Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Imran Perretta
Starring: Farhan Hasnat, Yahya Kitana, Joy Crookes, Sudha Bhuchar, Avin Shah
Though the two movies couldn't be more different in tonal terms, Imran Peretta's directorial debut Ish explores the same thematic territory as Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure. Both movies are centred on the effects on a relationship when one party chooses to panic and flee rather than standing by their partner in a moment of crisis. In Östlund's black comedy that crisis turned out to be a false alarm, a controlled avalanche mistaken for a natural disaster. In Ish it is very real, a racially motivated stop and search that tears apart two young friends.
Peretta's film is set in the English town of Luton, which depending on your social media algorithm has either been enriched or destroyed by multi-culturalism. There we find the eponymous "Ish" or Ismael (Farhan Hasnat), a roughly 12-year-old boy of Bangladeshi descent. Ish's best friend is Maram (Yahya Kitana), a slightly older Palestinian-British boy. The drama plays out in those final sweaty weeks of the summer, when young boys wander the streets in search of distraction. Ish and Maram play Hamas and IDF the way older generations played cowboys and Indians, but Maram's interest in the state of his homeland isn't shared by Ish, who prefers to remain secure in the ignorant bliss of childhood.
There is probably no greater age gap than that between a 12 and 14-year-old. The former is still a child and happy to be one, while the latter is keen to shrug off childhood and become a man before their time. We see this play out to devastating effect as Maram is drawn into a group of boys slighter older than himself but practically a generation apart from Ish. In Ish's company Maram is sweet and innocent, and the boys even tell each other they love one another (in a purely platonic way) when they part ways each evening. But when the older boys are around Maram puts on an act, playing the tough guy, or as a local Asian shopkeeper describes it, "like the white boys." Maram has also reached the age where young brown boys start to attract the attention of the police, and when he is pulled into a van in a random stop and search, Ish bolts, leaving his friend behind.
Peretta and co-writer Enda Walsh capture the specific sadness of a childhood friendship abruptly ended by the intrusion of the adult world. Feeling betrayed, Maram wants nothing to do with Ish, who is taken into his adoptive gang, creating an awkward tension between the two on their shoplifting expeditions. When Ish is grounded after being brought home in a police van, it gives him a chance to bond with his grandmother (Sudha Bhuchar), his father (Avin Shah) and his teenage sister (Joy Crookes) in a way he hasn't been able to since the recent passing of his mother. The glimpses we get of Maram's always angry father hint at why he might seek a new family in a gang of trouble-making boys.
After auditioning thousands of young boys, Peretta settled on Hasnat and Kitana largely because they are real life best friends, and that natural connection makes its way onto the screen. They are relaxed in each other's company until the movie requires them to no longer be, and within seconds of their appearance on screen we believe that we're watching two boys whose lives revolve around each other. Shah is quietly brilliant as Ish's taciturn father. Unable to express his emotions verbally, Shah conveys his character's love and apprehensions for his son through body language, like how he pulls him a little closer as they walk past a gang of rowdy football fans.
Ish pays more attention to its visuals than most gritty British social realist dramas. Jermaine Canute Edwards' monochrome cinematography recalls Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine in its capturing of urban vibrancy while the close-ups of Hasnat's inquisitive Bengali features could be out of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy. Spielberg's E.T. appears to be another influence, with a scene in which the young boys are pursued through the woods by a police force represented solely by the glare of flashlights and the crackle of walkie talkies. The POV of roaming police vans, with facial ID technology dispassionately reducing Luton's townsfolk to targets inside squares, is the stuff of '80s sci-fi like The Terminator and Robocop, a grim reminder that the fictional dystopias of the past have become our all too real present.
Ish is in UK/ROI cinemas from July 31st.
