CAST: Salmaan Peerzada, Sohail Saleem, Alina Khan, Sarwat Gilani, Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq,

DIRECTOR: Saim Sadiq

Saim Sadiq makes his directorial debut with “Joyland,” which is a story told with a non-judgmental lens of a family that judges its members. The movie takes you into a stifling, patriarchal household in Lahore, Pakistan. While it keeps a sharp, neo-realist-influenced eye on the everyday lives of its characters, “Joyland” often gets so intimate as to discomfit the viewer.

The movie about a husband’s affair with a transgender dancer was briefly banned in Pakistan as it was simultaneously shortlisted for the Oscars. The movie just won the Independent Spirit award for the best International movie. The movie “Joyland” was also the first Pakistani film ever to play at the Cannes Film Festival.

Ali Junejo, left, and Alina Khan in “Joyland

In this world of strict social norms, this film explores gender fluidity and sexuality. In a culture that even shuns to name transgenders in a category, Haider tells his jilted wife “she is that”.

A gender identity that dates to the 16th century and connotes neither male nor female is called Khwaja Sira.

This community, whose members often served as advisers in the Mughal Empire, was criminalized under British colonial rule. Long shunned, they scored an important victory in 2018 when Pakistan passed anti-discrimination laws that define gender identity as a “a person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female or a blend of both, or neither.”

While the premise of the movie is the story of Haider and Biba, but the movie makes its point about suppression and restraint in a solid manner.

The angle that the director takes about the impact of patriarchy on men is very subtle yet makes it’s point as everyone is terrified of gossip to the extent that “log kya kahengey” wins in a fit of paranoia.

The movie is about how society restrains and suppresses different shades of human desires.

WATCH REVIEW

Saim Sadiq bathes the story in the intense colors of South Asian narratives and subtly touches the themes of gender and sexuality in a world which refuses to acknowledge or have a conversation about these.

The director takes the story in the direction of the theme park that it is named after (Joyland is a theme park in Lahore, whose walls do not allow the Neon lights to escape it’s area).

This is a story of  two brothers live ‌in a claustrophobic, dimly lit house they share with their father (Salmaan Peerzada), a tenacious bully who believes that men should work and women should bear children and sit at home. This is fine with the macho eldest son, Saleem (Sohail Sameer), and his agreeable wife, Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani). But his younger, gentler son, Haider (Ali Junejo), and his happily employed wife, Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq,) are different.When Haider acquiesces to his dad’s expectations and finds himself a job, his wife is forced out of hers leading to a mini-tsunami in their lives.

Haider’s new (secret) job is as a backup dancer to Biba, a fierce transgender presence played by Alina Khan.

Joe Saade’s  camerawork is impeccable and captures the grimy details of the lives of these people with great precision. As more of the characters on screen realize that their will is of importance, the daughters-in-law burn down the patriarchy in their flames of anger.

This provocative movie is well made, impeccably put together and is a delight to watch.

Recommended.