directed by
Waris Hussein
UK 1997
Bombay, 1962: Sera Kotwal (Souad Faress) gives birth to Brit (Firdaus Kanga), a
boy whose bones are so brittle that he can just hiccup and break a rib. Based on
Kanga’s acclaimed autobiographical novel, Trying to Grow, Sixth Happiness is the
funny, acerbic and moving story of a young man’s sexual awakening as family life
crumbles around him.
Located within Mumbai’s Parsee community, the film shows a thoroughly
non-stereotypical Indian family. With powerhouse performances from Kanga and
Faress, and featuring great support from Nina Wadia (Goodness Gracious Me),
Indira Varma (Bride and Prejudice) and Meera Syal (The Kumars at No. 42), Sixth
Happiness manages to turn just about every stereotype about India, disability
and sexuality on its head.
Firdaus Kanga, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, describes the story
as a ‘re-imagination’ of his childhood and youth. Blurring the boundaries
between fact and fiction even further was the decision to cast Kanga himself in
the role of Brit even though he had no experience as an actor. Kanga’s creation
– both as writer and performer – resists drawing Brit as either martyr or
victim. Brit is bright, spiky, opinionated and selfish with a razor-sharp
tongue. He prefers the Kama Sutra to Shakespeare and does not allow gender to
come in the way of his desire for sex.
Theatrical Release: October 4th, 1997 - Mill Valley Film Festival
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DVD Review: BFI - Region 2 - PAL
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| Distribution | BFI Video - Region 2 - PAL | |
| Runtime | 1:34:21 | |
| Video | 1.63:1
Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.12 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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| Bitrate: |
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| Audio | English (Dolby Digital 4.0 Dolby) | |
| Subtitles | English, None | |
| Features |
Release Information: Edition Details: • Commentary
with Firdaus Kanga (with removable subtitles) |
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| Comments: |
Quite acceptable image for a non-anamorphic DVD. The image looks very consistently TV-like with decent colors and relative sharpness. Strong black levels, removable English subtitles and some astute extras make for quite a comfortable package. The commentary is worth the price of the disc alone. A bit of a forgotten film, another that BFI make available to us, for which we thank them. We recommend. |
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Gary Tooze
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