MISCHIEF NIGHT
UK, 2006, 93 minutes, Colour.
Kelli Hollis, James Foster, Michael Taylor, Holly Kenny, Jake Hayward, Ramon Tikaram, Qasim Akhtar.
Directed by Penny Woolcock.
Mischief Night, in Yorkshire at least, is the night before Guy Fawkes day. There are fireworks and dances and the kids, who may not yet be initiated into the trick or treat routines of earlier in the week Halloween, go out and get into trouble. This story takes place over the five days before Mischief Night as well as the doings of the night itself.
We are immediately introduced to a completely dysfunctional family, mother with three children from different fathers and the boyfriend who is both manic and obsessive. When their attempt at a family Sunday dinner fail, the kids go up the street and we find that they are in a Pakistani area of town. The film is, therefore, a picture of contemporary Britain and its race divisions and strained relationships.
The following days open out the story so that we see what happens in a Pakistani home, a completely veiled wife and her arranged marriage husband who has spent time in goal, the older parents who have not yet quite come to terms with living in England, the girl who studies As You Like It and tries some freeing Rosalind disguise herself and dreads her own arranged marriage, the little kids and the boy who is mischief prone whose activities almost lead to tragedy.
Meanwhile, links between the white family and the Pakistani family become clearer. It is the mix of urban problems, of sudden pregnancies and absent fathers, of local drug dealing and single mother addicts, of the local king pin and the rivalry of the Pakistani dealer…
Actually, while the film is really serious with an attempt to remind audiences what this world is really like and how people are enmeshed in their daily struggles, it also many funny moments.
Mischief Night eventually turns out to be just that, with potential disaster for everyone. The kingpin and his henchman are up in a hot air balloon and we expect them to come crashing down on the house where the screenplay has contrived to have everyone congregate and where shots are fired. In fact they don’t – although they do next morning get stranded on the minaret of the local mosque.
Writer-director Penny Woolcock has affection for her characters even as she paints them warts and all. We are a far cry from the homogeneous white society of an earlier and forever gone Britain.
1. A film for a British audience? Yorkshire? International audiences?
2. British drama, comic, serious? The title, Mischief Night on 4th November? Children, pranks, mayhem?
3. The Yorkshire setting, the city of Leeds, the different communities, the park separating? Homes, streets? Mosques? The musical score?
4. The English family, mother, children, fathers? Partners? The Pakistani family? Children, parents, grandparents? The different ways of life? Ethnic differences? In a British city?
5. Pakistani family? Asif, his age, relationship with his parents, their thinking he was a good boy, his being on the loose, the car crash? The encounter with Qassim? Drug dealing? His working? The meeting with Kimberly? The differences? Her looking for her father? The crash of the taxi, the decision to kill Qassim? Kimberly willing to help? Getting the gun, to shoot through the window, the distraction, his being hit in the chest but not dying? The consequences for Asif?
6. Kimberly, relationship with her mother, brothers and sisters, her age, wanting to find her father? The meeting with Asif, the gun, her firing the shot? The irony of the revelation that Quassim was her father?
7. Tyler, the robbing of the safe, his grandfather, the golf balls, getting the gun, becoming involved in drug dealing? Finding Jane, the heroin, her abandoned child, drinking the bleach? His compassion? Becoming a father?
8. The imam, Eye Patch? His leadership, role in the mosque, preaching hate and terrorism? Tina and her story about him when he was young, sexual pervert? His beating the kids? The reaction of the liberal Muslims? His wanting to invade the mosque, take control, change the locks?
9. Immie, Asif as his brother, the relationship with Qassim, with Tina? His liberal views, the attack on the imam?
10. The culmination of the events, five days before, mischief night, the two families, the ethnic differences, and street life in a British city?
