PLEASE NOTE: “Living With the Infidels” features raw language and a shot of a nude male terrorist rear end that is intended for comic effect. If that would potentially offend you, don’t watch the webisode. Otherwise, we hope you enjoy it …
By Govindini Murty. Continuing our theme of cinematic critiques of radical Islam, I wanted to let you know today about a funny, charming, and very brave British web series titled “Living With the Infidels.” ”Living With the Infidels” is directed by Aasaf Ainapore, co-written and co-produced by Aasaf Ainapore and Kira-Anne Pelican, and stars Naveed Choudhry, Annie Cooper, K.M. Darwish, Abhin Galeya, Ernest Ignatius, and San Shella.
“Living With the Infidel” follows the bumbling efforts of a group of hapless Islamic terrorists in England as they attempt to carry out a terror strike in the heart of … Yorkshire, only to be distracted by the local buxom blonde and her nubile brunette best friend. The web series is silly, subversive and very amusing in the low-key British way. I particularly like the opening credit sequence with the animated terrorists, and I enjoyed the goofy, wistful charm of the two young men who play the main characters of Rezza and Abdul.
Blonde infidel.
However, my favorite character has to be Psycho Ali, a deranged terrorist whose obsession with the radical cause is only matched by his hysterical narcissism. Wait for the final episode when Psycho Ali gives a tour de force performance as a frustrated actor trying to make a terrorist video, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. All the actors and actresses do a great job, and it’s interesting to see how on a modest budget – and in the limited confines of a web series – the filmmakers are able to tell a story that is just as entertaining as bigger-budgeted feature films like Four Lions and The Infidel.
“Living With the Infidel” (not to be confused with the feature film The Infidel that Jason has reviewed below) is one of those web series that gave us hope when we first saw it that we would indeed have enough great film and video content to feature here on Libertas. As you know, our focus here at LFM is on positively promoting pro-freedom films and videos from America and around the world, and not just complaining about how left-wing Hollywood is. It’s very important that the good work that is being done out there by filmmakers should be recognized if we want more pro-freedom, pro-democracy films to be made.
As I noted in my posts on the new films Four Lions and The Infidel (see here and here), these films and web videos signal a heartening process of self-questioning over radical Islam within the Muslim community – and “Living With the Infidels” is yet another example of this. I once again have to ask the question – why can’t Hollywood with its billions of dollars and enormous studio apparatus make anything like this? What are they so afraid of? Telling the truth?
We’ve posted Episode 1 of “Living With the Infidels” above, with more episodes to follow …
This is reasonably funny, but I wonder: Will such films as this and Four Lions “normalize” suicide bombing for the mainstream, and cause it to be viewed with less horror than it should?
No – they actually ridicule it and deflate its pretensions to heroism by holding it up to laughter. And it’s best that actors and filmmakers of Muslim/Arab/Persian/South-Asian/African descent do this because then Islamic terrorists from those parts of the world know that it isn’t just Western whites who are out to critique them – but their own compatriots.
Govindini, I get the point you’re making, but I remember a time when terrorism (i.e. the deliberate murder of non-combatants for political gain) was absolutely shocking; when pretty much all decent people found someone like Yasir Arafar abhorrent. It would have been inconceivable to write comedy about such behavior; it would have been viewed as absolutely tasteless. That time is behind us. Terrorism has become something we are used to, and thus a “normal” part of life, and thus grist for the comedic mill, which (maybe) normalizes it still further.