HONOUR is a difficult movie to watch. Centering on the idea of honor killings, a practice that not only prevails in Muslim communities but in other cultures as well, it focuses on the way in which Mona (Aiysha Hart), 'transgresses' her family's sense of ethics by falling in love with a Punjabi man Tanvir (Nikesh Patel). Spurred on by her elder brother Kasim (Faraz Ayub), who works for London's Metropolitan Police by day, the family engage a bounty- hunter (Paddy Considine) to pursue Mona and discover her whereabouts. This he agrees to do, while at the same time despising the family, especially Mother (Harvey Virdi), who spends most of her time at home working as a seamstress.
The movie opens explosively with the dénouement, and then goes back to tell the story of why Mona was considered to 'transgress'. The ideas might seem shocking to non-Muslims, but Shan Khan's film shows how important it is for young women - especially - to forge the right marriages, even if it means them being transported back to Pakistan to marry a spouse chosen for them by their family, and agreed upon (normally on financial terms) by the groom's family.
Shot in neo-documentary style around the streets of the London suburb of Southall, a major center for the Asian community, HONOUR makes much of the private/public distinction: by day Kasim spends his time working for an organization that explicitly pursues anti- racist policies (in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which exposed large-scale racism in the Metropolitan Police). By night he appears to embrace just the kind of racism that the police try to eradicate, as he abuses Tanvir - and at one point holds him captive. Yet director Khan does not criticize Kasim for this; on the contrary he suggests that this is a way of life for many of London's Asian communities.
The real villain of the piece is Considine's bounty-hunter, who has no sense of belief other than to obtain as much money as possible. He is the true racist in the sense that he makes no effort to understand anybody's motives; all that matters for him is that the job should be done and he should receive due financial reward. It is people like him who help to perpetuate the racist stereotypes that prevent members of different communities from integrating with one another in inner cities - not just in London, but everywhere.
HONOUR offers no comfort of an easy resolution. On the contrary, it suggests that second or third generation Asians living in western capitals have to acknowledge the presence of cultural difference, and observe the conventions laid down by their families, even it that means sacrificing the so-called 'freedom' of the west for a more confined existence. This might seem 'unfair' in Mona's cause, but only because she has been brought up in a culture that supposedly values free will.
