Blinded by light is an essential film for anyone who feels lonely

"For those who had an idea …"

Have you ever experienced a work of art that seems to you made especially for you at this precise moment? Something that went beyond "I love this" or "I give to those 5 stars" and strike closer to "I necessary that, "like a drug, like a letter at the right time of a long lost friend? It happened to me twice in my life; the first time my best friend and I crossed the bridge to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, Clarence Clemons'Powerful solo saxophone crescendo during Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band"Thunder Road". It was a beautiful summer day between high school and college. A bachelor of change was waiting for us both when we came back on this bridge. Problems that left no trace at the time to the 18 years who could still believe that bridges and saxophone solos were going forever.

The second time ten years later and 3,000 km away, in an almost empty screening room in Los Angeles, was watching Gurinder ChadhaS Blinded by the light.

I do not like to mix personal stories with cinema thoughts – "Collider is not your diary" is a constant chorus since I started working, especially when I was invited to shout in the void of the series. Gotham– but it's almost impossible not to discuss it Blinded by the light. The first Chadha movie in English since play it like Beckham is this rare piece that deals masterfully in personal and universal themes. Based on a memoir of a journalist Sarfraz Manzoor– who also co-wrote the script – the film follows Javed (Viveik Kalra), a British and Pakistani teenager navigating in life and loneliness in 1987 in Luton. (It's a small town less than two hours from London.) Javed, a talented writer and poet, can not identify with a divided community that hates his race and a strict father (Kulvinder Ghir) who hates his art. A friend, Roops (Aaron Phagura), Javed initiates to the words and sounds of Bruce Springsteenand suddenly he sees a version of himself that might be bigger than a small town. The light at the end of a tunnel, as blinding as it is.

I call Vinnie and I come from a small town located just off the shoreline of New Jersey. It was therefore encoded in my DNA from birth that Bruce is both a genius and a prophet. I attended a Catholic school for 12 years and only learned that A) If God is real, I would like to ask him some questions and B) The only writing I really need is the song " Badlands ". at Asbury Park more times than I can count, a wild place that is no longer a wilderness, but I will never forget the first time I was in front of the stone pony, the temple at the end of 'a life. long pilgrimage. Inside, hymns were shouted on four-chord riffs.

Javed and Roops make a trip similar to Blinded by the light, a flash assembly that passes through Freehold, goes down at exit 100, stops at the stands at Jersey Freeze and then retreats to Luton. This is part of Blinded by the light"The magic, he always comes home." Chadha and director of photography Ben Smithard (The second best exotic hotel Marigold) shoot footage like beautiful, sunny dreams; the film is not enough a musical, but it exists in this same elevated space where the music sometimes transcends reality and Roops, Javed and his girlfriend activist, Eliza (Nell Williams) can sprint the full length of their hometown on the "Born to Run", born four minutes and 29 seconds. But Chadha has always always Back to the waking world, where the color of your skin can be enough to ostracize, white supremacists parade through the streets, factories close and even the most beautiful dreams are not answered. Blinded by the lightThe bold (correct) conclusion is that Bruce Springsteen is the answer to nothing, he simply managed to take advantage of the fact that the elements that unite everyone – sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, workers of assembly line, poets, loners of Luton, Pakistani immigrants, burnout in Asbury, boil down to loneliness and optimism, often at the same time.

In September 2018, I myself went from New Jersey to take a film writing job in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. A dream, of course, that allowed me to meet wonderful human beings that I have the chance to call friends now. But one truth that I desperately try not to let slip into pop culture is that getting away from my friends, family, girlfriend and dog in a beautiful country of hills and highways left me with a feeling of undeniable loneliness. That's always the case, all the time. And as a white guy living in America, I'll never do it, already suffer from the difficulties experienced by Javed, do not be angry because of my appearance, my apartment has no graffiti. But I got into a movie hoping to love it, because I love Springsteen, and I'm deeply moved not by the music, but by a character who does not look like or sound to me, who felt lonely and who found the same outlet. Blinded by the light It's a film that exudes empathy, a shameless assertion to cheese that you're never alone. You do not have to love or even love Bruce Springsteen to understand that. One of the key components of the outfit Blinded by the light together, Matt, Javed's childhood friendDean-Charles Chapman), a feather-haired synth-rocker who could not care less about The Boss but who still connects to Javed. Blinded by the light is all about connections. It's about building the only types of bridges that last forever.

You know that even the songs you love can have lines that you never learn very well, the words you barely sing halfway through each turn? Even as a permanent fan of Springsteen, I have never been able to understand the first line of the chorus of "The Promised Land". (Bruce Springsteen is a genius, but my guy is also a mumbler.) The most electric and moving sequence of Blinded by the light It turns out that these words were broadcast over Javed's head during a storm. Thanks to this movie, I've finally learned this line. This could not be more appropriate:

"The dogs on Main Street are screaming, because they understand …"