Brick Lane, a Bangladeshi/British film that touches on the universal theme of love in its many different forms, has finally opened in United States market, much to the delight of the many readers of the same-titled best seller. It is a very female-oriented project, with director Sarah Gavron taking on the perspective of Nazneen, a beautiful Bangladeshi woman who moves to London immigrant slums for an arranged marriage. Tannishtha Chatterje, who plays Nazneen, talks about how her journey helps her find love and beauty amidst the squalor.

Q: Tell me about what Nazneem goes through in this film.

A: She gets married at the age of 17 to a man who is like 25 years older than her so at that point of time. obviously there is no relationship between them. At some point she falls in low with a younger man and she explores her sexuality. During that process, she also finds that in a habit of living for so many years with her husband there is a bond between them which is beyond an attraction, but it is love.

Therefore she talks about two kinds of love; like one in which you get really infatuated in the beginning and then slowly it fades away. And the other one when there is nothing in the beginning and then slowly as a matter of habit you grow to love the other person. Also there is the love between a mother and the kids, the sacrifice that she makes and the big decision that she makes on whether or not to go back to Bangladesh.

Q: The film is also about love for her homeland and her childhood. People will find that surprising because they think of Bangladesh mostly as an agrigarian place without a lot of modern conveniences, but it’s presented in a very beautiful way.

A: Things you grew up with have all these nostalgic feelings—it’s not about conveniences there, it’s about feelings, attachments. So even if living conditions are difficult there, you are happier in the environment that you’ve grown up in, in the culture that you’re comfortable with.

You know when Nazneen comes to England, she doesn’t understand the language. There is a very beautiful sequence in the book about this old tattoo woman and it’s so very alien to her. In the book there is a sequence where she has come to the airport for the first time and her luggage actually goes, it passes around her and she thinks that it’s gone into that big hole in the wall and it will never come back again.

So you know it’s also about communication. So in spite of the fact that maybe she has a place to live and food to eat, that’s not all human beings need.

Q: What's your background? Where are you living now.

A: I was born in India but I’ve traveled a bit. My father was working for a Japanese company, and I lived in Kenya, Australia and in Japan for some time. But I’ve spent most of my life in New Delhi in India. From my teens onward I’ve lived there so I’m very much an Indian.

Q: This is the second movie we’ve seen in maybe a 12 month period from that part of the world. Namesake was the first and then this one. Help me with the geography and customs of Bengal, Bangladesh and India.

A: Well Namesake was about Bengalis in India and this is about Bangladeshis. Bangladesh is influenced by Islam, whereas the characters in Namesake were Hindu. During the partition in India after British rule, the country was divided into Pakistan on one side, Bangladesh in the Eastern part, and India in the middle sub-continent. So it’s a very subtle division, like Bengalis of Bangladesh and Bengalis in India.

I’m a Bengali from India. We speak the same language, culturally we have a lot of things in common like food and clothes and language, literature and music but there is a difference in religion: Hindus practice things differently than Muslims do. And it’s been like 60 years since this artificial border was extblished, that this side of the line is India and that side of the line is Bangladesh. So what you saw in Namesake was what we always call the other side of Bengal.

Q: Since you come from a place with different customs, did the book help you with your character?

A: Yes, yes of course. The book always helps because it gives you the details that you get about the character, and especially for this particular role. Nazneen is someone who doesn’t talk much, and she doesn’t express much. Now how do you portray a character who doesn’t even express much? The book explains what she' s feeling. You see the film it’s always through her eyes and through her, I had a bit of a struggle with how to make distinctions and yet make the journey clear without it being very underlined or evident.

Q: What do you think director Sarah Gavron brought to this film as a female, that a man might not have been able to touch?

A: I think it was very important to have a female director for this film. I mean, Sarah and I had a very collaborative process, we agreed, disagreed, argued and moved on, which was something I really enjoyed. It wasn’t a director telling an actor, okay you stand here, look to this side and then give a little bit of a sigh and then move out. It was really discussing what is happening inside her, what should be done, what should be the next scene.

So I think it’s very important, that this is a film about a woman’s journey and a women’s struggle to find her voice in an alien land and alien surroundings. I think Sarah did bring about that sensitivity, so you can understand what is it to be in a trapped marriage, what is it to get out of that. So I do not know whether a man could have understood it better or as deep as Sarah could, but I can say that yes, being a woman director she did understand the woman’s journey.