My Brother The Devil
The 2012 film My Brother The Devil, directed by Sally El Hosaini, is an eye opening British film representing many different factors of today's society including religion, ethnicity, age, gender and sexuality. I think this film is a strong and powerful film with unexpected plot twists, making it even more shocking.
The film starts by introducing the setting environment of the film, an estate. This automatically will give an audience who live or have lived in the environment a sense of relation as they will feel like the film could reflect their actual life. The film continues to show us the main characters, all of which are black, mix race and Egyptian teens/young adults. This suggests the film is targeted at that age. This already narrows down the target audience and implies that it is a film about the lives of young adults from different ethnicities growing up in the city/on an estate.
The colours in the opening switch from black and white to monotone colours. Not only does this make the opening more interesting, it also suggests the film is serious and not a comedy. The instrumental adds to this suggestion as it is not very upbeat as it is serious. The instrumental also sounds ambitious, possibly implying that the actors we are seeing have ambition to do something to help themselves or others.
This portrayal is further seen in the film when one of the protagonists, Rash, wants to get off the street and do something better with his life.
The plot of My Brother The Devil is that there are two young Arabs who are living in a Hackney estate. They are surrounded by bad influences and growing up around drugs, gangs and violence. One of the two Arabs is in a gang himself and is making money from dealing drugs, but wants his younger brother, Mo, to stay in school and do what he didn't do for himself. However, despite his warnings and forbidding of Mo going road and joining gangs, his younger brother lets his curiosity get the better of him and slowly starts to get wrapped up in that world.
The storyline is very relateable to young people living in Britain, especially London, as it does reflect the real lives of many young people. Most young people of this era know people like the characters in this film or actually are similar to the characters themselves. This could boost the emotion and relation the main audience may have for this film and therefore makes the film a larger success.
Religion, specifically Islam, is represented in this film as a big deal. The majority of characters are Muslim. However, although Islam is ultimately represented as a good faith which is very important in peoples lives, the film also does play on some stereotypes media often relates Islam to, such as terrorism.
Ethnicity is represented in this film significantly. The protagonists family is Egyptian. The parents are strict, especially the dad, and also expect big things from their children.
Age plays a large part in My Brother The Devil as most of the main characters are teenagers or young adults. This age is represented ultimately as trouble makers. Only one of the many young people in this film does not smoke, drink or get involved with gangs. This character wears a Hijab which also relates back to religion and represents Islam as being good. Furthermore, there is a scene when all the young people laugh at an old lady, this is a presentation of ageism and discrimination, further represented young people as horrible no goods.
While watching this film, I noticed that women are downgraded. This is shown in numerous occasions. One being how the mum of the protagonists seems frightened of her husband, possibly relating back to ethnicity. She is also shown as an unemployed stay at home wife and mother, which links back to the traditional views of women not being the provider of a family and just doing household chores. Another example when women are downgraded in this film is when there is one woman with a group of men and she tries to express her opinion and give advice and she gets told "Shut up you tramp who pays the bills here". This further represents male dominance.
Lastly, sexuality plays a significant part in this film. Not only does it relate to the issue of homophobia but it also links to religion. One of the protagonists is secretly gay and tries to hide that from everyone, including himself by having a girlfriend. When he is found out, his brother downgrades him due to the fact homosexuality is seen as Haram and a sin is Islam. Furthermore, he gets called a "batty boy", a common term used to cuss or mock homosexual people, by other people his age around his area. This represents people in today's society as inconsiderate and it possibly portrays them as bullies. The issue of homosexuality is represented as a serious issue and shows the insecurities that homosexual people may have.
Overall, I think My Brother The Devil is an eye opening film which clearly identifies many different factors of the lives of all different types of people.
