The Australian, Saturday December 1st, 2007
Internal division
A new series tweaks post-9/11 anxiety to create scarily realistic drama, writes Graeme Blundell.
"YOU'RE either an Arab or you are a cop," snarls Senior Detective Crowley (William McInnes), old-school policeman, at odds with everything, especially himself. Young Muslim detective Zane Malik (Don Hany) stares him down edgily, torn between his religion and his role in the major crime squad.
A battle for dominance between two strong men or a metaphor for the fear that exists between East and West, as two lost people search for forgiveness and authenticity?
This is how SBS's seductive, highly intelligent and often abrasive new six-part police procedural series begins. And good it is, more cinematic than any crime show we've produced so far, its clever use of conventions setting up a persistent play of meanings and ambivalences.
Malik was 12 years old when a masked gunman held up the family shop and shot his father, leaving him with brain damage. The Muslim detective has never stopped hunting the shadowy figure in the black balaclava. But what was Crowley's part in the original investigation?
Crowley's son was found dead of a drug overdose, the drugs sold to him by a Lebanese dealer who is eventually found murdered. Internal affairs starts an investigation and Crowley is suddenly at Malik's mercy. Or is he? Is Crowley's redemption interwoven with that of the cop he despises?
The series is constructed around these delicious circles within circles and the appearance of rational order is transformed into a labyrinth of deceit that entraps its victims.
East West 101 is a highly ingenious version of the traditional detective story. And it works a treat as producer Steve Knapman and co-creator Kris Wyld dramatise the ambiguity inherent in the search for truth, meaning and citizenship in the post-9/11 world.
"We are playing around with the notion of an audience empathising inside a genre piece with an Arab hero; this is the game we're playing," Knapman says. "The idea was to play with the audience's emotional investment in character in a climate where there is a degree of bigotry and even racism in the media against Islam."
Habit, conditioning and ignorance are the enemies when it comes to an audience accepting a Muslim hero, Knapman believes, especially if viewers happen to switch across from Channel9. (We are hardly likely to encounter confronting truths on the anodyne Sea Patrol.)
Commissioned by SBS to do a generic crime show, Knapman and Wyld were initially perplexed. "What did they want from us?" Knapman asks. "We didn't want to do a politically correct multicultural show."
A police contact eventually led them to former policeman Hany Elbatoory, a devout Muslim, and his one-time Samoan cop offsider, a Catholic. As serving officers they had been involved in many cases skirting the problems of civic and cultural integration. "We decided to drive the show from the ground up, using the research from their real world," Knapman says.
Another inspiration was the shooting on the London Underground of 27-year-old Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.
The scripts also drew on extensive research and the expertise of other detectives and specialist advisers that Knapman and Wyld have developed during the past 10 years with shows such as Wildside and White Collar Blue. "It was painful to write," Knapman says. "I kept fighting to make Crowley likable and Kris was more sympathetic to the Muslim position. We weren't always slapping each other on the back."
Tough nut Crowley balances the show for Knapman. "If you feel it's rarefied, controversial, public broadcaster drama created by a bunch of Howard-hating lefties, there is always the unreconstructed renegade cop for reassurance."
Director of photography Joe Pickering says he and Knapman decided to go with a French Connection feel, influenced by the brutally realistic 1971 William Friedkin cop movie. "We used zoom lenses, seeking a gritty, cold, New York look," he says with his inimitable guffaw. "We turned Parramatta into Manhattan."
When he wasn't shooting in glassy offices, dank suburban streets or sordid railway sidings, Pickering sought a distinctly Islamic tinge for the mise en scene, using mosques, streets of veiled women, Muslim bookshops and prayer sessions.
"At times it felt like I was doing a documentary in Egypt somewhere."
Pickering covers the action scenes in a scarily realistic way, utilising his distinctive grainy, wild, cinema-verite style. Hand-held cameras run through the action, zooming and frantically swinging as if carried by the SWAT police or those trying to escape them.
McInnes as Crowley carries a grimacing wryness disguising hurt, a man who obviously hasn't faced the truth about himself, his perversity and egotism unconsciously making him project his own needs and obsessions on to the clues he examines.
McInnes is an actor with a powerful technique. He has that rare actorly ability to convey energy, composure, control and solicitude.
But it never looks studied: it appears all instinct, intuition. "He's not a great one for analysing the part too much," Knapman says. "William doesn't like spending the money too early when it comes to acting."
McInnes has his character work on vulnerability as if to cure himself of it, to heal weakness.
He also does mordant banter well, with a sneering mutter, a character wounded by pain and prejudice.
Anthony Hopkins once said that good actors are always trying to conquer their cowardice, and television, a frantic, messy medium, doesn't always encourage actors to give their best. But Hany (White Collar Blue), whose father was born in Iraq, looks as if he is testing himself with a relentless self-examination.
He's so strong as Malik it's hard to imagine anyone else playing him. His body a block, he shoulders through scenes, atavistic rage just under control.
His Malik is a hero who has to decide just what kind of justice can be accomplished in the ambiguous world of modern Australia.
Knapman says he wanted to escape the stereotypes: "That idea that Muslim culture consists only of a bunch of square-headed Lebanese delinquents in a car, shouting 'f..k you' a lot."
He hopes that East West will reach those viewers who rarely watch SBS. "In great crime shows, you empathise with your head detective. If he's Muslim, does that stop you?"
East West 101, Thursday, 8.30pm, SBS.
A new series tweaks post-9/11 anxiety to create scarily realistic drama, writes Graeme Blundell.
"YOU'RE either an Arab or you are a cop," snarls Senior Detective Crowley (William McInnes), old-school policeman, at odds with everything, especially himself. Young Muslim detective Zane Malik (Don Hany) stares him down edgily, torn between his religion and his role in the major crime squad.
A battle for dominance between two strong men or a metaphor for the fear that exists between East and West, as two lost people search for forgiveness and authenticity?
This is how SBS's seductive, highly intelligent and often abrasive new six-part police procedural series begins. And good it is, more cinematic than any crime show we've produced so far, its clever use of conventions setting up a persistent play of meanings and ambivalences.
Malik was 12 years old when a masked gunman held up the family shop and shot his father, leaving him with brain damage. The Muslim detective has never stopped hunting the shadowy figure in the black balaclava. But what was Crowley's part in the original investigation?
Crowley's son was found dead of a drug overdose, the drugs sold to him by a Lebanese dealer who is eventually found murdered. Internal affairs starts an investigation and Crowley is suddenly at Malik's mercy. Or is he? Is Crowley's redemption interwoven with that of the cop he despises?
The series is constructed around these delicious circles within circles and the appearance of rational order is transformed into a labyrinth of deceit that entraps its victims.
East West 101 is a highly ingenious version of the traditional detective story. And it works a treat as producer Steve Knapman and co-creator Kris Wyld dramatise the ambiguity inherent in the search for truth, meaning and citizenship in the post-9/11 world.
"We are playing around with the notion of an audience empathising inside a genre piece with an Arab hero; this is the game we're playing," Knapman says. "The idea was to play with the audience's emotional investment in character in a climate where there is a degree of bigotry and even racism in the media against Islam."
Habit, conditioning and ignorance are the enemies when it comes to an audience accepting a Muslim hero, Knapman believes, especially if viewers happen to switch across from Channel9. (We are hardly likely to encounter confronting truths on the anodyne Sea Patrol.)
Commissioned by SBS to do a generic crime show, Knapman and Wyld were initially perplexed. "What did they want from us?" Knapman asks. "We didn't want to do a politically correct multicultural show."
A police contact eventually led them to former policeman Hany Elbatoory, a devout Muslim, and his one-time Samoan cop offsider, a Catholic. As serving officers they had been involved in many cases skirting the problems of civic and cultural integration. "We decided to drive the show from the ground up, using the research from their real world," Knapman says.
Another inspiration was the shooting on the London Underground of 27-year-old Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.
The scripts also drew on extensive research and the expertise of other detectives and specialist advisers that Knapman and Wyld have developed during the past 10 years with shows such as Wildside and White Collar Blue. "It was painful to write," Knapman says. "I kept fighting to make Crowley likable and Kris was more sympathetic to the Muslim position. We weren't always slapping each other on the back."
Tough nut Crowley balances the show for Knapman. "If you feel it's rarefied, controversial, public broadcaster drama created by a bunch of Howard-hating lefties, there is always the unreconstructed renegade cop for reassurance."
Director of photography Joe Pickering says he and Knapman decided to go with a French Connection feel, influenced by the brutally realistic 1971 William Friedkin cop movie. "We used zoom lenses, seeking a gritty, cold, New York look," he says with his inimitable guffaw. "We turned Parramatta into Manhattan."
When he wasn't shooting in glassy offices, dank suburban streets or sordid railway sidings, Pickering sought a distinctly Islamic tinge for the mise en scene, using mosques, streets of veiled women, Muslim bookshops and prayer sessions.
"At times it felt like I was doing a documentary in Egypt somewhere."
Pickering covers the action scenes in a scarily realistic way, utilising his distinctive grainy, wild, cinema-verite style. Hand-held cameras run through the action, zooming and frantically swinging as if carried by the SWAT police or those trying to escape them.
McInnes as Crowley carries a grimacing wryness disguising hurt, a man who obviously hasn't faced the truth about himself, his perversity and egotism unconsciously making him project his own needs and obsessions on to the clues he examines.
McInnes is an actor with a powerful technique. He has that rare actorly ability to convey energy, composure, control and solicitude.
But it never looks studied: it appears all instinct, intuition. "He's not a great one for analysing the part too much," Knapman says. "William doesn't like spending the money too early when it comes to acting."
McInnes has his character work on vulnerability as if to cure himself of it, to heal weakness.
He also does mordant banter well, with a sneering mutter, a character wounded by pain and prejudice.
Anthony Hopkins once said that good actors are always trying to conquer their cowardice, and television, a frantic, messy medium, doesn't always encourage actors to give their best. But Hany (White Collar Blue), whose father was born in Iraq, looks as if he is testing himself with a relentless self-examination.
He's so strong as Malik it's hard to imagine anyone else playing him. His body a block, he shoulders through scenes, atavistic rage just under control.
His Malik is a hero who has to decide just what kind of justice can be accomplished in the ambiguous world of modern Australia.
Knapman says he wanted to escape the stereotypes: "That idea that Muslim culture consists only of a bunch of square-headed Lebanese delinquents in a car, shouting 'f..k you' a lot."
He hopes that East West will reach those viewers who rarely watch SBS. "In great crime shows, you empathise with your head detective. If he's Muslim, does that stop you?"
East West 101, Thursday, 8.30pm, SBS.
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