Attack The Block with Aamna Mohdin

0:06Aamna Mohdin: Hello and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we talk about the culture we love that society sometimes makes us feel ashamed of. My name is Caroline and call Simon Cowell because aliens got talent. And she'd go out there herself as she weren't so profoundly stoned. It's Aamna Mohdin. You do sound like you've come into the podcast profoundly stoned, but you're just a natural giggler.

0:29Caroline O'Donoghue: No, I'm such a giggler. Very excited giggler, yes. Thank you for having me.

0:35Aamna Mohdin: Thank you for bringing this film into my life. Something that's been on my watch list for so long. And it's like, it's always been like, not tonight, not tonight, not tonight, however. I guess because it's, to me, it's such a boy movie. It is. And I always gravitate towards girl movies. But to finally like sit down with Attack the Block after all these years, living in London, living in South London, I immigrated to London the year this came out to finally watch it as like, you know, 14 years into being a South Londoner. It was such a treat. I mean, it's a treat as a South Londoner, but it's a treat as a film because it's amazing.

1:05Aamna Mohdin: It's an incredible film.

1:06Caroline O'Donoghue: It's such a gem of a film. And also, what a year to come to London. So much happened in 2011. I know, so much happened

1:12Aamna Mohdin: and it went over my head. I had no idea what was going on.

1:17Caroline O'Donoghue: No, it's such a treat of a film. It's very close to my heart. So I watched it when it came out, my brothers who, I sound like, they say, a white girl, but readers, I'm black but they've got more of that East London slang because I think I came here as a child refugee and I was taught English by this really lovely teaching assistant so my accent kind of mimics her whereas my brother's is like the council estate that we grew up in so they loved watching this film together because it was like so reflective

1:47Aamna Mohdin: How many brothers do you have and more do you say? You have four older brothers

1:50Caroline O'Donoghue: And they're all younger

1:51Aamna Mohdin: But that obviously means that because you're I have a sister as well but like she's 10 years older than me and then I got my two brothers and like just up from me so I'm the baby of four but like you you do have a sort of a another kind of boy dialect when you grow up with brothers in that way who are close to you in age yeah and so I can understand why this movie would become like the dear movie of your household yes yeah it was just so special I

2:14Caroline O'Donoghue: really remember it quite clearly us watching it together and then the second time was quite was the year afterwards and it was the first um date I had with my husband so wait so what was the context for the film were you guys um in his room in his bed oh my god he's 21 we've met at university so 2011 was also like do you remember the student movement i don't know if that also yeah it was like we were going crazy because they were about to triple fees we kind of met at one of the big london protests and you know he's like lefty white guy wearing a kefir and i'm I'm like, ooh. So we were in his room watching this film, and he loved it.

2:55Caroline O'Donoghue: And I think that was quite good about why he liked it. He loves Joe Cornish, Edgar Wright. I don't know anything about those guys. Yeah, White Boy in a Kefir, of course. Yes, of course he's the dad of a Joe. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this film is really multicultural.

3:13Aamna Mohdin: It kind of is, in a way. You're joking, but it kind of is, because it is where like sort of what is very, I guess what gets sort of that whole movement of Edgar Wright and Neera Park and Spaced and all that, they were such a brilliant slice of London life and what London was. I recognize still so much of my life in Spaced, even though they're supposed to be like 25 in like 1992. And I was like, why has my life only just gotten to their level now? Crazy. But it's like they're very white worlds, right? And so it does feel like different kinds of Britain coming together. It really does.

3:50Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah. I mean, we watched Space 2 and I remember being like, what? This feels like a completely different language. Yeah. Whereas Chris does, I think sometimes it's really quite funny when he's sat with my four brothers and he doesn't understand what they say. Yeah. And he's just like, yeah, bro. Yeah. He's going to hate me.

4:07Aamna Mohdin: So when you think of your four brothers, do you think of the boys in this movie? Yeah.

4:12Caroline O'Donoghue: And it's really annoying for them because they're in their 20s now. whereas in my head they're always just that they're just 14 year olds who are really annoying just like lying about

4:20Aamna Mohdin: playing football and pepperoni pizza exactly

4:22Caroline O'Donoghue: exactly

4:24Aamna Mohdin: would you would you be interested in giving us a little bit of a plot summary before we get into the main chat yeah sure

4:28Caroline O'Donoghue: so this film is set in South London I think it's the Wyndham Estate I used to think it was New Year's Eve but it's actually Guy Fawkes Night yes the fireworks where it starts off and you've got Jodie Whittaker who just looks so beautiful in this film she really does

4:44Aamna Mohdin: It was a breakout role, I didn't realise. Yeah, before that, her main credit was St. Trinian's.

4:49Caroline O'Donoghue: A movie I have no love for. I love that film. I love terrible films like that. But yeah, so she's coming back and then it's so interesting because you go from this lively London atmosphere to the scary estate that she's going into. Yeah, that opening shot, I was like, oh, I'm sad.

5:09Aamna Mohdin: I'm sad. Because it's like we have this kind of picture of the cosmos and it's like beautiful starry sky or whatever, winter's night and you see something moving in the sky that you're like, oh, it's an alien movie. And then you just pan down slowly and you have oval tube station. And it's this brilliant thing of like, like the kind of celestial kind of genre movie meets the most like pragmatic, unpretty part of London I can think of,

5:35Caroline O'Donoghue: like oval tube station, you know.

5:37Aamna Mohdin: I've come out of there so many times. It's like, and it's like you're immediately like, okay, we're one of these.

5:42Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, exactly. I think the setting, it's just basically its own character, isn't it? It's such a melding of worlds. But I just love how quickly the film just begins to start. Yeah, yeah. No messing around.

5:55Aamna Mohdin: You barely take a breath.

5:56Caroline O'Donoghue: I'm like, oh, my God. And Jodie Whittaker, I think her character's called Sam, is robbed by these teenage boys who think they're in a gang. And then the mugging gets interrupted by an alien attack. So the essence of the film is that these aliens come to attack this South London council estate and these boys and Jodie Whittaker are there to defend it.

6:18Aamna Mohdin: Yeah, to defend the Blanc. Yeah. And it's OK, so let's kind of land ourselves in those early moments as well, because it was really, they are frightening. Like, like, it's so strange because, you know, he's quite clearly referencing E.T. with the whole idea of like little like suburban boys on bikes riding around getting into mischief. But like what boys on bikes getting into mischief has such different meanings culturally and situationally. You put that in like some suburbs in New Jersey and it's like, well, they're building tree houses and they're stealing pies out of windows. and you put that in a South London sort of estate situation and you're like, oh, the mischief has a different tenor and it's like charged differently kind of thing.

7:02Aamna Mohdin: And it really made me think immediately. I was like, oh, this idea of boys on bikes is such a wholesome pastoral thing. But when you put it in a London setting and it's also, think about the way in which those kinds of boys are portrayed as well, like black boys, poor boys or whatever, suddenly boys on bikes becomes a different definition. And it's like a threat. It's immediately a threat. And like that instantly caught me. It was like, wow.

7:28Caroline O'Donoghue: But what was quite interesting was the contradictions as well. Like Moses is, so he's the lead character played by John Borrego. I think it was his first. His first thing. So cute. So sweet.

7:39Aamna Mohdin: And like instantly a star. It should be and introducing John Borrego. Yes, exactly.

7:43Caroline O'Donoghue: The contradiction of how young they are, this horrific thing that they're doing.

7:48Aamna Mohdin: Yeah. is just there

7:50Caroline O'Donoghue: and it starts so sharply and it stays with you throughout the film.

7:54Aamna Mohdin: And they don't flinch either because like Joe Cornish is obviously a funny person and a funny writer and it gets funny quite quickly after that but in the mugging there's nothing funny about it and you're like

8:03Caroline O'Donoghue: if it's happened to anyone we'd be fucking shitting ourselves. You know? And like Sam's like fear is just done so well. I think even just the contrast between her eyes and her face against a black backdrop. Yeah. And I don't know I did some research. but Joe Cornish got mugged and he was inspired by that to write this and I was reading the interview he did with the BBC and he was saying like the main thing that he took away he took away from it was one I'm just gonna allow this to happen I'm too terrified to do anything else smart and two wow these kids are really young and yeah he kind of said that he felt like he was in a play and they were both playing their characters and it was just going through the emotions of what was happening and I just thought god how brilliant it to go from quite a horrific traumatic moment to create something that takes quite a person yeah like if you're listening to

8:59Aamna Mohdin: this Jo I hope you are I really hope you are because like there's like it takes quite a person to take such a terrifying experience like that and like I'm gonna shift this to a place of like not just empathy for my attackers but I'm gonna make them the heroes of the story yeah you know

9:14Caroline O'Donoghue: it's just crazy it's so remarkable that that was like the starting point and that he saw something that so many of our politicians and people in positions of power never see which was these kids humanity and their childhood yeah he places i think it's really interesting he places violence in like the normal rhythm of childhood like straight after the mugging one of the characters calls their mum to say,

9:39Aamna Mohdin: yo, I'm going to come back

9:40Caroline O'Donoghue: in time for the curfew.

9:42Aamna Mohdin: Yeah. In my 10, my favourite bit of dialogue from this whole movie, it was so good. He's on the phone, one of them's on the phone to their mum and saying, yo, I've eaten pepperoni pizza. You gave me the money. I hadn't thought of that thing that your parents ask you when you're kids, where did you get the money? Where did you get, exactly.

9:59Caroline O'Donoghue: And when they're running back, so they decide, okay, there's more aliens, we're going to get them, which is like great and hilarious. They're going into their bedroom and you just see again yeah just constant he's bringing them back to their childhood to them being children yeah because even and I think Sam plays that character like kind of almost that white middle I don't think she's middle class but yeah yeah where she doesn't see them as children I think near the end she's quite surprised by yeah but I just thought wow I just he just does it so beautifully so brilliantly like that to emphasize the innocence and the childhood of children who society have deemed as monsters yeah it's just such a quiet it's this is a quiet radicalism

10:43Aamna Mohdin: i think it's so radical it's radical politically but it's radical artistically as well like if we think of who joe cornish was in the 90s and people in this country will know very well that adam and joe were this real they were like the podcasters before we had podcasters you know they obviously had a radio show but the way they treated it was with a kind of like we do sort of mad stuff and we play with toys and we like do stunts with each other and they were such a phenomenon and like i would imagine that there were many people who were like i want to make joe cornish's movie with him but i imagine the movie they wanted to make was like something like space do you mean or something that's like real like you know two two mates who are best mates being best mates kind of thing getting into hijinks in gamden or something you know or something like that and the thing he makes he's like no i'm going to like make first of all i'm gonna make incredibly difficult to make genre a movie for not very much money.

11:34Aamna Mohdin: Like this is, this cost 8 million pounds, which sounds like a lot of money, but it officially counts as a low budget movie. And also, and I think I'm thinking this because I'm going into shooting my own first thing soon. Oh my God. So I really do relate. I'm like really like. I'm so excited. I know. Thank you so much. It's so exciting. Me and the group chat

11:51Caroline O'Donoghue: will be cheering you on. On that, just a quick shout out to Roz. He's so excited that I'm on this podcast.

11:58Aamna Mohdin: Hi Roz. she's gonna be so happy sometimes people screen grab me their group chats that are chatting about

12:06Caroline O'Donoghue: this and it is the best feeling ever it's honestly nothing i don't need i don't need any kind of

12:10Aamna Mohdin: podcasting award i just need screen grabs of group chats that's all i need but like to first of all make a an action genre movie about aliens and and also like i know it sounds like nothing but like to have the whole thing at night and over one night like it is so expensive to shoot things at night. It's so hard to shoot things at night. Literally, you're dealing with people who are underage so you only have a specific amount of their time anyway. Everything takes longer to shoot at night because people are tired. People are like, literally, if you think about the amount of electrics and wiring involved in making anything, you can't even see.

12:44Aamna Mohdin: Do you know what I mean? You can't even fucking see. The margin for error is so much higher. So much. And the whole movie, that really struck me. I'm sorry if that's so nerdy, but it really struck me. It must have been so hard to make physically. but also like the amount of time Joe Cornish spent on this script and spent on this research like famously he spent a lot of time with youth groups and became like really quite good friends with some of the people who emerged from those youth groups and like really getting dialect down

13:12Caroline O'Donoghue: he would sort of record these whole days he spends with these kids and then he would like type them up at night

13:18Aamna Mohdin: and he refused to hire anyone to help him type them up because he wanted to get into the flow of the language more

13:23Caroline O'Donoghue: like that is like that's yeah that's really in it like particularly because i think he went to the westminster school it was like yes like one of the really posh london private yeah but i say this all the time but white people who grew up in south london i just built differently they really are like they're just especially if they live they live near some of the bigger estates and it's just like the norm that they've got black friends they're part of the black community, I just, I found them to just be, you know what, one of us, I dare say. God, do you know what makes me really happy?

13:57Aamna Mohdin: That I'm going to have kids who grow up in South London.

13:59Caroline O'Donoghue: It's just, they're made different. I don't know. I think it's because South London is so, obviously like, it's a really black area,

14:06Aamna Mohdin: but like lots of areas of London are black. It's because there's no fucking tubes and everyone's bundled on buses together. It's like, well, we're all here together. There's no separation. Let's integrate. Let's talk. Let's chat. The bus is on diversion. Let's chat. but yeah Joe Cornish talks about he grew up in Stockwell and like and he's very much cops to being sort of a middle to upper class kid but he's like I would walk through the estates to sort of get wherever and he like how much he loved the spaces and about how much these huge buildings they do feel futuristic and the walkways that go through them and how they sort of almost seem like sort of big cruise ship liners or spaceships in themselves and how architecturally interesting they are yeah

14:44Caroline O'Donoghue: yeah like I don't think brutalism is beautiful but But I do understand that they came from this moment of like actual social housing being built in this country. Yeah. And like another way of living and providing for the working class. And then they were just allowed to rot. No investment was put in them. And then the film, I think so interesting, comes at a time where David Cameron, that guy. That guy. Remember him? He was like really railing against what he called sinkhole estates. Right. And kind of committed to destroying these estates like Wyndham. So it just, I think.

15:20Aamna Mohdin: And by destroying, did he mean like bulldozing them?

15:22Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, bulldozing them and putting up some new flats. And you see that happening all over South London. I mean, everywhere in London right now. And the idea was the way it was built was like allowing criminality to be ingrained. Right. Which is, you get like these like alleyways and corridors and like, you have to know the estate well enough to be able to jump to that right place to escape the alien. Like, I thought that was so interesting. Like, these kids know the architecture of this place so intimately. And that mirrors running away from the police. And, like, the Tories were, like, trying to be really hot on that, which felt ridiculous to me.

15:58Caroline O'Donoghue: But they were like, you know, this place, this is where, like, drugs and crime is, like, really rampant. That's so ridiculous. They're literally citing the geography of the building. Yeah. Instead of just being like, maybe we should just fund these areas, fund repairs. What? Like, what? I've never heard that before. That is nuts. It's so insane.

16:20Aamna Mohdin: Because what was also happening around this time. So, like, you know, this comes out in 2011, May 2011. The London riots that also spread to different parts of the country happens a couple of months later in August. At the end of that month, I move over.

16:33Caroline O'Donoghue: Three great moments in London's history.

16:38Aamna Mohdin: The release of Attack the Block. The London riots.

16:41Caroline O'Donoghue: Carried on who's moved to Elephant and Castle.

16:44Aamna Mohdin: Literally, I was there the day after the riots ended. There was like broken glass on the street. And like, so he was, therefore it was kind of written sort of 2008, 2009. And Joe Cornish famously consulted all these youth groups. But then like from 2010 on, through all the kind of like 20 teens, David Cameron's government defunded all of these youth groups. That has like, we have the numbers now. Enough time has passed. There's this huge study that came out in the BBC in 2024. that was like we can absolutely chart the defunding of these youth groups to the rise in crime of all kinds rising knife crime um and also the kind of um the rise in people dropping out before or like gcse level like it is crazy how much that those that act how violence like has contributed to like significantly worse lives for so many people in this country i mean i remember at the time when

17:34Caroline O'Donoghue: was when we were like really campaigning against the austerity drive that was coming. And like at university, you had those super political people. Hi, me, really annoying. And you had those just like, fair enough, we wanted to do their degrees. Yeah, me. And I just found it.

17:53Caroline O'Donoghue: But I really felt like something awful was coming. Like something horrible is coming. These community centres were just like such a lifeline for families like mine. But even things like Sure Start, you know.

18:09Aamna Mohdin: Sorry, I didn't go up here, so what is Sure Start? Sure Start were these,

18:12Caroline O'Donoghue: it was one of the few really great things that New Labour did were early childcare centres that they just put in really deprived communities and they funded them and they were incredible at tackling childhood poverty in the area. Like, for example, for us, it was just supporting my mum, who was like a recent refugee, and helping us with everything, with supporting what the school curriculum is. And this is how, even little things like we had, I won't mention which brother, struggled at potty training. And I remember really clearly, they gave her these signs to use with him because he had this speech delay.

18:47Caroline O'Donoghue: And it was just, it was amazing. It was, it's actually such a, it's just a form of vandalism that the Tories came in and took Shawstead away. It completely horrifies me that that happened because it was so central in getting so many young people on the right track, really, and getting them. It's just that, particularly before you start school. I think a lot about, I had a kid, he's going to be two in a few weeks' time. He's growing up quite middle class, and it's been quite interesting to see all that goes into parenting before they go to reception, which is the first year. Short start was that, to ensure that there was other support support for families who don't have really intensive parents who can put them in private nurseries who can do all this work so you can narrow the gap with kids who start who can who's been like shown how to read before bed who's been already you've sorted out their library cards just before they go to school sorted out school uniforms so that you're not embarrassed and you're turning up in like horrible crap that you can be bullied in and it's it shocked me because it was such a cheap thing.

19:55Caroline O'Donoghue: I think every pound they spent, they got like three pound out of it. Fuck me. That is crazy. They were like gone, the whole thing. Gone.

20:01Aamna Mohdin: And like, and just like after school. So I know we're sounding... Very social workers. I know. But like just the idea that they would come out with this theory, like that the architecture of a space was the reason for criminality. It was like, no, the reason for criminality is like you've got a lot of kids who probably like both parents are employed in like low wage jobs. therefore there's no money or resource for anyone to look after them after school therefore they just sort of like get bored and sort of vandalize and then it sort of like kind of goes from there it's just like we already know that like particularly when it comes to boys that testosterone is like we have come up with army and the priesthood to manage it like we like we like every society has its own way of dealing with testosterone if you don't deal with it it just becomes like vandalism and violence and like and like just and like just there were again not

20:48Caroline O'Donoghue: to go on all about social programs, but like we were paid to go to sixth form. I remember that. My brother was like a Spanish by it. It was called EMA. Can't remember what it stood for, but I was given 30 pound a week to go to school. And I was like, I will never be late to a class again. What a perfect amount of money to incentivize a 17 year old.

21:06Aamna Mohdin: Like 30 pounds. It's like, it's not like you can't go crazy with it, but like, it will make a difference. That's a top.

21:13Caroline O'Donoghue: And it's like, now you don't have that. Why would you go to something that costs you money or someone else can throw you into the dark economy.

21:21Aamna Mohdin: Yeah. Jesus, wow.

21:23Caroline O'Donoghue: It was a crazy time.

21:25Aamna Mohdin: So in that, so obviously these boys that we're following in this movie, they have fallen down the crevice that we're just talking about. They're people who are not being scooped up by any schemes. There's no sort of exceptionalism happening here. They're just regular boys who are just going around looking for some money and something to do, whatever. So they mug Sam And then that is interrupted by a alien crash landing into a silver Volvo. And then that alien sort of like pounces out and attacks Moses and he ends up killing it. And it's like, I don't know if you've ever seen this meme. It's one of my favorites.

22:01Aamna Mohdin: It's like a meme that goes around every now and then that says, I don't know about you guys, but if E.T. landed in my hometown, we would have killed it with rocks. And it's very much that. They kill it. Because that's boys. Of course they kill it. Of course they don't befriend it. Of course they kill it.

22:17Caroline O'Donoghue: Boys. And all of the dialogue after it is so good. They're like, welcome to London, motherfucker.

22:25Aamna Mohdin: They're so thrilled. There is nothing in them that's like, oh, what if it was sent to you? What if it has feelings? There's no. Welcome to London, motherfucker.

22:37Caroline O'Donoghue: I love that. I love this, like, when they were walking back to the estate and they're going through Sam's purse and they're like, she's a nurse. they barely get paid anything. Yeah. Why are you always robbing poor people?

22:49Aamna Mohdin: Like there's not a second of guilt where they're like,

22:51Caroline O'Donoghue: we robbed a nurse.

22:53Aamna Mohdin: And there's no like, there's no like moment where they pan to one of the boys' faces and he's like, oh, maybe he's not too sure about what they've just done. They're like, no, she's poor. Ew.

23:01Caroline O'Donoghue: And it's so 15 year olds. It's so boys. It's so boys.

23:07Aamna Mohdin: And like, it's really daring as well. Because I think, you know, I kept thinking naturally, like what, in what ways would this film be different were it made now? And I think we would probably get a lot more conversation that might not have been constructive necessarily about like, should a white man be telling the story? Oh my God, yes, yes. We would have gotten a lot of that and it would have been a lot of Joe Cornish sitting on panels like having to prove how much research he did.

23:32Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, yeah.

23:33Aamna Mohdin: And like, I don't know, how do you feel about that in terms of like, because to me it's like, well, clearly this person has spent a lot of time and resource on getting this exactly right and also satirizing himself in it by like basically his self-insert character is a sort of posh White Ridge Stoner who's just like buying weed off Nick Frost.

23:51Caroline O'Donoghue: And he's like listening to grime and he's a bit terrified when the kids come in. Exactly. It's such a good scene.

23:57Aamna Mohdin: He's like a silly character, but he's also completely based in reality, that character. And like, I think there would be a lot of like your, it would have been like sort of morally well-informed, but probably would have caused a bit more harm than good. Of like, well, you shouldn't have made this movie. somebody else should have instead and be that as it may they're still like a well somebody was in a position where someone gave eight million quid to make a movie and they made this fucking great

24:20Caroline O'Donoghue: movie yeah yeah what where do you own that yeah i i actually question whether it would be made because you have to go over a lot of bullshit to make it i i wouldn't blame someone like joe to be like that's a can of worms that i don't want to get involved in yeah and i think what the other thing that the 2010s were really known for and i definitely took part in this we're just like a really crazy form of like identity politics.

24:46Aamna Mohdin: Yeah. That we're only now just waking up for and being like, what the fuck was that about? Like we've all been in a trance and been like... Like it was nuts. We went nuts there. I'm not saying we deserve all the right-wing fascism, but we don't not deserve something.

25:08Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, I think it... The way I can describe it, when I started to learn about white privilege was when I was at university. I felt really empowered by it. Especially when you're learning about male privilege and you're like, shut the fuck up.

25:23Aamna Mohdin: I didn't have the guts to.

25:26Caroline O'Donoghue: Until I was like, oh, and particularly in social circles in the left, it was funny. I definitely abused it.

25:34Aamna Mohdin: Oh, we all abused it. I definitely abused the Me Too movement from my own game.

25:43but I

25:43Caroline O'Donoghue: remember intersectional feminism

25:45Aamna Mohdin: now I see it I'm just like ugh but every time you see that phrase now you're just like I'm scared but we could not stop saying it and then it was intersectionality in feminism in feminism

25:59Caroline O'Donoghue: no then we went to white feminism and now we just cut to the chase call any annoying white woman Karen and I'm like isn't this kind of misogynistic lads

26:09Aamna Mohdin: yeah I don't know what it is we believe anymore we're so ununited where yeah it was it was horrible

26:14Caroline O'Donoghue: and I don't yeah I don't think a project like this would have been made because people who are losers I'm happy to call them that counsel me counsel me losers who would be on like twitter don't know anything about the project and they would just start a hate train yeah and it's quite

26:29Aamna Mohdin: shocking how quickly that can spill into real life totally so I think it was a it was a movement to

26:36Caroline O'Donoghue: try to get like more writers of color you know more artists to be able to tell these stories and tell any other stories that they want but what's kind of happened is you get these like really awkward press releases particularly the journalists it's like by the way he's black and he's from this really poor estate and he's exploring black masculinity and it just sounds awful i'm sorry and i'm like i don't get there's no plot i'm sure whatever the person's working on

27:05Aamna Mohdin: is great for its own merits and has its own things or whatever. But it's like the way in which the press release has gone with it is being like black guy writing about black stuff.

27:14Caroline O'Donoghue: It's honestly, and I get it with publishers because they really want you to like stand out. Like I published my book, the paperback just came up.

27:24Aamna Mohdin: Very nice. And what's that book called? Scattered. Scattered.

27:27Caroline O'Donoghue: But it's, yeah, it's just me describing, I described talking about my life as a child refugee in Kenya, surviving the Somali Civil War. I when I wrote it I couldn't I really understood and understood why but so much of the emphasis was this is a refugee writing a refugee story authentic voices and I'm like I am really funny guys yeah yeah yeah this is me like massively just taking the piss out of everything and my parents they have such dark humor and I yeah I had an amazing editor Allegra at Bloomsbury who really understood it but when we were pitching it initially to different publishers that's all they could see and what time were you pitching it what year it was 2022 so the backlash really hadn't come in

28:11Aamna Mohdin: yeah yeah yeah right right and then that it's not now now i'd be like get away i don't think

28:17Caroline O'Donoghue: anyone's getting in yeah i feel like people have talked about that wave is over about just like but i do think a lot of just to go back to what we're saying i think diverse books for the sake

28:30Aamna Mohdin: of it it's bad yeah because it all it sort of positions this lens that's like the the most any any kind of like black person a trans person whatever the most they have to offer us is a view on their blackness or their transness or their what you know their refugee-ness or whatever and and like it sort of flattens their entire character to that and it's like and similarly the thing of like would joe cornish be arsed even making this today because the backlash would be so annoying so annoying and also like commissioners are always looking for more reasons to say no and they'll just be like i don't know you're kind of a posh white guy maybe not yeah but similarly it's like would a black filmmaker i guess you know uh ryan coogler and stuff is really you know doing amazing stuff but like like a british black filmmaker being allowed to make a huge genre movie with aliens that are just like you know guys in gorilla suits with gloves on teeth you know or where they want him to make you know top boy or kiddlethood or adulthood or make something really social realist it's like what we allow people to do it's like giving we don't give women the power of satire sometimes it's like something I always think about like Hannah Horvath in Girls it's like

29:38Caroline O'Donoghue: it's satirical love the little comeback it's having though I watched it for the first time really? enjoying it? I just finished it amazing it is a work of genius it is a work of genius and that character is a work of profound satire but they were like

29:51Aamna Mohdin: she's so annoying Yeah, she's a 25-year-old girl. No way could she be able to make satire. And similarly, even though some of the greatest people in science fiction are not white. Like Octavia Butler and Kindred and stuff. We're still being like, no, the job of people who aren't white is to write sort of social realist things that makes the rest of us feel bad for two minutes. But like we've had a nice vitamin.

30:16Caroline O'Donoghue: You've taken your iron tablet.

30:18Aamna Mohdin: Exactly, you've taken your iron tablet of black girls or white girls.

30:21Caroline O'Donoghue: No, I guess what I found frustrating about it, like, we should be very critical of that. But we shouldn't terrify white people from not writing black characters, which I kind of feel like is happening or has happened or terrify, you know, I'm cis for me being able to write if I wanted to a trans character. I'd be terrified of doing it now. Whereas, like, I think that's important. I think that's really good.

30:43Aamna Mohdin: I think it's really important. Yeah.

30:45Caroline O'Donoghue: And I kind of want to just see people try.

30:47Aamna Mohdin: Not just politically, but like artistically as well. Because we are stuck in what I would think of, like it's a very autobiographical artistic movement that we're sitting in right now. Like, you know, like Past Lives by Celine Song or whatever.

31:00Caroline O'Donoghue: One of my favourite films.

31:01Aamna Mohdin: Lovely, lovely movie, like lovely quiet movie. But like, you know, very much it was like the way that movie was marketed and shown to us was like, this is like basically Celine Song's autobiography and that kind of thing. And like, I think of like A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg. and that was very much front-footed with like, I am Jesse Eisenberg, I am part of the sort of Jewish diaspora, I like, these are the experiences that are like the ones I've had in concentration camps and stuff. And I think these stories are valuable, but I also find imagination and sort of like using huge metaphor, using genre, equally if not more valuable.

31:38Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, I feel like Joe Cornish bringing in like, you know, Shaun of the Dead, that vibe to this film was hugely disruptive to, at the time, there was loads of films that I think now is described as hoodie horror.

31:52Aamna Mohdin: Yeah.

31:53Caroline O'Donoghue: And Attack the Block is so interesting because it completely challenged those films. So it was like, you know, Eden, I don't know. I'm not very good.

32:01Aamna Mohdin: Oh, Eden Lake, is that one? Yeah, Eden Lake, yeah. Harry Brown and Cherry Tree Lane.

32:05Caroline O'Donoghue: I haven't watched these films because I'm not very good with horror.

32:08Aamna Mohdin: No, me neither. This is about as much as I can take on.

32:11Caroline O'Donoghue: And I was really fascinated about that time. it was essentially black kids or white working class kids who were wearing these like hoodies from these kind of estates doing horrific things. So he's come and really played, especially that opening scene we were talking about, with that genre. I think only he could really have done that. Like he was seeing something there and like his history of comedy kind of filtered into that and it broke us away from that, I think. So I just think it's completely fascinating that he did it and more people, white people write more black characters. I will defend you.

32:48Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah. Oh my God. I will defend. I don't have any social media presence, but I will.

32:54Aamna Mohdin: You're going to just have this like sort of cottage industry where you rubber stamp white people that advise projects and you're going to make so much money doing it.

33:01Caroline O'Donoghue: But isn't that what sensitivity readers are?

33:03Aamna Mohdin: Oh God, that's a whole, let's not even get into that today, mate. Let's not even get into it today. Let's go back to talking about scenes from this film. Yes. Yes, yes. So, okay, so we have the kids and they've killed the alien and then they sort of decide that they're going to take it to Nick Frost's house. Nick Frost is the weed dealer and he gets stoned and he watches David Attenborough all day, which is a brilliant character to have as your fixer character.

33:30Caroline O'Donoghue: Oh, he's so good and I think...

33:32Aamna Mohdin: You're Gandalf, basically. He's the Gandalf of the film. He's such a stone bad Gandalf.

33:37Caroline O'Donoghue: I can't remember what his name was, but when they were the second time going up to his weed room and they're like, we're going to Nick's weed room and Sam, Jodie Whittaker goes, what's Sam's weed room? Someone goes, it's Sam's weed room.

33:54Caroline O'Donoghue: So stupid. So good.

33:56Aamna Mohdin: But before we get that, we first have them all going home to get supplies and get fireworks and get weapons and stuff. It's such a brilliant scene. It's a very Edgar Wright type scene of like lots of quick cuts and door slamming and stuff. And we get like a little slice of each of their home lives. And they're all just like, you know, it's so cute because we watch them instantly go from being these terrifying muggers to just being these little boys who are lying about playing football or lying about whatever. And it's just so brilliantly, energetically done. And then we have this thing of like, John Boyega goes into his, or Moses, the character, goes into his flat and we just don't see it.

34:35Aamna Mohdin: It was like a pause and we don't see anything and then that's it. and it like really positions him he's like a very like James Dean type of role here and it's so you can so see why this was like what launched this huge international career and why he is like one of those celebrities who we just like oh you know we know that kind of thing even though like you know I don't know he's not even that old like you know I think 33

34:56Caroline O'Donoghue: he's 33 you know

34:58Aamna Mohdin: but it was like an immediate thing it's like he really does this like perfect thing of like between like boyhood and manhood yeah

35:06Caroline O'Donoghue: yeah

35:07Aamna Mohdin: that's like he's so he's clearly the leader of the group he's quite sage he's quite stoic but like there's something just that very rare thing of like you want him to protect you but

35:16Caroline O'Donoghue: you also want to protect him you know i think that is exactly i felt so protective over him when i was watching when i was watching the film and i loved seeing him being so protective over

35:25Aamna Mohdin: the other boys yeah and he's just such a great hero yeah he's just such a great heroic incredible

35:31Caroline O'Donoghue: arc yeah it's like when you're talking about his bedroom i actually think sorry to keep moving the film on but when jodie whittaker goes into his room so they it takes a little while to get her

35:43Aamna Mohdin: on board yeah that there are aliens attacking yeah loads of great scenes of just aliens just

35:49Caroline O'Donoghue: fucking up this estate yeah and the police so good um and then eventually she does like and there's another cute thing where they realize that she lives in the estate and then they say oh we wouldn't have moved you babes if we knew you.

36:02Aamna Mohdin: I know, if we knew you.

36:05Caroline O'Donoghue: That was so funny. But it's also like such fucking incredible writing as well

36:11Aamna Mohdin: because it really gets to a lot and it really made me think as like a white person who lives in South London and like, you know, I've lived all over it at this point. And like some, you know, like technically speaking, if you were to look at like crime rates and percentages alone, some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country and my parents who will read these statistics will be like, we're worried about you. And it's like,

36:32Caroline O'Donoghue: the thing is,

36:33Aamna Mohdin: I'm not a black boy between the ages of 15 and 25. So it's like, we live on different planes of reality. And like, that's quite like fucking, like I've watched countless boys be arrested. I want like our, or I've like walked by crime scenes that are being cleaned up for where someone has clearly fucking died. It is a dark, beautiful neighborhood. You know, it's a dark and beautiful part of the country. But like, like, it's like we live on different planes of reality and Jodie Whittaker lives in different planes of reality. And like, Like, even though she lives in this block and she lives in this apartment, she sort of like, they are almost in different dimensions.

37:04Aamna Mohdin: Yeah. You know what I mean?

37:05Caroline O'Donoghue: And she'd moved in recently. And I think it's really talking to that level of gentrification that's beginning to happen. So you've got her as a much more serious character of that. And then the other guy that's clearly Joe Cornish. Sorry, Joe.

37:16Aamna Mohdin: Yeah, yeah. But he said it himself. Like, he's like, that's me.

37:22Caroline O'Donoghue: I just thought the melding of those two worlds is like, what happened at the end of this film and it's done just so right. It's not too much. Yeah. But it's done really beautifully and my favourite scene is when she goes, when they figure out that the reason why the aliens keep specifically going for the kids is that when Moses killed the first alien, it was a female and her pheromones was all over him and then all these other male aliens are coming towards him because they can smell him. Yeah. So he realises...

37:54Aamna Mohdin: Which I love, by the way. It's like a little bit of logic. It's really fun.

37:56Caroline O'Donoghue: A bit of science. Yeah, why not? A little bit of science. And he just decides to be a hero, literally. And thinks, I'm going to go and find a way to draw them out and try to kill them. And as part of this plan, he asks Sam Jodie to go to his flat to get his bag. Yeah. And it's such a moving scene. I had to rewind it to watch it again. Because she goes into the flat and he's talking to her on the phone. So you just hear his voice. You don't see him for the first time, really. and you begin to see his like spider-man poster you see all these like childhood things like unmade single bed with a colorful duvet and it's like little takeaway box you then see like the absence of any sort of parental love and support it's just this uncle that's there but not really there and yeah it's such a moving moment because she says how old are you that's the first time

38:48Aamna Mohdin: she says do you have a little brother he's like no how old are you 15 you look older he's like Thanks.

38:55Caroline O'Donoghue: Thanks. Every 15-year-old wants to be told by them.

39:00Aamna Mohdin: But you know, it's so, again, I think what's so incredible about Joe Cornish's movie as like a first feature as well is the restraint. Because I think that moment where you see, we see everybody else's home life apart from Moses's, Moses's, your mind instantly goes to, oh, there's some kind of an abusive narrative happening there. And actually it's revealed that the abuse is neglect.

39:24Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah.

39:25Aamna Mohdin: And that being all the Moseses in the world that are just doing petty crime and accosting women outside of tube stations.

39:34Caroline O'Donoghue: Generally, there's not some big spooky story

39:37Aamna Mohdin: where their abuse narrative is just the worst thing you've ever heard. It's because no one fucking cares about them.

39:41Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, and there's no one there to support him. No one there to just make sure he has a hot meal. And I just thought, wow, this is so moving. And I think the fact that he wasn't there for that scene was really beautiful because he's taken away when you see a 15, 16, 17 year old black boy, you're just terrified because of what you've been taught. If you don't come from that community, if they're not your brothers, if you're not married to them. And he's just constantly re-centering his childhood. I just think that is so powerful for all of them. Constantly kind of, I know un-childing is a word, so I don't know what that means.

40:17Caroline O'Donoghue: Un-childing? What does that mean? So it means, you know, so it's happening quite a lot right now in Palestine, for example as someone who reports on this i've been astonished at the length that the british press will go to to not just say palestinian children right so when there was like the first ceasefire and the second and you saw a lot of palestinian prisoners come out the text was really fascinating because it was really like genuinely a human being under the age of 18 and some of the some of the british press yeah the print and that is unchilding because we will not acknowledge them as children and you see this as well with black british people obviously it's not the same level of violence but you remove their childhood and therefore you remove their innocence and the care that even if they've committed a crime we don't just go go hung on them we try to turn it into a learning opportunity and then it normalizes state violence against them yeah and i

41:10Aamna Mohdin: which i suppose why there are so many historically so many euphemisms for um for young black british boys yeah children yeah it's like hoodie it's asbo's it's youths it's yobs it's you know whatever um but it's like anything to avoid using the word child yeah yeah and it's just it's such a

41:28Caroline O'Donoghue: horrific process i can see in real time when i'm reporting and you can yeah i was just seeing him forcing you to interrogate that right so he's like this is a child remember and like for him to take him away and i thought the dialogue of her asking how old he was was just like so powerful because constantly reminding you this is a child. Yeah. Regardless of what's happening this is a child.

41:51Aamna Mohdin: But it's also this thing of like this is a child very much like centering their childhood absolutely but also showing that they because they are children who are growing up in like tough or poor or whatever situations and like in a state where they have to they have to be tough to survive because we have that that drug dealer character who's around.

42:10Caroline O'Donoghue: Who's so camp buddy. Who's so camp. He's so like DJ Jazzy Jeff isn't he.

42:16Aamna Mohdin: the way he's dressed it's very like go home roger do you know what i mean

42:20Caroline O'Donoghue: he's such an unserious character yeah i found it hard to be scared of him as well

42:25Aamna Mohdin: really i know he's so unserious you're so right he's so unserious but like you know what i mean he kind of needs to stand in for like you know you do have to be um tough to live here and be a boy and whatever and like so and like it shows that like yeah and out of that hardship has grown resourcefulness and resilience and like the way in which at one point they're like oh yeah yeah it's that great bit where um moses is arrested because um sam identifies him to the police they put him into a van and then right then that the uh aliens attack the police right and so then the boys they sort of jack the police van and switch and then and they're just like oh just jack it and then they just like kind of go down underneath and they're like popped up and they're oh, all right, Grant.

43:12Aamna Mohdin: And then they sort of, they sort of drive it through the block or wherever and like, it's this, and then you're getting this sort of eye contact between Sam and Moses because they're on either side of this partition wall. But then the alien jumps on top of the van and like starts beating it down. And then they're both, first they were predators to each other. And then they are the prey of something else. And like watching, it's almost like, it's not dialogue really. It's just that it's watching their physical acting through a partition wall of how they're both behaving. And it's so crazy because at that point, Jodie Whittaker is probably in her 30s and has done a lot of stuff and is a great actress, is a proper national treasure.

43:52Aamna Mohdin: And we've recognised her as that now. But John Boydaker is a 16-year-old kid who's never done anything before and they're just like the way... Toe to toe. Toe to toe and chemistry

44:02Caroline O'Donoghue: through a partition as well. Yeah, it's really hard. I thought their eye contact was just so visceral, so moving. They were saying so much without saying anything. Yeah. Except they were! But they were! I just thought it was so moving. And you really paint, very slowly see her move to them, like move towards them and then choose to be part of their community. They immediately accept her and they realise she's part of the estate and they're like, oh, yeah, let's try to give her the ring back. All the horrible things we did to her. But she took a little while and I thought that was really smart, done in a really good way.

44:39Caroline O'Donoghue: but then eventually you know once she believes them and sees what they're trying to defend and sees the estate as something worth defending yeah I just she just switches and it's just suddenly like this really even more chaotic and funny movie but again I'm worried we're making it sound like it's very like socialist realism like no it's so funny

45:00Aamna Mohdin: like one of the funniest parts of the movie is like just after that scene where they like crash the police van into like this underground parking space or whatever and then one of the guys turns around sorry about the driving I'm getting lessons for Christmas

45:13Caroline O'Donoghue: it's so sweet my absolute favourite dialogue I can't remember exactly when it was it might have been then as when this kid one of the kids is like trying to send a text and he's like I've got one text left there's too much madness to put in one text oh my god one text left and I was like bring back 5p texts

45:31Aamna Mohdin: bring back the time

45:33Caroline O'Donoghue: when texts cost money oh my gosh

45:35Aamna Mohdin: girl all of my problems So many of my problems would be solved if texts cost money.

45:41Caroline O'Donoghue: And it was like you had two pages. And you know when the text is overrunning, so you had to go back to the top page to try to cut it down. I know. At the edit. The edit function.

45:51Aamna Mohdin: I can't believe how much better life would be if we had to pay again.

45:55Caroline O'Donoghue: That was the only time when it really felt suddenly dated, actually, when I was watching it. Because outside of that, it really didn't. And I was like, oh, I miss when texting costs money. And I wasn't a bad texter.

46:06Aamna Mohdin: I know. we were just yeah we were just broke then it was easier exactly before I had the social label of bad text which I live with

46:15Caroline O'Donoghue: but you have 15 voice notes to respond to I know oh my god god it would oh

46:20Aamna Mohdin: we could really do you know who I want to shout out to actually because I didn't write down any of the boys names that weren't

46:26Caroline O'Donoghue: Moses

46:27Aamna Mohdin: I love them all they're great but this is my first time watching this movie and it moves very quickly and there's a lot of characters so I don't know all their names but I love Probs and Mayhem oh so good

46:36Caroline O'Donoghue: the little kids the little nine year olds who are called Gavin and Reginald

46:41Aamna Mohdin: but they're problems and mayhem

46:44Caroline O'Donoghue: it was so sweet even just showing the difference in like what it means to be a 14 year old boy and what it means to be a 10 year old yeah it was so good it's so good

46:54Aamna Mohdin: and they're like they're the way they're kind of this is big man stuff yeah go home go home do your homework watching original

47:01Caroline O'Donoghue: so good I've watched the film there several times I can't remember

47:05Aamna Mohdin: anyone's name other than but i'm so glad i'm so glad i'm so terrible and i love these they're they're really good they're really great i really want to talk about the girls the girls are fabulous so good they're so good so the early parts of the movie when they just killed the alien and they're just sort of like touring that we're really getting a sense of what the block is yeah as you say it's like um it's not enough to save the world we have to know what world we're saving you know we have to really know what we're rooting for and like they just sort of like in that way that the kind of way of socializing that you totally forget as a older person where you're just like oh yeah your pals will just be like rocking up outside of mcdonald's and you'll just like go

47:46Caroline O'Donoghue: up to them and chat for a bit well you like can just bump into a friend and not text them and be like let's hang out and they're like i can hang out in february 2026 it's the intimacy of just living near each other and seeing each other all the time.

48:01Aamna Mohdin: Yeah, and that thing of teenhood of just like, there's always acres of time to stand outside places. Yeah.

48:06Caroline O'Donoghue: And like when they kind of meet up with the girls,

48:08Aamna Mohdin: it's like, I would love, that must again, must have been so hard to shoot. Something else I'm learning about the film business is that like anytime, like generally, a production only has one or two cameras, right? And so every time you do a group song like that, so we've got like two gangs, we've got the five boys and then the corresponding girls, about the same number of girls or whatever, is that you have to like, Like someone says something and you have to get coverage on every single face, which means you have to reset every single time and say those lines again and again. Like so it feels so improv'd and so breezy or something.

48:40Aamna Mohdin: And like these kids have known each other since they were two years old. They went to the same fucking short start center together or whatever. It's just like you're just there. And that's the flow of like. And the girls are so funny in their own right. And you can so tell they have their own thing going on. I wanted more of them.

48:55Caroline O'Donoghue: I kind of understand it is a boy film. Yeah. But what I also loved is like the difference in dressing. And it's still such a thing now with young people in London where it will be like 35 degrees outside. And my mum's estate will still be like completely zipped up. In their big black puffy coat. Just completely head to toe like dress. like I spent some time in my early childhood in Saudi Arabia and it just reminds me of a jelebi that I'm like fully just covered. And then the girl's like in nothing. She looks fabulous. I really could like, I just thought that was so funny. Like the girls are always like great little mini skirt, tank top.

49:40Caroline O'Donoghue: It's 10 degrees. Why are you wearing that?

49:45Aamna Mohdin: That's being a teenager, baby. The boy's all swaddled up. The girl's got nothing at all. but I loved about those girls because we see them again later in the film and they're so funny they're so great we see them kind of at their sleepover or whatever they're all just hanging out and there's something it's that typical thing which is always it remains true it's a cliche because it's true that thing of girls just age faster than boys socially they have like an idea of hierarchy and care and consequences in sort of an innate way and they're sort of just like hanging out in their bedroom and one of the boys calls her and she's like what did she say she's like what shut up like what nonsense are you up to yeah it's very like what nonsense is this kind of thing and she just throws the phone away and then the boys show up and they're there's something very nurturing about them they're all kind of like i think they're combing like the boy's hair yeah yeah she's literally just kind of fussing with his hair a little bit

50:37Caroline O'Donoghue: like a like it's very maternal it really is it really is it just it was a really and like that's the only time where it's like really warm like the kind of film it's just like really inviting it's really lovely and like I didn't grow up in a massive high rise like that but I lived near one and our one was like I think you would call like you know in like the wire like the low rise and I lived in one of the low rises and one of I mean it was always such a joyful experience it was quite shocking actually to see how council estates were covered when I grew up because I just have this really idyllic childhood in my head here yeah um and one of the joys of that is that it's

51:15Aamna Mohdin: great that your best friend just lives downstairs yeah yeah yeah i'll be right back and even though

51:19Caroline O'Donoghue: it's like quite late you're just chilling downstairs and the nearness of it just like creates this huge level of community intimacy and intimacy that i just remember being really quite yeah intimately involved in all my friends like i knew their siblings really well and i knew their mom and we also knew when like their moms went to their second job so we could have the party in that flat.

51:42Aamna Mohdin: It actually does sound idyllic. You're so right. It is such a demonized way of life. And it's like,

51:47Caroline O'Donoghue: that sounds so lovely. It was just so nice. The only problem was like, there were loads of kids shoved in like really inappropriately small homes. That was just air. But other than that, I was like, maybe I'm being too harsh on brutalism. How has a lot of people saved a lot of lives? Exactly. So I did, I felt like, yeah, it made sense that all the girls were just hanging out on a school night together

52:11Aamna Mohdin: yeah it feels very because that thing because I write for young people as well there's a thing of like you always have to sort of make it plausible why the young people have so much unchaperoned time why you get so many orphans but when you're you know what I mean there's so many orphans in children's fiction because like just parents put a stop to drama you know but like when you're talking about like a tower block sort of kids thing

52:32Caroline O'Donoghue: people just walk in and out of each other's flats it's very open

52:35Aamna Mohdin: do you know what it really makes me think that like it would be so good to see essentially like a boarding school film that is in a tower block kind of thing. Oh my God, yeah. Do you know what? That thing that you're describing, I've seen it anywhere.

52:48Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah. You should write a movie. That's what I'm saying. You should do a Cornish's shit. Don't tempt me.

52:52Aamna Mohdin: Yeah. Like a St. Trinian's, but for a tower block. It would be great. It would be so good. Let's work together. Let's do it.

53:03Caroline O'Donoghue: Yeah, I think he, Joe Cornish really plays with, I think, both of how we see these council estates as these single estates but to them it's home it's like this really loving beautiful place and I felt it the most when I saw the girls they just reminded me of me I bet they did they remind me of you too

53:23Aamna Mohdin: I really see you sitting on that bed yeah just like sitting in like my brothers or like my

53:27Caroline O'Donoghue: friends brothers it was just such a I don't know open environment and like a really loving one and my tiktok's like so specific to me but i saw this video the other day that was like oh when you're trying to go to sleep but mom's on like this flat 23 and you think the party's finally coming to an end and then suddenly it's like pasta touching on i was like that was such a thing when you grew up in those blocks parents well not mine were muslim but didn't drink but parents just

53:57Aamna Mohdin: getting wasted yeah so great and it's like because it's so intimate like there's not much you know what everyone's doing everyone's pie and people weren't kicking off then now they do now they do

54:10Caroline O'Donoghue: what happened to this country man we used to be a country we used to be a country

54:16Aamna Mohdin: i love yeah i love that bit as well at the um towards the end where uh she's still so one of the boys has been injured by the and also i love that because of the like south london dialect like they never say alien. It's always alien. Alien. So good. And, you know, one of the boys gets injured. They go to her for help because she's a nurse and everything. And she kind of snaps at them. I don't want to be involved in your gang shit. Yeah, exactly. And she's like, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I haven't lived here long, but like I'm thinking of leaving. And they're like,

54:48Caroline O'Donoghue: why?

54:50Aamna Mohdin: He's like, I don't like the area.

54:52Caroline O'Donoghue: I think what's wrong with the area?

54:55Aamna Mohdin: like you mugged her one hour ago

54:59Caroline O'Donoghue: and there were aliens literally tearing people apart so that was great I think yeah that was such a funny scene I think yeah it really shows like who can like leave those kind of areas yeah and who maybe does do feel a bit trapped in it but they just love the block they love the block

55:23Aamna Mohdin: they love I love that they love the block and then we have I mean the thing is what we're skipping over because we're being girls is like all these incredible action sequences but like do you know what talking for me talking about action sequences is a bit like talking about guitar solos I know

55:38Caroline O'Donoghue: I couldn't tell you

55:39Aamna Mohdin: I'm glad that people can make them they're thrilling I just don't know how to breathe into them I guess like the only thing that like I can really I really love is that like how practical effecty and pragmatic it is. Like the fact that like a one like through a big chunk of the movie they're like they've jacked like a moped for like an unlicensed sort of TV like a pizza delivery thing you know. And they're just like hooning around on that and at one point when a guy is just like stuck in a big bin and it's also it's like it's funny but it's also so cool. Yeah. And using what's there rather than trying to create like some kind of bad CGI effect or something.

56:17Aamna Mohdin: Like there's this one bit where like there's like steam from a moped or steam exhaust from a moped by kind of a green traffic light and the smoke goes green. It's like using what real London really feels like at night but just like turning up the cinema

56:35Caroline O'Donoghue: and turning up the magic, you know? Yeah, no, it's... I was absolutely astonished to learn that the monsters weren't CGI.

56:43Aamna Mohdin: Yeah, just gorilla suits and glowing teeth. Crazy.

56:46Caroline O'Donoghue: I was like, because they really felt out of this world. Yeah. The way everything was done just felt, yeah, just like smashing of these genres of like sci-fi. And then this like, you know, kind of urban London film.

56:58Aamna Mohdin: But it's just so cleverly done. It's interesting because something that he said, that Joe Koresh said, was that he's like, you know, he's like, oh, I've always loved movies that are genre movies that deal with like sort of social realism. And you see that a lot in American films, you see that a lot in like Night of the Living Dead and all that kind of stuff. but you don't really see it in British cinema. You don't see a lot of genre in general. You see a lot of social realism, but not a lot of the other thing. Why do you think that is?

57:27Caroline O'Donoghue: Ooh.

57:29Aamna Mohdin: Because there was like, Hammer Horror was British, but that was very much like, it's a horror film, don't think too hard about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

57:36Caroline O'Donoghue: I'm not a very big film girl. I just watch it and I never see the ending coming.

57:42Aamna Mohdin: Even when it's so obvious,

57:44Caroline O'Donoghue: I will sit there gasping in shock and it's like everyone saw that coming

57:48Aamna Mohdin: do you know what this ending I am a movie girl this ending did shock me in a way and once again it shocked me because of the restraint yeah because like I was reading something about someone was writing about The Devil Wears Prada recently and they said that's a great movie but it takes too many bows and I was like you're so right it takes so many bows because you have Andy throwing her phone in the fountain in Paris should be the last scene of that movie but then she like gets a new job but then she like makes up with her ex-boyfriend but then she makes meaningful eye contact with Miranda Priestly it's like just end the movie at the fountain we know we know she'll be fine she'll be fine yeah and like this is the exact opposite so it's like it's too quick it's too quick

58:31Caroline O'Donoghue: but just quick enough

58:32Aamna Mohdin: really but also perfect so we have Moses' big self-sacrificing sort of run through the building he's drawing the aliens out and then it kind of he's throwing himself off the balcony

58:43Caroline O'Donoghue: and he's literally like hanging on to a union jack Oh my God. That moment is so insane. It got me that moment.

58:50Aamna Mohdin: I think as well because of the time that we're recording right now.

58:55Caroline O'Donoghue: Britain's loving the flags.

58:57Aamna Mohdin: Britain's loving the flags right now. Loving the flags. And like the St. George's cross is everywhere. Like if someone's listening just in the future, there was a moment in 2025. Where we lost the plot. Where we continue to lost the plot and like where St. George's flags were being just erected all over the country as a kind of like a racial hostility thing.

59:16Caroline O'Donoghue: a national identity crisis one of those one of those again

59:19Aamna Mohdin: and yeah and so like something about having Jamboyega hanging from a Union Jack is just like actually ruined me

59:26Caroline O'Donoghue: it's so powerful it's so powerful I think particularly we've just come off one of the biggest fascist protests in this country's history I think 150 ,000 went to that Tommy Robinson Unite the Kingdom protest there were people there chanting there's no black in the Union Jack and I just thought wow this is off the back of last summer where people were trying to burn refugees and migrants in hotels yeah they were stopping people in cars and seeing if the driver was black oh god asian to let them through so we're just in this quite crazy moment and i don't think those at the top are really clocking it or they don't care um and it just feels like a film but how is it touching on this moment so well nearly 15 years later it's just extraordinary to me because I feel like him holding on to the flag in front of the council's the council estate that he's defending is just such an assertion of his place in the country and his home's place in the country yeah

1:00:30Aamna Mohdin: and it's just like I belong here bitch totally I'm not going but not just not just I belong here like because it's it's such a i mean that's a real that really fucks me up that stuff like that sort of that just as a theme in general really fucks me up um but like the idea that like first of all like britain isn't just like white guys and their dogs and and statues of winston churchill and whatever the fuck you want to name you know it's like it is is like you know young boys of african caribbean descent just like standing up for their neighborhoods do you mean and like and and it's not just we're here.

1:01:09Aamna Mohdin: It's like we're here and we saved the day. And it makes me think so much of like how this country fucking runs on diaspora. Like diaspora after diaspora after diaspora. It's like people, like fucking the old Irish lads that like built the roads here, the fucking Windrush generation like propping up the NHS. Like all these people does not, this country does not function without us. Do you see?

1:01:31Caroline O'Donoghue: Tommy Robertson posted a picture of being like, this is who built the country and their picture was of Irish labourers.

1:01:40Caroline O'Donoghue: People were telling him, these are migrants, babes.

1:01:44Aamna Mohdin: This is a diaspora community that you're posting.

1:01:47Caroline O'Donoghue: And then I remember at the time, I interviewed, I think it was someone from UKIP. How was that? I get to do so much fun things for my job. And he was saying to me, you know, I don't have a problem with people like you because you guys come from the former colonies. And I was like, what are you? Mate, what are you about? yeah he was like i think he thought it was jamaican oh i see great so he was just like you know you that you would call it the mother country i was like did we and it just that is wild it was rose tinted glasses of a former immigrant group but it's so time and place and i think right now is back more classic racism against black people yeah wow god what a what a day we're having i feel like ash sarker podcasts never usually like this

1:02:37Aamna Mohdin: love it

1:02:39Caroline O'Donoghue: very cool very political

1:02:42Aamna Mohdin: cool girl politics over here so as I said this is a movie that really knows how to take a bow so we have that last action scene with Moses hanging from the Union Jack which made me cry and then then it's like the threat is over the police go in, they arrest all the boys who have saved the day

1:03:00Caroline O'Donoghue: and they're cheering for them though, they cry they're like saying Moses it's so

1:03:05Aamna Mohdin: we have Jodie Whittaker saying and it's also made me cry saying to the police like those boys are my neighbours and they protected me those boys are my neighbours is like

1:03:16Caroline O'Donoghue: they're friends they're friends

1:03:19Aamna Mohdin: and they're community and they're beholden to one another and that's very beautiful and yeah just like everybody just screaming and just like oh it's like hundreds of people who saw what happened

1:03:32Caroline O'Donoghue: who knew what happened and I just thought it was so right that they got arrested. Like, not that they got, sorry. No, it was right narratively. Narratively, yeah. Yeah, like that. Even though they were able to, like, kill those aliens, there were these other huge, much bigger forces at play and just, but they weren't sad, right? They were just smirking at each other in the van and, like, the other kid, I can't remember his name, was like, Moses, they're cheering for you.

1:03:56Aamna Mohdin: And I just thought, even in that moment, it was so good.

1:04:00Caroline O'Donoghue: It was so beautiful. And it just ends and I, you know, you're watching a really good film and you're like yeah that's it that's it right

1:04:09Aamna Mohdin: and like again a lesser film that's like you know again the world you come back to with Joe Cornish is restrained a lesser film would have shown like six months later Moses you gotta call and it's like him in prison going up to the fucking the partition glass and then it's Jodie Whittaker I'm gonna get you out I'm gonna get you out and you're gonna live with me it's like story of Tracy Beaker or something do you know what I mean it's like no it's like we it's like Matilda

1:04:37Caroline O'Donoghue: London estate yeah exactly and it's like

1:04:39Aamna Mohdin: where it leads us like we don't know whether Moses is going to be okay long term but we do know that like he's really loved yeah

1:04:46Caroline O'Donoghue: and that has to be enough for now

1:04:48Aamna Mohdin: that has to be enough for now and maybe maybe it will be different in the sequel which apparently is oncoming yeah well they

1:04:54Caroline O'Donoghue: I mean they've been teasing it in the last four years they've been teasing it a while yeah so

1:04:59Aamna Mohdin: I have to say as well it's not like you know I hope I hope Joe Cornish has been listening

1:05:03Caroline O'Donoghue: to this podcast Joe I respect you deeply of course but like

1:05:07Aamna Mohdin: he has had some incredible you know opportunities he did Ant-Man he did Tintin but like in terms of like something like this again never happened and like just come come back to the UK Joe

1:05:22Caroline O'Donoghue: this is the moment we need this film

1:05:24Aamna Mohdin: we need more Joe Cornish films like so like badly we need Attack the Blanc 2 It was a matter of urgency.

1:05:32Caroline O'Donoghue: It will save us. I'm convinced. It will save us.

1:05:36Aamna Mohdin: It's here's something interesting. So like the, as we said already, a couple of months after this came out, London riots happened. And like, and also coming down to London on this big, big day. But from what I recall, obviously I was so new to the country and new to like the various different dynamics happening. And I don't remember, for international listeners, the riots around that time broke out because in part there was this young guy called Mark Duggan who was shot by a police officer in Tottenham and then the riots kind of spiraled out of control after that. And then they actually spread all around the country.

1:06:15Aamna Mohdin: Yeah, they did, yeah. And I remember very clearly there being very little sympathy for the fact that Mark Duggan was killed by a police officer. At all. Even among the more lefty people I'd sort of met, there was just sort of even like well you know it's very complicated you know it's very hard for

1:06:33Caroline O'Donoghue: the police it's very yeah you know even in the coverage like i think by the end of the coverage people wouldn't know why the riot started it was just like yeah described as rank criminality and just left at that that um the guardian did this project called reading the riots and they got so much heat for it at the time really because they they said we actually need to figure out why this happen and in any normal society a government would turn around and say we need to have like some sort of commission and actually interrogate why did this happen and we did that in the 1981 riots yeah which quite interesting you know joe cornish lived through like it happened in his area it really influenced him right we just didn't do any of that this time around so the garden did this really incredible project called reading the riots and it interviewed the people who were rioting and so mark duggan came up so many times but then so did poverty so i did actually like i actually just wanted to have a bit of fun yeah yeah yeah but it was really interesting because it really showed i just yeah we were so uninterested to dig into why this was happening and then it was kia starmer who was the head of the prosecution service at the time really and he set up all these insane night courts and people would just be like shuffled through it was really quite dystopian actually where and then they were like prosecuted for the part in the riots yeah and it would be like you picked up a 50p bottle of water here you go two years in jail it was staggering so he's always had that kind of authoritarian little flex in him and it there was just no it was really scary to wanted to show sympathy for what was happening at the time because you were being slammed down for it but also even in our communities like not everyone could understand why this was happening and it was our communities being burnt so you really did see huge levels of anger um and bless them community leaders really try yeah bless those fellas like trying to come out trying to stop it and it was there was a level of anger that had really shocked them yeah because Stafford Scott we've interviewed previously in 2011 and he was saying what kind of and he's like a community leader in Broadfarm.

1:08:47Caroline O'Donoghue: And he was saying in the 1980s, the attacks were really towards the police, towards kind of these institutions of state violence. But that happened a lot less in 2011. And I think it would be interesting for more critiques to come out as to why. But we were just deeply uncurious as a country.

1:09:07Aamna Mohdin: And I remember so much, because I spoke to so many people around that time where I was like, well, what was it like? What was it like? Because I just missed it. So what was it like? And they were like, oh, it was like a zombie apocalypse. That was the phrase that you hear all the time. But it's so interesting because like, because we're researching this podcast, I've been looking at shots of this film, 2011, and shots of those riots, 2011. Yeah. And like the idea that people framed it in the lens, even then, talking casually as a zombie apocalypse and like immediately putting it in the language of genre.

1:09:38Caroline O'Donoghue: And also,

1:09:39Aamna Mohdin: and they were saying it in the sense that they were like, oh, we were holed up in our flats and like we were afraid to go out and we whatever and it felt like that but it's also like oh it's kind of the immediate dismissing of the people as kind of a mob or as like mindless or whatever like I'm not saying

1:09:54Caroline O'Donoghue: that everybody who rioted did it for noble reasons

1:09:56Aamna Mohdin: but they also all of them were people like all of them were human beings with complete lives you know that we know for sure you know

1:10:03Caroline O'Donoghue: they were the Sam in the first 10 minutes of the film they weren't the Sam at the end and it's interesting you know you were speaking about the segregation in that police van and they were like people remain in their own world and you can if you just like keep I mean like fair enough I stayed in I was like bloody hell and then you know

1:10:22Aamna Mohdin: forced all my brothers to stay in and not going out I don't care

1:10:27Caroline O'Donoghue: it's just you can really just stay in your own world I think if you want to yeah

1:10:32Aamna Mohdin: and even like the way like her apartment is sort of styled it's very like she's sort of she's like you psyched up the essence of East Delich and just like plopped it in this in this estate building you know but I also want to shout out before we wrap it up is that I know lots of our listeners are London-based and on October 14th Attack the Block is screening at the Rooftop Film Club in Peckham and I'm going to go because like the idea of watching this in Peckham with other South East Londoners is just

1:11:01Caroline O'Donoghue: so nice

1:11:03Aamna Mohdin: so let's all I mean I think everybody should everybody who's Cinemount of Garbage fan who will come south of the river

1:11:08Caroline O'Donoghue: should go to the Rooftop Film Club event in Peckham

1:11:12Aamna Mohdin: Amina Bodine let's talk about you for one second you mentioned that you have a memoir out Scattered

1:11:18Caroline O'Donoghue: yeah so I wrote a memoir about coming to the UK the child refugee so I came in 1999 it was just such a great time to come to the UK because I feel like the only cool time to have come to England was just then before 2004

1:11:34Aamna Mohdin: then it's just like we invade Iraq it's horrible everything goes we're like doing the war on terror A little cheeky little slice you got there. So I'm like, that was fun.

1:11:44Caroline O'Donoghue: God. I kind of almost forgot about anything that happened before then. And it wasn't until I was going out for my reporting covering Europe's refugee crisis, like going to Calais and other refugee camps, that it all, I know it sounds really quite like a film, it all came back. Hang on. I've been here before. I've been here before.

1:12:07Aamna Mohdin: Dancing dance, painted wings.

1:12:14Caroline O'Donoghue: Let's talk about the film adoption. And it was, I was just, yeah, really curious. And my parents, Fatima and Mohammed, who are the loveliest people in the world. I just thought this would be a great opportunity to talk to them, to like kind of interview them.

1:12:32Aamna Mohdin: And I realized I really wanted to go back to Somalia and Mogadishu before we lost everything.

1:12:37Caroline O'Donoghue: And my granddad used to own this hotel. so my dad as soon as he could go back to somalia which is in 2012 wanted to rebuild the hotel so i kind of wanted to see yeah i was like why it's not like it's a thriving tourist spot dad oh my god it was so beautiful going with him there and so is he engaged in that then yeah he's still yeah and i saw and it was it was just like such a magical moment where he was like trying to get the tiles to look like what it did before the war and took me to the he was also rebuilding our family home that was the last place him and mum kind of lived in and it was so visceral to be there to have interviewed my mum but mostly they're just so funny like they're they just have such a black humor about almost being shot about the boat capsizing like I think my dad said something like oh shouldn't your bump help you fly

1:13:31Caroline O'Donoghue: man useless in every situation can confirm um and just wanted to yeah juxtapose that story my story with the current refugee crisis because i felt kind of shit i'll be honest when i was in calais and a somali refugee was like how did you do it why do you have a british passport could you give me any tips and i was like oh god tips not on this babe probably like reducing a screen time or something but not this so it was just like

1:14:02Aamna Mohdin: i'm reducing your screen time i'm really good at that it was yeah just felt like my british

1:14:08Caroline O'Donoghue: passport was burning a hole in my pocket in that moment so my god just felt like yeah something to explore so i i do i think relatively well yeah i can't wait to read it thank you i'm so excited

1:14:20Aamna Mohdin: I'm so glad we got to hang out today. Yeah, me too.

1:14:23Caroline O'Donoghue: Thank you so much for having me. I love your podcast. I love your book. Sorry, I don't know how to sound like a fan. I don't want to sound too fan, girl. I want to be cool. But I'm also such a fan.

1:14:36Aamna Mohdin: You're lovely and brilliant. Amalyn, please open invitation for you to come back anytime. This has been the best. Thank you. Thank you so much.

1:14:52Thank you.