Pakistani film for SAARC Film Fest

By Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

“The moving finger writes; and having writ moves on.”
Omar Khayyam – in Rubayyat

The SAARC Film Festival, organised by the SAARC Cultural Centre, Colombo, is drawing close to its completion. Only one country remains to be represented and, that country is Sri Lanka.

The penultimate SAARC country, to exhibit its representative cinema creation was Pakistan.

Their entry Khuda Kay Liye (In the name of God) proved a stunning surprise to most Sri Lankan viewers.

And that overwhelming surprise, drives home profoundly, the wide-ranging significance of the SAARC Film Day Series.

The multi-cadenced voices of these films take the viewers to cultural regions, which the deliberations of official conferences cannot reach. The lifestyles depicted in the films from SAARC lands provide a more eloquent profile of each country's cultural personality, than volumes of heavy studies cannot give.

Empathy

The empathy generated towards characters and situations, presented in the films, breeds an understanding that can traverse cross-border terrains and trans-cultural paths, ensuring a mass integration.

Besides, these films enable one to obtain a view of the state of the film industry, in each of these countries.

Given this background, “SAARC Film Days” series, has contributed substantially towards, enhancing the Film Culture of this region. The Pakistani entry, Khuda Kay Liye, (In the name of God) is a thematically daring product. The inter-relationships that propel the film's movement, are complex in the extreme. But, the admirable manner in which the Director Shoaib Mansoor has woven all the conflicting strands into an enduring cinematic texture, bringing about a viable balance between controversial and opposing view-points, is a tribute to his directorial adeptness.

Creative dexterity

When he displays such exceptional creative dexterity, in his debut film presentation itself, one cannot help but wonder, how he will evolve from that peak-point on. But, his promise is very much present. In the arena of Pakistan's current entertainment scenario, director Shoaib Mansoor, maintains an undisputed high-profile. As an outstanding TV personality and a lyricist of wide-spread mass appeal Shoaib Mansoor, has always lived upto the self-conferred moniker ‘Sho Man.’ A winner of Presidential and State Awards for his TV triumphs, he has garnered accolades for his film as well.

Inflammable

His film Khuda Kay Liye (In the name of God) is a compact cache of highly inflammable material.

The clash between orthodox and liberal religious viewpoints, drives the film with a relentless dynamism.

The father of Mary, leads an unmarried life with a white wife. But, when their daughter falls in love with a British boy – Dave, this father feels deeply troubled that she is contemplating marriage with a lover, outside the pale of their orthodox system of belief.

With not even an iota of sympathy for his own daughter's feelings, he forces his daughter to marry her cousin Sammad, who is deeply and relentlessly entrenched in ultra-conservative religious practices. Engulfed in gloom, Mary attempts escape and is brought back. Consummation of marriage is forced upon her, to prevent further attempts at leaving.

Parallel development

In a parallel develoment, Sammad's brother Shaan, falls in love with an American girl Jame, when Shaan goes to Chicago for his musical studies.

There, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's 9/11 incident, he is suspected as a terrorist, and is subjected to prolonged torture. He suffers brain damage as an outcome.

The director fuses all these diverse streams into an absorbing cinematic tale. His accumulated experience in TV, enables him to convert the feature film too into an episodic narration, to retain the viewer attention unrelaxed.

Climatic point

The climatic point in the drama is the court trial at which two religious leaders expound opposing viewpoints about what is orthodox and what is not. This culminating scene is replete with high dramatic power and enhances the impact of the total film to an extremely high degree. Pakistan film industry, which has to some extent been overshadowed is emerging into a potent lothywood.

Shoaib Mansoor's Khuda Kay Liye, in Urdu, turned out to be the first Pakistani film to be released in India simultaneously with its Pakistani release – after 40 long years. Khuda Kay Liye has proved a considerable box office success too. Perhaps, Shoaib Mansoor's In the name of God, could very well be the precursor of a new and bright era for Pakistani cinema.