Review: Broken English (1996)
edwin jahiel
BY EDWIN JAHIEL
BROKEN ENGLISH (New Zealand, 1996) *** Directed by Gregor Nicholas. Written
by Nicholas, Johanna Pigott, Jim Salter. Produced by Robin Scholes.
Photography, John Toon. Editing, David Coulson. Production design, Mike
Kane. Music, Murray McNabb. Cast: Rade Serbedzija (Ivan, the father),
Aleksandra Vujcic (daughter Nina), Julian Arahanga (Eddie), Marton Csokas
(Darko), et al. A Sony Classics release. In several languages. 90 minutes.
Rated NC-17 (see text).
Broken English is the language spoken in New Zealand by immigrants from
many countries. The last half-dozen years have seen a wave of people who
want to become Kiwis (the nickname for New Zealanders).
Long ago, the first inhabitants were Polynesians. Much later they took on
the name Maori ("normal") to differentiate themselves from the European
colonists and settlers, mostly from the British Isles plus a hefty amount
of Dutch. Numerous Croatians arrived in waves in the 1890s, the 1950s and
the 1990s.
A family of recent Croatian emigres with their own values holds center
stage in the movie. Dominating all is Ivan, played by a Yugoslav film and
stage star, now London-based and doing well.
One has to know the Croatian temper to understand Ivan. He is abrupt,
imperious, intractable. He is doing well in business, yet remains in a
constant bellicose mood. Much of this is caused by his hatred of Serbs,
whose atrocities toward Croats seem to reprise older ones by another
country. Historical enmities smolder. As Ivan puts a spit through a pig for
a barbecue, he tells a little boy to watch: "That's what the Turks did to
us."
Ivan insult for the Serbs is "Chetniks." That is the pot calling the kettle
black. During the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, the Serbs had two
resistance movements, the royalists/nationalists Chetniks, under Colonel
Mihailovic, and the communist Partisans under Tito.The two groups fought
the Germans as well as each other. Germany and Italy set up the allied,
independent State of Croatia under Ante Pavelic, the head of the fascist
terrorist organization Ustasha who, in a campaign of ethnic "purification"
so atrocious that it even shocked some Germans, killed hundreds of
thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and anti fascist Croats.
The apple of Ivan's eye is Nina, one of his two daughters. She is played by
first-time actress Aleksandra Vujcic, a newcomer to New Zealand who did not
even want to be in movies. Ms. Vucjic fits her part to a t. She has
presence, earthy sexiness and good looks. In many shots she reminds one
uncannily of Lolita Davidovich, the actress born in Canada of Yugoslav
parents.
Nina is something of a promiscuous Daisy Mae figure sometimes trampishly
dressed. Early on, her Tata ("daddy"in Serbo-Croatian), engaged in the
national activity of talking politics, drinking, and smoking with cronies,
notices that Nina is coupling with a young man in a parking lot. He
demolishes the car. You don't have to be an exceptionally possessive father
to act that way. Feelings run high in the Balkans. From the Danube down to
Crete, there is still a tradition of fathers and brothers who may knife to
death any man who has sullied a daughter's or sister's honor. Ivan is more
of a familiar figure than an exception.
The restaurant where Nina works is owned by an immigrant Chinese, a
"soignee" lady who is into extra-curricular money-making schemes. Nina's
New Zealand-born mother enables the young woman to hold a New Zealand
passport. The lady boss proposes that she marry, in name only, and for a
bundle, the chef, Mr. Wu, a refugee from China in need of establishing
residency for himself and later for his also undocumented Chinese
girlfriend.
Meanwhile Nina comes on strong to Eddie, her handsome Maori kitchen-mate.
Lightning-fast sex follows, then a love-making scene. The latter got the
movie a rare and ludicrously severe NC-17 rating. The activity is
suggested rather than seen, as it takes place in darkness. Director
Nicholas has appealed, to no avail. It has also been suggested that the
real reason was a four-letter disparagement of the Pope (Croats are
Catholics) and his appeals to brotherhood.
Nina and Eddie live together. Furious Ivan blows hot and cold towards Nina,
now loving now mad as hell. Still, his opposition becomes an uneasy
wait-and-see truce until it explodes and Nina is made literally into a
prisoner within a sealed room at Ivan's house. For more developments, see
the film. It is time well spent.
I was puzzled by most reviewers' recurring mention of the movie as a Romeo
and Juliet story, until I saw this comparison (plus "star-crossed lovers),
in the press-book. This is an inaccurate simplification. It would have been
valid had the lovers belonged to same-origin but warring (vendetta-prone)
tribes. But here we have a racial situation.
In spite of simplifications and cliches, the film is interesting, authentic
as an ethnographic document and as an insight into the increasingly
multi-racial New Zealand, a land of just three-and-half million people.An
insider's job, it captures diversities and tensions, it peeps into the
colorful Croatian Kiwis.
At one point, Nina, ordered by Tata to attend a celebration, brings along
Eddie. The situation is tense yet there's also a wonderfully warm and
joyous side to it as the extras, including many members of the Dalmatian
Club of Auckland, sing with abandon lovely songs. And, in a nice invention,
it just happens that in the neighbors' yard, at a Maori gathering, swaying
Maori perform Polynesian songs. The musical duel and the beauty of both
ethnic repertories are cleverly , if artificially, symbolic of contrasts
and similarities.
The most beautiful and lyrical scene however, comes after Eddie has left
Nina --temporarily, don't fret. She joins him on a tourist boat he runs
with a friend, and she swims among the dolphins.