Return of revival flicks, yet again! For the last 20 years, Pakistan’s film industry has revived and then gone back to its depleted state on a number of occasions. With Syed Noor’s Jeeva and Sangam, the industry may have found its lost glory back in the ‘90s but was unable to sustain it. Then at the turn of the century came Jawed Sheikh’s Yeh Dil Aapka Hua which brought people back to the cinema, but this revival was short-lived as well. With Bilal Lashari’s Waar, cine-goers hoped for another revival but box office duds followed that blockbuster, and people lost hope again, until this Eid ul Azha. On Eid, two Pakistani films – O21 and Na Maloom Afraad – opened together and the cinemas were full once again. Sadly, one of those films was more of a C-grade Hollywood flick with dialogues in English and Pashto/Dari, subtitles in Urdu and a storyline that could have left even the most avid filmgoer confused. That was Jami’s O21 for you, which had elements of the TV series 24, in which Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) saves the day by being a ‘super-agent’ on whose shoulders the fate of the world rests. Jami, who took over co-director Summer Nicks’ story as well as the film, showed Shaan as the Pakistani version of Jack Bauer and that is where he lost the plot. A Pakistani film will revive the industry, not a film by a Pakistani – that must be understood. He may be a legend in the advertising industry but Jami is no Steven Spielberg who can play with the idea of another director. Even if he was the co-producer, he has to come up with his own work before hacking into someone else’s project. Yes, visa issues caused Summer Nicks to leave the country and Jami had to step in to complete the project but hadn’t Nicks nearly completed his version before going back? Jami’s intervention reminds one of Superman II where director Richard Lester was brought in to replace Richard Donner and the film couldn’t do as well as its predecessor. People only understood the difference when Richard Donner released his version as Superman 2.0 nearly 30 years later, and everyone found it to be far better. Nobody I know speaks English at home and Urdu when with friends; Shaan and his on-screen family did that first in Waar and now in O21. That is a mistake the director and producers should have addressed because those who came to watch the cinema were not in the mood to read ‘Pulse Global’ inspired subtitles. They came to support Pakistani cinema but not a ‘Made as Hollywood’ venture as Hollywood is what they watch all the time. The dialogues seemed to have first been written in Urdu and then translated in English; such was their Maula Jutt type intensity. Although veterans Hameed Sheikh and Ayub Khosa tried their best, when there is no plot, even Jack Bauer seems helpless. Pakistan needs films like Dukhtar and Na Maloom Afraad, which were not only well shot but also brought something that happens in real life to the fore. They give the world an insight into what is happening in Pakistan and that people in the country are fun lovers, not CIA haters like we are shown in O21. Dialogues like ‘Welcome to Pakistan’ and ‘There are three kinds of friends’ only make you realise that revival is nowhere in sight. Since we are unable to mass produce films with local flavour, people watch Bollywood movies – no matter how bad – when they are released in Pakistan. Talking of Na Maloom Afraad, the film does remind one of those Bollywood ventures where three actors come up with a plan to get rich in no time. What makes it different is the local touch – the perfect use of the term Na Maloom Afraad’, the Karachi language, the evident happiness of the characters on knowing that a strike has been announced and familiar surroundings that have not been shown on the big screen since the ‘70s. Add to it the talented trio of Javed Sheikh, Fahad Mustafa and Salman Shahid and voila, there you have a hit! Why the film has been going sold out in local cinemas is due to the fact that it is a comedy film where you laugh at the characters’ antics and dialogues, not your decision to buy the ticket and convince your friends to watch a Pakistani movie. Afia Nathaniel’s Dukhtar on the other hand was a relatively slow film but it was unlike any Pakistani flick that has graced the screen in a long time. The locations were picturesque, the acting was excellent and the cast was perfectly selected. It failed to do well because people either want comedy or action and aren’t ready for serious stuff which is usually aired on TV. However it was rightly submitted as the entry from Pakistan for Academy Awards, especially since the earlier releases The System, Tamanna and Sultanat would have made the jury wonder whether they were funny flicks or serious ones. So how far is Pakistan film industry from a revival this time? Quite far, if you ask me. The day a Pakistani flick is given continuous show due to its content and not its nationality is the day the industry will begin its true revival. Fawad Khan’s Khoobsurat got more shows than Dukhtar because it had a Pakistani actor playing the lead but nobody cried foul when O21 was taken off from two of the oldest cinemas in the country – Capri and Bambino – and was replaced with Hrithik-Katrina starrer Bang Bang. Unlike multiplexes, these standalone cinemas are on the lookout for films that can profit them and since Bang Bang was released a couple of days before Eid, it had the advantage over the competition. It was also in a language that the cine-goers could relate to (Hindi/Urdu) and may be that prompted the administrators to go ahead and access their right. Whether the United Producers Association takes up the matter in the coming days remains to be seen, but one thing is certain – we must make good films (in Urdu) first, the revival will follow automatically.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:23:56 +0000
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