The movie „Yasmin" by Kenny Glenaan tackles the conflict between traditional Muslim life and western culture that disturbs Yasmin and her family.Yasmin leads a double life: She is a modern woman working for a social service, going to the bar with her colleague and best friend John, driving a red cabrio, smoking and drinking occasionally. But as soon as she comes to her neighborhood she changes clothes and covers her hair in a black veil. At home her husband Faisal from Pakistan, the so-called "import" she has been married to by her parents, is talking to his goat, the only friend he has he has in this new world. Yasmin's father Khalid, a traditional but rather open-minded Muslim, cannot accept her wish for a divorce.After 9/11 things are getting even more complicated. Yasmin's brother Nasir who has been dealing drugs, finds his own way of compensating his guilt and hate. He ends his bad western habits and does what he believes a good Muslim should do. Finally unpredicted events force Yasmin to end her double life and to decide between her traditional roots and the friendship with John.It is easy to relate to the character of Yasmin and to understand how she is feeling. Even though her father strikes with his traditional views at first you feel more and more sympathy for him as he turns out to be honest and tolerant. He abhors his son for saying 9/11 was "stylish". The development of Nasir is a very shocking and still realistic one.The film is a very dramatic portray at an uneasy reality with prejudice, crime, and love. It tells the story of a woman who is torn between her Muslim roots and a modern life.

The director of the movie „Yasmin", Kenny Gleenan, won a prize at the Edinburgh Festival for best British feature. As he says his movie is "between fiction and documentary" because the plot and the characters are not real but the story is quite realistic. Gleenan's movie is about Yasmin who lives with her Pakistani family in the north of England. The whole conflict in this movie is about Yasmin who tries to find her identity but she does not know whether she finds it in her traditional Muslim or in her modern world. So the movie is about (mis-) trust, disappointment and hope.The main character in the feature film is the young, impulsive and self-confident woman Yasmin Husseini. Then there is her warm-hearted but strict father Khalid Husseini who is powerless to control his children and to guide them "the right way". He really tries hard to stop his son Nasir from becoming a freedom fighter. When Khalid fails, you really feel sympathy for him. Yasmin's younger brother Nasir does not only want to risk his life for Islam but is also fascinated by the opportunities the modern world offers him. The fourth main character is John Bailey, a real Englishman. He is Yasmin's colleague at work and between these two there is a certain connection. It could have ended in love but Yasmin has difficulties being frank about her situation at home. All four characters make a certain development in the movie, some positive, others negative.The director shows very well which prejudices and problems exist in a complex society and he does not put the blame on the one or the other. It is quite difficult to combine a traditional Muslim and a modern, western life style but the movie shows that people have different possibilities to deal with this problem. I really can recommend the movie to everyone because it shows the conflict from a new and neutral perspective. It is not just one side that makes mistakes and you really start to think about the actuality of these problems. For getting more into a new culture, the movie is expressive, too.

The movie "Yasmin" deals with the story of a young Muslim woman balancing two worlds. On the one hand, she tries to fulfill her rather conservative father's expectations to act like a good Muslim wife, but on the other hand, she wants to get closer to John, an English-man, who works with her. This works well until September the 11th 2001 when she is confronted with the increasing tension between the western and the Islamic culture: she is insulted at work for being a Muslim, while having problems at home for acting too westernized. The main conflict at home is that Yasmin rejects her husband Faysal, she married on her father's wish, to enable Faysal to get the English citizenship. Faysal himself is completely unable to handle the new environment since he has never lived in a city before. Yasmins brother Nasir, is caught by an organisation preaching hatred to fight for Islam. While Yasmin has to handle Faysal and Nasir, she tries to deal with the growing distance between her and John and her colleagues offending her at work. John is a very friendly and open-minded young man who tries to help Yasmin out of trouble, but, without any success since she doesn't tell him about her private situation,. The film's message is as well its biggest strength. "Yasmin" shows on how many levels a single event can impact on people's lives and how different actions cause certain happenings. Although e.g. the viewer is probably not able to identify with Nasir, one sees in which situation he has been to decide like he does and that things cannot be judged as easily as the media often suggest. The only weakness of "Yasmin" is the predictability of the storyline but since this film is not meant to stun the audience with unexpected turns, that is not a problem. I recommend this movie to everyone who is ready to see how banal and brutal at the same time a nice little life can fall apart.

Kai Zimmermann"Yasmin" is a movie by Kenny Glenaan produced in 2004, and deals with Yasmin, a Pakistani woman living in an English town who tries to combine the traditional rules of Islam with her longing for freedom. Through the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Yasmin's friends distance from her because of her religion that is rubbished in public. Yasmin lives in a bogus marriage with Faysal, who arouses suspicion to have connections to terrorist organisations. Yasmin is a social worker and tries to fulfill her father's expectations. But she also loves to party with John and her other western friends. Yasmin's father does not tolerate her western lifestyle, adheres strictly to the rules of Islam and condemns the terrorist attacks at the same time. His son, Yasmin's brother Nasir, also switches between the strict rules for Muslim and the western way of life. He joins a fanatic branch after 9/11. I think Nasir is the most authentic character of the movie. I can empathise with his existence as a Pakistani living in England. The terrorist attacks make the English extremely cautious concerning the Islam and everybody knows the feeling of being excluded from a certain group or community. Kenny Glenaan points out the difficult situation of Muslims living in western societies and the prejudices we have against them and their religion. Glenaan calls attention to our identification process, too. Yasmin's way of becoming an independent woman after the divorce shows that it is worthwhile rebelling against certain rules and creating one's own way. I recommend this film because of its empathetic and pensive scenes. "Yasmin" is about a woman finding her individual lifestyle, something everybody is in search of. So it is a film for everyone.