The Reluctant Fundamentalist Review

Sometimes this is the problem with TIFF: you navigate so many movies in so little time that you don't have the luxury of getting "in the right mood" for each film. I saw The Reluctant Fundamentalist after English Vinglish and before Gangs of Wasseypur Part 2. And its subtlety was maybe too much for me. I came out of it disappointed that it lacked the punch I was expecting. Perhaps it really did lack teeth (and reading excerpts from the book now, I am tempted to say that it did), or perhaps I failed to dial in on the right frequency. Or maybe I was too distracted by my blinding crush on Riz Ahmed (seriously! those EYES!!) to take note of other aspects of the film. Anything's possible.

Gawd!!! Ahem... I rest my case!

This is the story of a Pakistani/Punjabi young man, Changez, who goes to the US to study and work. After graduation he gets hired into a valuation firm where he quickly rises up the ranks through his gift for thinking outside the box and through his ruthless approach to optimizing profit for companies, oftentimes at the expense of their workers. He's a confident, even cocky young man who wants... everything. Then of course 9/11 hits. And between episodes of racial profiling and pressure from his family (and from other people he meets) to choose a side, he ends up moving back to Pakistan where he becomes a teacher at the University of Lahore. But his life is far from peaceful even here as he continues to be under suspicion of terrorist ties, so when an American professor gets kidnapped in Lahore, his allegiances have to be tested once again.

I won't spend too much time on the present-day part of the story because as gorgeous as the opening scene is - the music from a qawwali concert attended by the Khan family (Om Puri and Shabana Azmi play Changez's parents) playing over images of the American professor getting roughed up and taken away in a van - it's a pretty bland ride from here. The dialogues between Changez Khan and his interviewer Bobby (Liev Schreiber) sound like every other Hollywood movie script, so while the action keeps you engaged, there's not much to be learned from this.

The real story is told in flashbacks by a bearded Changez and it takes us through his love affair with New York and the American Dream, and then through his disenchantment with the land of the free in the paranoid post-9/11 world. The first part of the story is extremely well told: in several short but highly effective scenes we learn about the growing distance between Changez and the culture of his parents, we get to know him as a caustic, sometimes arrogant but always charming young man, we see him winning over his colleagues and superiors, and we root for his budding romance with Erica (a brunette Kate Hudson who should henceforth forget that any colour other than blonde even exists).

And through all this, while we're waiting for the other shoe to drop, we're perfectly in sync with this complex character. We laugh at Changez's self-deprecating dry humour even though we know it will turn sour later on. We rejoice with him when he gets promoted even though we know he'll only fall harder. We cheer for him when he tells Erica "All these pictures of me? Come on, you must have a little crush on me." even though we know that relationship can't end well. But then 9/11 happens. And this strong character starts closing up and we lose that connection we thought we had with him.

This was, for me, the biggest flaw of the film. There's an episode where Changez talks about how he felt as he was watching the planes hit the towers on 9/11 and he says (quoting from memory) "Before I got to think about the loss of human lives and about what this meant, for a few brief moments I was in awe... at the audacity of this act. At the brilliance of it." It's a shocking statement, and it holds a promise of a film that will pull no punches. But unfortunately, this is the only moment of its kind. The rest of his inner struggle seems to happen behind closed doors and we never get more insight into his changes of heart. Yes, we witness him being a victim of racial profiling, yes, we see him question his line of work in front of a situation that is too close to home for comfort and yes, we see how his skin colour becomes visible to those close to him, but I for one was in the dark about how this strong, determined, ambitious man ended up doing a complete u-turn. Maybe I wouldn't need an explanation if I was an NRI myself, and maybe this movie is made for NRIs, but as someone who wasn't even on the continent when 9/11 happened, I couldn't relate to him without some guidance and there was none.

But that said, maybe it was just me. Maybe others will watch and totally get it.

And I do highly recommend watching it, if not for Riz Ahmed (in case you missed all my gushing so far, he's fabulous!), then for Mira Nair's flawless direction (what else is new?) and for the excellent music. Given that this soundtrack has been impossible to find, I wasn't even aware that I would be treated to two Atif Aslam songs, so imagine my giddiness when all of a sudden I recognized his voice. Not only that, but one of the songs is a collaboration with Peter Gabriel, who wrote the music for the Urdu poem sung by Atif. I wish I could find even a snippet of it on youtube, I know it would sell the movie single-handedly.

Speaking of Pakistani artists, another little moment of unexpected joy was provided by Mira's nod to a film I absolutely loved last year: Shoaib Mansoor's Bol. In one of the scenes setting up the stage in Lahore, a couple (can't remember if it was Shabana and Om or just a random couple) comes out from a screening of Bol and comments on the virtues of the film. You can't imagine how that made my day!

Last but not least, for a film about racial tensions post 9/11, The Reluctant Fundamentalist also packs a surprising amount of humour, and some of the extra-dry one-liners had the entire audience (and this screened to a full house at TIFF) in stitches. A special mention here to Nelsan Ellis who gets some of the most hilarious wisecracks as an American of (I assume) Jamaican origins. 

So with that in mind, I take your leave now to go and hunt down the book which I am hoping will give me more of those one-liners along with a better insight into the fascinating Changez Khan. I may need to keep a picture of Riz Ahmed open while reading it though...

Bol & Khuda Kay Liye - Shoaib Mansoor's Yin & Yang

I still have no idea how Bol, a Pakistani movie by director Shoaib Mansoor, even got distribution in Toronto. Heck, Anurag Kashyap has trouble bringing his films to the big screens here sometimes! But imagine my surprise when, while looking for screening times for Bodyguard, I found this little gem playing all over the city. Sometimes the Gods of Filmistan just smile upon Toronto and it seems that September is that magical month of the year when They give in abundance. Lucky us!

So off I went, despite the late hour and despite the length of the film (2:45), and most importantly despite being terrified of seeing a film by the director of Khuda Kay Liye alone in a theatre. And good thing I went. Because as hard hitting as Bol is, it's no Khuda Kay Liye. Mercifully! Though it does complement Khuda Kay Liye in many ways and it resolves all the issues I had with Shoaib Mansoor's first film.

If most of the acting in Khuda Kay Liye was forced and cringe-worthy, there are no more traces of that in Bol where every single character, no matter how small, lingers in your thoughts long after the movie is done. If Khuda Kay Liye was depressing beyond tears, Bol brings a ray of hope at the end of the long gutting journey. If Khuda Kay Liye was excessively explicit visually (and I do understand why that was needed, I can't even disagree, but still had a hard time erasing some of the images from my memory for months), Bol shows almost no violence, even though the characters go through many ugly, terrifying experiences. It's almost like the director made this movie to create the perfect pair for Khuda Kay Liye. All while keeping, just like the yin and yang symbols, a thread of darkness in Bol and a glitter of lightheartedness in Khuda Kay Liye (pretty much summed up by the fantastic Bandya).



The one thing that stayed the same for both films was the brilliant direction and the remarkable script.

After seeing both films, I have to say I am trully impressed with Shoaib Mansoor's campaign for gender equality, a theme that has been given prime time in both of his films. If Khuda Kay Liye deals with a father's right over his daughter and how the Quoran can be twisted and distorted to make that power seem boundless, Bol takes up a different angle: a woman's right to say no to pregnancy (and to make any decisions for herself for that matter). A very delicate issue still, even in Western countries where families can afford to feed all their offsprings, unlike Hakim Khan, the father figure in Bol, whose profession (traditional medicine) is steadily declining while his family grows incontrollably. All his fault of course, because he is blinded not only by his desire to have a son instead of 7 daughters, but also by his faith that says every pregnancy coming from Allah should be accepted (a belief that will turn out to be nothing more than a convenient disguise when the family is "blessed" with a hermaphrodite son).

Needless to say, my admiration for the director only increased after reading the following words from him on the film's website:

"Having been so blessed in life, I often think of the things that I should be grateful for. The list always seems to be never ending, but invariably it ends at one thing... that I was born as a MAN.
Nothing in the world scares me more than the thought of being born a woman or a eunuch in a country like Pakistan, where obscurantism has deep roots. It is very unfortunate that we make tall claims, full of pride, about the rights of woman granted by our religion and yet when I look around in underdeveloped Muslim countries in general and Pakistan in particular I find things totally the opposite. Tragically, our interpretation and application of religion seems to begin and end with woman. Leave the 5% urban educated elite aside, women seem to be the playground (battleground) where we practice a medieval form of religion."

Such a disarmingly candid statement of facts, and at the same time such an unlikely base to build movies like "Khuda Kay Liye" and "Bol" on. I suppose it's precisely this type of honesty that gives birth to such powerful female characters in his films. Perhaps sometimes one must be on the outside to better understand what is happening behind closed doors? Some could look at these words and call them almost offensive, but I can only think of what balls it takes to make a movie like Bol while admitting your worst fear is to have been one of the film's characters.

The trailer hardly touches on any of the issues that the film brings forward: hermaphrodites, honour killings, gang male rape, prostitution, birth control, and instead focuses on the action and the suspense. That's what sells I suppose, but I for one was very happy to find out that most of the violence and the action in the film was already shown in the trailer and there was not much left to shock me in the theatre.



It's entirely unexpected in fact that this seems like such a dark film judging by the trailers, but while watching you spend some of the most tense scenes smiling, whether it's at the little moments shared between the sisters, or at the sweet nothings shared by the lovers. But most of all you smile at the irony of the world of prostitutes and pimps mirroring the orthodox world of Hakim Khan: if in the latter a house full of daughters is a cross one must bear in the name of Allah, in the former, a house full of working girls would be a blessing and a gift from God. The events that have the two worlds gallop towards each other for the first 2 hours are certainly compelling and fascinating to watch, but it's this final battle of virtues and ethics that makes this movie such a gem. Add to that the mindblowing performance of Shafqat Cheema, the head pimp and Iman Ali's glowing presence as the alluring Meena, and... let's just say you'll never think of Umrao Jaan quite the same.

I must admit, I was disappointed by the fact that Atif Aslam's role is not as big as I would have wanted it to be, though he does get to be a through and through hero, which makes him even more crushable for Dolce's fragile heart. I was a little nervous about how he would do in his first film, but he had no problems winning my heart as the open-minded young urban professional (and literally boy next door) Mustafa. And wait, he sings too! Aye haye!...



Of course, despite my love for Atif Aslam, I must (reluctantly) admit, this is not his film. This film belongs to Manzar Sehbai (who plays Hakim, the father of the family) and to Humaima Malik (the daughter who recounts the story of her family and the events that lead to the death sentence she is about to face). Not only is this lady strikingly beautiful, but she truly makes the character of Zainub a part of your life for 2 hours. Her voice in particular bleeds with so much grief and such sadness that you're almost afraid to hear her speak further.

But of course she does and as she tells her story, the many questions that the movie will leave you with arise. Even if none of them get resolved (and how could they?) the doubt alone and the ability to question the status quo are enough to consider the film's purpose achieved.

The only part of the movie that I am still torn on is the ending. On the one side I really needed it to end this way, but on the other, I have to question the credibility of such an epilogue. Then again, like I said in the beginning, if Bol is the yin to Khuda Kay Liye's yang, then it's absolutely the perfect ending.

Either way, a movie well worth travelling at late hours for and a great preview (even if unrelated) for my Toronto Film Festival week which starts in some... 40 hours. Not that anyone's counting of course.

2 Degrees: The Voice of Paintings

This may sound a little blasphemic, it does even to me and I feel a bit awkward writing it, but I'll write it anyway.

The reason why I can't write about music, it just occurred to me, is because I never mastered the vocabulary. Granted, I never felt it was imperative, but every once in a while I find myself wanting to talk about music, and failing. For example lately I've been wanting to write a whole post gushing about Pakistani and Bollywood singer Atif Aslam. But what to write about him other than "I adore him" and other such trivialities? I wanted to put into words just how much I love his voice and how happy I am every time I discover a new song from him in a movie... So... since my music language is lacking, I'll use a different language that I am much more familiar with: painting.

Atif Alsam's voice to me is like a beautiful painting. And if I was to narrow it down - this is where the blasphemy part comes in - it would be like a Vincent van Gogh painting. Now don't sharpen your machetes just yet, art lovers, hear me out!

Van Gogh's paintings for the most part have a quality that every artist covets: they are unmistakable! One cannot look at a van Gogh and think that it's a different artist: they either know it's him, or they don't know much about art in which case they won't venture to guess. A unique blend of all the artistic movements he was going to influence (from the Fauves to the different branches of Expressionists), as well as a tribute to the Impressionist techniques, van Gogh's art is unprecedented and unsurpassed. But most of all, it is singular.

Vincent's Room at Arles

In a similar way one cannot mistake Atif Aslam's voice for another's after they have heard him once. Just like van Gogh's brush strokes, this off-key, rough and yet poetic modulation has a personality of its own, and certainly will endure in one's memory if one has a taste for it. It sure did in mine, I was hooked as soon as I heard Pehli Nazar Mein. And I didn't even know then that his very first song, Aadat, would become my most favourite despite a career that is by now 7 years old.



The one thing I really like about Atif Aslam is the "boy next door" quality of his singing. Unlike Sonu, Mohit and all the others, his songs, though complicated, always sound unrehearsed, as if he could be sitting with you for coffee and all of a sudden felt like singing to you. Ok, maybe I'm daydreaming a little bit much here, but there's such an effortlessness about his singing that I'm always a bit surprised the first time I try to sing along to a new song and fail horribly to hit the right notes. Some people have the "boy next door" face, or the "boy next door" physique. With Atif, it's the "boy next door" voice. Sadly, not the boy next to my door, but that's a different matter...

I find the same quality from a slightly different angle in van Gogh's art: he always painted real life. People, flowers, landscapes, street corners, you name it, he painted it in his own frantic way, reflective of his troubled inner life, but it all feels as real as the coffee shop down the street and the garden in front of your building. And how would it not, when it was all right there, next to his door.

Cafe Terrace at Night

Tired already? Hang in there, I'm not done yet! There's one more thing they have in common and it's the most important one: the passion!

Can you hear heartbreak in every word on Tere Bin? I could before I even knew any of the lyrics, and it still makes me a little bit sad to listen to it.

Though not as sad as Tu Jaane Na and Aadat! Those two have got to be the world's saddest songs, and I love them dearly! Atif's soulful singing is as efficiently heartbreaking as a surgeon's scalpel.

Similarily, van Gogh's mental state makes its way directly to the canvas and into your heart through his violent brush strokes and heavy textures. The colours may vary from the brightest yellows to the darkest blues, but his striking interpretations of something as simple as a vase of flowers never fail to inspire at least awe, if not a full storm of emotions.

Four Cut Sunflowers

Whew... Well this was easier than talking music lingo, that's for sure! Now who knows if it even expressed an ounce of my admiration for this talented singer, but at least I am happy to have tried.

Now that I started thinking about it, Sunidhi Chauhan's voice sounds like a Gustav Klimt painting, Vishal Dadlani evokes Edvard Munch, and Henri Rousseau's naive painting makes me think of Shreya Ghoshal's pure voice. But... maybe that's for part II of The Voice of Paintings?