Dastaar Theme

The theme that I have been exploring in my chosen short film and story is Prejudice and how it brings fear into the lives of the people who experience it. (Change slide)

The short film I Have chosen is Dastaar by Javian Ashton Le. The film follows a young interracial couple Harpreet and Emily as they navigate social tensions in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The opening shows and an older Turbaned man walking through the streets speaking on the phone. He walks past a hooded man who gives him a long stare. No less than a minute into the film the hooded man starts yelling, as he runs towards the turbaned man with the intent of causing violence. In the next scenes, there is a younger looking turbaned man who happens to be the older man’s son who is faced with the same fear and discrimination as his father throughout the rest of the film.

The themes of fear and prejudice are shown multiple times throughout the film. One of the main examples of this is when the younger man (Harpreet) and his partner (Emily) are driving across the country to see Harpreet’s father in the hospital. Harpreet feels as if is being followed so he stops the car and this is what happens. (Show clip)

You can see the fear in Harpreet’s eyes as he is scared because he has been typecast as someone that can only cause destruction because of what a small minority of people have done from a similar background to him. Harpreet is also scared because it is the fear of the unknown, he does not know what the man is going to to to him. On the other hand, looking at the perspective of the other man, you can see that he is holding a lot of anger against Harpreet because of how he looks, this is only because he has only been exposed to a group of terrorist, and immediately associates Harpreet with