El próximo oriente (The Near East)

Love has no language. It can be felt anywhere & anytime. Love has no boundary unless there is any intervention from the person's cultural background or past.

El próximo oriente

In this film, a Bangladeshi expat Aisha (played by Spanish actress Nur Al Levi) in Madrid, gets pregnant & later ditched by a Spanish guy (played by Asier Etxeandia) living next door. Her father runs a Bangladeshi restaurant without liquor in the menu because of the religious issue.

Director Fernando Colomo takes the story to a different level where the brother Caín (played by Javier Cifrián) of the Spanish guy who ditched the Bangladeshi girl Aisha,  starts helping her after she tried to commit suicide. Though it sounds serious, things move on in a comical way when Caín starts impressing her father & agrees to marry her by sacrificing his own religion but casually. He makes it clear to Aisha, that this marriage is meant to help her out of depression and family conflict. Slowly this comical and complicated relationship converts into a romantic one.

Being Bengali, I find these British actors playing Bangladeshis very different. I can't relate their way of speaking Bengali language and acting with ours. Something is missing--"HACE FALTA" -- that's how we say in Spanish.

Comparing this film with an American film "OUTSOURCED", the story is different but the cultural intervention of both the countries- America and India,  makes it more or less clear to watch. where as on the other hand "El próximo oriente" missed out the cultural intervention of Spain & Bangladesh, which is important for this context of the story. Apart from showing religious differences, the film didn't show much about the culture of Spain and as a result it creates some questions among the audiences.

The story is good and funny to enjoy. The Spanish actors have delivered impressive performances on screen that hold the story altogether. But for the Asian audiences, the film misses out the spicy flavor because the script involves the culture, language and comical relationship between Spain and Bangladesh.