CAST: Samiya Mumtaz, Beo Raana Zafar, Faiza Gillani, Sarwat Gilani, Sanam Saeed, Mehar Bano, Eman Suleman.
DIRECTED BY: Meenu Gaur
BLUF
‘Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam’, ZEE5‘s desi noir under its ‘Zindagi’ brand of content, is an anthology to watch if you like strong women-centric narratives. For this one, you must prepare yourself to be extraordinarily open-minded on your judgment quotient. The series showcases diverse stories of exceptionally courageous women who refuse to be casualties of circumstances and endeavor to be the authors of their own lives. The stories are of women who take the alternative route to achieve what they want when life throws up the dice.
Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam is directed by British-Indian director Meenu Gaur and written by Gaur and well-known Pakistani filmmaker Farjad Nabi.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
Dark and mysterious from the start, the first episode of the anthology starts with two women chopping up a dead body silently as blood splashes onto their faces and trickles down the chopping table surface
The chopped-up pieces are crammed into neat little blood-soaked jute packs, to be discarded around the countryside. A third woman in the backdrop, watching the other two stoically laments about the killing to a cop.
The identities of the women are gradually revealed to the audiences over the six episodes.
Though the series starts off quite slow, the twists are present at the culmination of the episode that will make you binge for the hooks because you just don’t see them coming.
IN THE KNOW
The noir Sin Cityish treatment that director Meenu Gaur gives to each story makes the narrative even starker.
Vivid colors, offset by unusually subdued hues; frames cloaked in twirling spirals of smoke, add to the mysteriousness. The colorful dialogues in guttural tones and resonance of the voices of actresses delivering those discourses embellish the storytelling. End of Epi two and you are hooked and bam! Binging.
In between flashbacks, weaving a fascinating mosaic, QHKN builds a world of its own for its viewers. You cannot look away because not only are the new stories announced but you get desperate to find the connection between the characters that spillover from other episodes.
Each episode is like a jigsaw puzzle, and you are having fun trying to figure the entire narrative out.
Mo Azmi’s camerawork is superb. Some camera grabs are out of the box. The production design is fantastic. Kamran Shahnawaz’s editing is impeccable. The dialogues, by Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi, are magnificent. Saad Hayat’s background score and song compositions are brilliantly eclectic across distinct musical genres and elevate the storytelling by several notches. Need an album drop for the music of this series asap.
Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam is delish.
Not only because its storytelling, its direction, and its narrative are so perfect but because you see that those who you perceive to be the weaker sex are anything but weak. And that is so satisfying.
WHAT WE LOVED
Story
Direction
Music
BGM
Actors
WHAT WE MISSED
Just slow on the uptake but then bamboozles its way into your head.
