Bend It.. is a metaphor for change

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: Film director Gurinder Chadha wasn’t feeling quite as sunny as the April afternoon in Manchester when footballer David Beckham turned up to review his two-minute debut on the silver screen. <br />But two hours later, her fears seemed unfounded. The star’s verdict on <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bend It Like Beckham</span> packed in all the glory of a golden goal for her.“He said, ‘It’s brilliant. It’s really brilliant. I love all the Indian stuff. It’s really good’,’’ Gurinder says, replaying the most-written-about footballer’s instant review of her film.<br />Mumbaikars can check out the veracity of Beckham’s statement when the film, distributed jointly by Columbia Tristar and iDream Productions, releases on July 12. <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bend It Like Beckham</span> revolves around 18-year-old Jess (Parminder Nagra) who dreams of playing professional football and mastering David Beckham’s ability to bend the ball around the ‘wall’ while her parents want her to master the art of making round chappatis and ‘aloo gobi sabzi’ and marry a nice Sikh boy.<br />Although Beckham was effusive in his praise, Gurinder recalls that getting the star footballer to lend his name for the movie was a long drawn-out task. Beckham makes a brief appearance with wife Victoria ‘Posh Spice’ towards the end of the movie. The director has also used several minutes of footage from one of his European Championship match.<br />“I submitted the film’s script to Beckham’s lawyer two years ago. He got back to me after a long period but the reply was favourable. Beckham was willing to lend his name for the film’s title and to make a brief appearance in the movie as he’s a supporter of women’s football.’’ Beckham waived aside his royalty and instead asked the director to donate the sum to charity.<br />The movie, which was released in England just before the World Cup, grossed over £11 million in as many weeks at the box-office. Gurinder concedes that it is a conscious decision to cash in on the World Cup fever, adding that she conceived the idea during the World Cup 1998 semifinal match between England and Argentina when Beckham lost the penalty and eventually the match.<br />“I had gone to a local pub to see the match and was amazed to see grown men crying at England’s loss,’’ she recalls. “I’d seen the entire country in mourning when Princess Diana died. That’s when I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to take all this energy and put a second-generation Indian girl in the midst of it’. Since it was a British-Asian film, I further thought of combining England’s obsession with Beckham and India’s obsession with marriage in the storyline.’’<br />Another reason for selecting Beckham as Jess’s role model, says Gurinder, was because the footballer challenges the preconception of what is masculine in the same way she wanted the protagonist to challenge what the public considered feminine. “Beckham loves his wife, he is a good father and a good son-in-law. He has changed the meaning of what we used to consider the traditional macho footballer,’’ she explains.<br />According to her, the film’s title works both ways since Beckham’s ability to defy gravity and bend the ball the way he does is simply admirable. “It also works as an excellent metaphor as the film’s protaganist bends the rules rather than break them to get what she wants.’’ She savours the fact that her film has been recognised as a British film rather than a British-Asian cinema.<br />“This means that Indian humour is now accepted as part of the British social fabric,’’ says the director of critically acclaimed films like <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bhaji on the Beach</span> and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">What’s Cooking</span>. Gurinder, who claims that she cannot direct “hard-core’’ Bollywood films because of her British-Asian sensibilities, is, however, full of admiration for the recent Hindi films. <br />“There is an increasing awareness and respect for Bollywood films after <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Lagaan</span> and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Monsoon Wedding</span>. <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Monsoon Wedding</span> was a fantastic crossover movie. Its authentic portrayal of a resolutely middle-class Punjabi family worked in its favour,’’ she says. Gurinder has no doubts that her film on soccer will work with the Indian audiences, although it’s not as popular as cricket. “It will work because Indians have become more receptive to creative experiments after the invasion of satellite television. They want to know about the problems of the non-resident Indians and the way they cope with them,’’ she reasons. A scene from the film <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bend It Like Beckham</span>. </div> </div>