4's adaptation of Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Both of these projects explore what it means to be Asian in contemporary Britain, and as in these films, comedy informs the drama significantly. Gurinder Chadha, the director, has also directed Bhaji on the Beach (1993) and What's Cooking (2000), both films with ensemble female casts.

Commentary

Bend it Like Beckham reflects a British film and TV tradition of realism. For the scenes and sequences at Jess's home, the lighting has a flat, distant quality and the décor suggests a staid and traditional sense of Britishness. The camera tends to be locked off (stationary), denying the home any sense of energy. This contrasts with the use of a mobile camera during the football scenes, when the film has a richer (saturated) colour palette; sequences are cut quickly and are often supported by pop songs. This energy and intensity of action away from Jess's home makes visual the enriching experience that playing football is for her. Furthermore, this combination of image and music allows the film to speak directly to an audience the same age as the protagonists. For example, in the sequence where Jess and Julie go into central London to buy football boots there is no dialogue and no synchronous sound. Instead it is a montage of images cut to a song about ambition and moving forward. The sequence has the quality of a music video. Like other teen dramas, the film explores the relationship between parents and children, such as in the scene where Jess is at home with her parents after her mother has seen her in the park playing football. This domestic scene references key issues about what it is to be 'a proper woman' as defined by traditional Indian culture.

The film was part of an upsurge in the prominence of Asian culture in Britain in the late 1990s. It expresses the intersection of Asian and British culture across its narrative and the bonds and unities of the cultures most clearly and successfully through the use of inter-cutting between football training and preparations for an Indian wedding. Its closing image reinforces this sense of celebrating the fusion of cultures and traditions. Music also binds the disparate cultures together. We hear Indian music over football training montages and we hear British music (Texas's 'Inner Child') over the opening images of the wedding. There is an Indian cover version of a 1980s classic pop ballad, 'The Power of Love' by Jennifer Rush.

Also recommended

Billy Eliot (UK, 2000, Stephen Daldry) is about a young miner's son during the 1984 miners' strike who aspires to be a ballet dancer and inevitably faces opposition from his family.

Teaching suggestions (Key Stage 3, age 11-14)

Citizenship focus

• Significance of the media
• The diversity of national, regional, religious and ethnic identity in UK and the need for mutual respect and understanding.

Subject links

Religious Education: exploration of cultural expectations

Music: how contrasting styles or traditions of music are used to conveyor enhance meaning

Freeze frame

Pause the film when Jess is about to take the penalty kick at the end of the film. Discuss:

• Why have the defenders been replaced by members of Jess's family?
• Who are they and what are their facial expressions?
• Where is Jess positioned in the frame?
• What is she about to attempt?
• How is the 'wall' symbolic of Jess's predicament?
• What do the family members represent?
• How does this scene add significance to the title 'Bend it like Beckham'?

Sound and image

Watch the final wedding/football match sequence with the sound off.

• What kind of music would you choose to accompany these images if you were the music supervisor?

Encourage students to experiment with using a variety of soundtracks with this sequence. Watch the sequence again, with the sound turned down, and play alongside it, in turn, a track of traditional Hindi singing, 90s Asian fusion, contemporary British pop and/or classical opera. Discuss:

• What does the music add to your understanding of Jess's predicament and how she might solve it?
• How does each style of music change the meaning?

Now watch the sequence again with the sound up.

• What kind of music did the filmmakers use and what does this suggest about the 'message' they want to convey?

Spot the shots

• Watch any scene set inside Jess's family home and count the number of edits.
• Watch any football scene set in the park and count the number of edits. Discuss the following in relation to each sequence:
  • Is the camera moving or static? What effect does this have?
  • Is the editing style fast or slow? What effect does this have?
  • How does the editing style contrast Jess's family life and her life outside the home

Attracting audiences

Look at the video cover of Bend It Like Beckham. Discuss:

• Who do you think the film is aimed at?
• Why do you think it is popular?
• What is the significance of the title and the timing of the film's release date?

Top and tail

Watch the end production credits. Discuss:

• Who wrote the screenplay?
• Who is the casting director?
• How do you think this might link with the diversity of national, regional, religious and ethnic identities represented on screen?
• Who is the director of the film?
• What other films has she made?
• How many other British Asian directors can you name?

Analyse the casting decisions and director/producer/scriptwriter credits of all current film releases. Discuss:

• How many non-white British actors can you identify and how do you think this relates to the ethnic make-up of the production team of directors/producers/scriptwriters?

Discussion

These questions can be used as starting points from which you can begin to draw out the more general issues:

• How does the film reflect changing attitudes to gender and ethnic identity in contemporary Britain?
• What are the problems Jess faces as a British Asian 18-year-old girl?
• How does Jess deal with explicit racism in the film?
• How does Jess deal with implicit racism in the film?
• Why is Jess's father's approach to tackling racial discrimination different from Jess's? What are the advantages and disadvantages of Jess's family background?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of Julie's family background?
• How can filmmakers make a difference by representing the diversity national, regional, religious and ethnic identity in UK?
• What barriers do young filmmakers face when trying to get into the media?
• What compromises might young filmmaker and actors have to make in order to get their ideas and/faces on screen?
• How can football be used to both unite and divide people from different national, regional, religious and ethnic groups in the UK?
• What effect did the World Cup 2002 have on people's attitudes to the British and English flags?
• Do you think that Britain is more or less racist after the World Cup?
• To what extent is globalisation responsible for changing attitudes to cultural diversity, and opening the market in the UK to films such as this?
• Students could also carry out their own research by doing a survey of actors and writers, both on screen and behind the scenes, to see if the diversity of ethnic groups in the UK is represented in the media. They could start by analysing the representation of different ethnic groups in all the adverts during one evening's television of Channel 4, 5 or ITV.