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“Blinded By The Light: A Runaway American Dream (A Movie Review)" [1]
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Date: 2022-08-27
The movie begins in September 1980. We see two best friends in a field by a highway. Javed Khan is Pakistani boy with his best friend Matt, a British boy celebrating his birthday. For his birthday, Matt got a bike and a journal. He didn’t want the latter, so he gave it Javed.
Seven years later, Javed is a writer, a poet especially. He’s writing lyrics for Matt’s band. He starts classes at his local college in Luton, a small town in England. He lives with his two sisters, mother, and father. His father, Malik Khan, wants Javed to go to university so that he can get a good paying job and be successful. He doesn’t want his only son having to spend his entire life working in a factory like himself.
This is the 80s, though, and the economy is terrible. Ronald Reagan is the president of the U.S.A. and Margaret Thatcher is the prime minister of England. That doesn’t go without notice or comment. The effects the economy has on the Khan family and others in the small town are obvious. Companies are laying off employees and people are struggling to find work.
The Khan family are immigrants from Pakistan. Mrs. Khan, Noor, mentions Karachi. Although this history isn’t explained in the movie, it’s still important in understanding Pakistani culture. In 1947 British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Take a look at a couple excerpts from the Wikipedia entry (which you can see here).
The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and Punjab, based on district-wide non-Muslim or Muslim majorities.
Snip!
The partition displaced between 10 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming calamity in the newly-constituted dominions. It is often described as one of the largest refugee crises in history. There was large-scale violence, with estimates of the loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that affects their relationship to this day.
Malik expects Javed to take an Economics class, but he takes English Literature instead. During the first class, Ms. Clay (played by Haley Atwell), asks the class, “who here wants to be a writer?” Javed is the only one to raise his hand. After class, Ms. Clay asks him why he raised his hand. He explains that he’s been writing since he was 10. He’s written a lot of poetry. She asks him why and he explains that no one in his house is “allowed to have an opinion,” except for his dad.
He goes to the cafeteria where he sees the girl from class that caught his eye. He’s never had a girlfriend and is really “shy around girls” (like many of us). He tells us the “labels” of the groups of people sitting at tables together. He speaks of them as it pertains to their 80s music style. He explains that he belongs to no group and sits alone. His Sikh friend, Roops, comes over and puts down two Bruce Springsteen cassette tapes on the table. He tells Javed he’ll thank him later.
Javed goes home and talks to Matt, who has a new girlfriend. Matt tells him he’s having a party and wants Javed to come, because he’s found “a girl perfect for” him. His father won’t let him go. Malik reminds him that he’s Pakistani and he has to keep his head down. Racial tensions are high. We begin to see some of this the next day when Malik and Javed visit another Pakistani family that Malik does some work for.
As they’re talking, kids begin urinating in the mailbox slot in the door. His wife goes to clean it up. The man is very passive about this. He doesn’t get angry. He explains to his guests that it’s “ok.” This keeps happening and the family can’t do anything to stop it, so they just accept it.
Javed goes to class and gets a graded paper back. He’s disappointed that he got a “C.” He talks to Ms. Clay about it. She said there was a section that was beautiful. That was his voice and she wanted to hear more of it. He tells her he writes poetry, but they’re “crap.” She tells him it’s his “crap” and one day they might actually get him some where (setting the movie up as a story about a boy with a dream and his struggle to achieve it). This makes him smile and gives him motivation.
Later at home he sits in front of the TV on the couch with his mother and sisters listening to the news. It’s reporting that General Motors is laying off workers. Noor doesn’t believe Malik would get laid off due his hard work and many years there. But, Malik walks in the door, he’s been laid off. The Khans were already struggling. One of their daughters is getting married soon, which they struggle to pay for.
In his anger and frustration, Javed goes to his room and writes an impassioned letter to GM about how they’ve torn his family apart. He then rips his poetry off the walls, goes outside, and throws it into the wind, spreading it across the parking lot. He then sits down and pops in Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A cassette tape into his Walkman (portable cassette tape player). “Dancing in the Dark” begins to play. He focuses on the lyrics, which get displayed on screen. Some of them include “ain't nothin' but tired,” “tired,” “bored,” and “help.”
It quickly hits him hard. He pushes the pause button, clearly trying to grasp what he’s hearing and just how well it fits what he’s going through. He walks inside and around the house continuing to listen to the song. When we see him outside again, he’s listening to a new tape, Darkness on the Edge of Town. “A Promised Land” is playing and it’s lyrics are displayed on screen. They include, “explode and tear this whole town apart,” “Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart,” and “I ain't a boy no I'm a man and I believe in a promised land.”
The lyrics speak to his very core and perfectly describe his struggle, which is the human experience. He’s living in a small town with little to no jobs or opportunities and racism. He desperately wants out of this town.
I’ve known about Bruce Springsteen since I was a kid. This movie helped me looked deeper into the music and how I, too, can very much relate to the lyrics. I saw myself as Javed, especially as one who was bullied and is a music lover, writer, and someone stuck in a small town desperately wanting out.
The movie is based on the true story of Sarfraz Manzoor. He’s seen Bruce Springsteen in concert over 150 times. Bruce gave his blessing for this movie and Sarfraz’s writings, which he now does professionally. You can read more about the true story here.
“Nobody wins unless everybody wins!” — Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen
Author’s note: I should be here throughout the day and available to reply to comments in a timely manner. If you’d like to comment, please do! Let the community know if you saw the movie and what you thought of it. If not, let us know if you’d like to see it. Let us know if you like Bruce Springsteen, too! Let us know your favorite Bruce Springsteen songs and albums. If you’re not a fan that’s ok, too. Let us know if music or anything else has also spoken to your entire being like this did for me and Javed. Also, feel free to share your favorite movies about music or your favorite music with YouTube links. Please add the title and artist into the comment with your links for those that need to see this (often mobile users.)
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