The Buddha of Suburbia, 1993/2008

by | Jun 20, 2008 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews | 0 comments

The Buddha of Suburbia, 1993/2008

Starring Naveen Andrews, Roshan Seth
Original Theme Music by David Bowie
Studio: BBC TV/BBC Video (4 episodes on 2 DVDs) [Distr. by Warner Home Video]
Video: 4:3 color
Audio: English & Bengali Dolby Digital stereo
Subtitles: English
Extras: Audio commentary by writer/director Roger Michell; David Bowie music video
Length: 238 minutes total
Rating: ****

Based on the prize-winning novel by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette) – who collaborated with director Michell on this BBC production – the story centers around 17-year-old Karim, living in a London suburb. His father is Pakistani and his mother English and Karim’s coming-of-age story involves his exploring his cultural roots, dealing with all the input of politics, music, fashion, drugs, sex, and morals of swinging London in the 70s.  Among the challenges he has to face are his dysfunctional family, with his father becoming a pseudo-guru in the neighborhood, having an affair with the artsy Eva and leaving his wife, and Karim’s half-brother Charlie becoming a celebrity punk rocker with self-destructive tendencies.

Karim’s experiences with real life are both painful and sometimes hilarious, but never fall into the slapstick or soap-opera bag. Hanging over much of his situation is ever-present racism.  Eva gets him work as an actor, which he for once enjoys, but in his first big role – as Mowgli in The Jungle Book – he is humiliated when the director finds him not brown enough, and he must have brown body paint put on him. A fellow actor urges him to join in black consciousness, but Karim replies, “I’m not black, I’m beige!” The fourth episode is not as wild and wooly as the previous ones, showing Karim after a jaunt to the U.S. – as someone finding enlightenment on his own terms, and in fact beginning to accept some of his father’s modern philosophy which he had earlier mocked. Kureishi doesn’t bend over backwards in his work to be politically correct, but Goodnez Gracious Me, I loved it.

This is a quite racy depiction of the swinging 70s, with HBO standards of non-censorship. I’m talking both visually  and dialog-wise here. The transfer looks fairly good and I found it useful to have the English subtitles on, not only to understand the dialog of those with heavy accents, but also actors speaking in noisy party surroundings, and even the lyrics of David Bowie’s frequently-reprieved song. (Although it makes the viewer feel like a real outsider in the scene when the subtitles frequently display: {Speaking in Bengali} but fail to translate!)

— John Sunier

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