Ish
Imran Perretta’s exceptional, deeply personal debut feature about friendship and racial profiling is a candidate for the best British film of the year.
Farhan Hasnat
Image courtesy of BFI Distribution.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
In Ish we clearly have a candidate for the best British film to be released this year. That is all the more remarkable because this film is Imran Perretta’s first feature although he previously wrote and directed three shorts and is well established in other areas of the arts including performance works. In this instance, his credit for the screenplay is shared with the playwright Enda Walsh but Ish is a decidedly personal piece. The film’s title – it is short for Ishmail – refers to the central character, a 12-year-old boy played by Farhan Hashnat, who as the younger child in a Bangladeshi family is growing up in this country, his home being in Luton. This echoes the background of Perretta himself although in his case he was born in London and that was in 1988.
Ish is a work which brings to mind films from the past but which is so fully realised that it bears its own stamp and it is also the case that it plays out in a context that is specifically contemporary. Immediately following a short prologue which signals dangers ahead, we meet Ish and his best friend Maram (Yahya Kitana) who is taller and may look older but is actually his own age. They play around together in the woods where the natural world appears idyllic. However, without the symbolism seeming too contrived, it is significant that this area is close to Luton Airport and a low flying plane close overhead casts a shadow over this world of innocence. It emerges that Maram happens to be Palestinian and from time-to-time scenes of indoor family life have in the background news reports about Gaza. Consequently, despite his young age, Maram knows enough about world events to be aware of war and its threats and can even imagine it encroaching on him personally. Furthermore and more realistically both he and Ish are always conscious of the risk of their ethnicity leading to them encountering a patrol car which is on the streets as part of the stop and search policy. Indeed, an incident of this kind does arise and in such a way that it threatens to derail the friendship between the two boys.
Although Maram's role in the story is important, the title is not misleading in its indication that Ish is the key figure and it is his family that we get to know rather than that of Maram. Ish is living with his father, Naeem (Avin Shah), who is employed in security at the airport and the household also includes his sympathetic grandmother (Sudha Bhuchar). In addition, he has a much older sister, Samira (an effective acting debut by the singer-songwriter Joy Crookes). However, Ish is having to adjust to the loss of his mother who, now buried nearby, has died at the early age of forty-three. These well realised characters add to the film’s impact as a study of working-class life which extends to its portrayal of youngsters who as they enter their teenage years may well be drawn into bad behaviour such as shoplifting. Given such concerns Ish has much in common with the work of Ken Loach and that extends to the way in which everyday issues feature without being allowed to fall into melodrama and to the use of players who, whatever their expertise in film, do not suggest actors. Indeed, I understand that the two leading child players were not just known to each other before filming began but were friends in real life. For that matter this film’s focus on a young boy who gives the film its title prompts memories of Loach’s Kes (1969).
But, while comparisons with Ken Loach are undoubtedly relevant, Ish evokes even more strongly films of the early 1960s and especially those made by Woodfall Films such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). That is encouraged by the decision to film Ish in black-and-white. Indeed, Perretta even opts for the old silent screen ratio of 4:3 which adds to the sense of the constricted lives portrayed. Even more importantly Jermaine Canute Edwards gives us photography which deserves an award in itself and these images play a major role in giving the film a lyrical quality not usually associated with this kind of material. It is this aspect which links Ish to one Woodfall film in particular, 1961’s A Taste of Honey. If a fairground scene with dodgem cars seen here fits in with that, even closer to Tony Richardson's film is the use of music that conveys a positive spirit. In A Taste of Honey, the uplifting delivery of a traditional children’s playground song was crucial to its tone whereas the lyricism here is of a slightly different kind. Nevertheless, alongside the shots of nature, it is the music which in its own way provides a note of hope and it is the work of Perretta himself who is also a composer. His score incorporates voices, sometimes unaccompanied, and, as sustaining as those blackberries which emerge each summer, this is music which without ever seeming sentimental encourages the viewer to feel that it is possible that the people we have come to know in this film may find their way to a good future.
The acting in this piece is admirable. As Ish, Farhan Hashnat is entirely natural and persuasive and certainly deserving of an award, while Yahya Kitana playing Maram gives him exactly the support needed to capture their rapport. Those portraying members of Ish’s family all find a way of bringing out moments of warmth that is never overdone and all the more telling for that. As for Perretta himself, in addition to his excellent music score he shows a real cinematic eye. It’s undoubtedly enough for this one feature to mark him out as an outstanding talent (notice, for example, how he directs a late scene featuring the menacing patrol car). He is thoroughly adroit too in his use of natural sounds and has the advantage of expert editing by Adam Biskupski. In almost all respects Ish is memorable. But one aspect of it is less than ideal. The youngsters often speak very fast and often use modern phrases not readily comprehensible to all (one example is the slang word ‘leng’). There is, I understand, a version available for screening which is fully captioned and, while some viewers will not mind if some of the dialogue is not easy to hear, those anxious about that who choose to seek out this other version may yet find that the speed of delivery means that keeping up with the written titles is difficult. This should really have been recognised and avoided, but it does not prevent Ish from being a fine achievement.
Cast: Farhan Hashnat, Yahya Kitana, Joy Crookes, Sudha Bhuchar, Avin Shah, Arman Mohammed, Is’Haaq Hasan Haque, Hasnain Shah, Zubin Varla, Sagar Arya.
Dir Imran Perretta, Pro Dhiraj Mahey and Bennett McGhee, Screenplay Imran Perretta and Enda Walsh, Ph Jermaine Canute Edwards, Pro Des Elena Isolini, Ed Adam Biskupski, Music Imran Perretta, Costumes Neesha Tulsi Champaneria.
BBC Film/BFI/Out Of Order/Calculus Media/Primal Pictures/Home Team/Good Chaos-BFI Distribution.
87 mins. UK/USA. 2025. UK Rel: 31 July 2026. Cert. 15.
