Bend It Like Beckham Essay

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Bend it like Beckham Essay
Essay Question: Discuss how Gurinder Chadha, the director of Bend It Like Beckham uses cinematic techniques to convey the underlying themes and ideas of the film.
Bend it like Beckham, directed by Gurinder Chadha, is a film about soccer. Those around Jesminder think that she is very much alike to many other Indian girls. Expected to be polite, family orientated and spiritual young ladies, they are presumed to ‘marry an Indian boy and have Indian children.’ However the difference between Jesminder and other Indian girls is that instead of dreaming to be married with children, her dream is to score for Manchester United alongside David Beckham, her idol. The only thing keeping her from this ambition is her heritage.
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Themes evident in the scene include family, hardship and parental expectation. The parental expectation theme is shown when throughout the scene of Jess practicing to become a good housewife which is, expected of every Indian daughter. Other techniques used in this scene include a longshot of soccer training, when Joe asks Jules for Jess’s whereabouts. While Jess’s family was eating traditional Indian food Joe came to visit Jess’ house to talk to Mr and Mrs Bhamra about how she should train for soccer, as she has lots of potential. Joe encourages her to train with the girls’ soccer team, but Jess’ parent denied the offer as Mr and Mrs Bhamra want their daughter to focus more on her study and cooking. Jess is shown to practice her cooking skills in the kitchen, however, she seems to feel upset over the fact that she can’t play soccer, this is shown using non diegetic sound a slow beat which enables the scene to look gloomy. Jess had to put her dream aside and was forced to listen to her parents, this theme is reflected in the wide shot of Jess eating with her parents awkwardly and quietly. Through displaying wide shots and medium shots Chadha was able to demonstration the film’s themes of family, hardships and parental