Re: Pakistani Movie: Khuda Ke Liye (merged)
curtain raiser
**Raising a lantern over Pakistan’s dark night
The Khuda Kay Liye experience is one that has shattered stereotypes. Far beyond Saddar and the electronic market, where the elite hardly ever ventures out for an evening of
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entertainment, Prince Cinema was thronged by high society. Usually crowded with noisy rickshaws, shuffling chappals and chips wallahs, the road was overtaken by chauffer driven luxury cars, women in high heels and wafts of expensive cigars. The world turned out for the premiere of the most awaited film to be released in Pakistan in years. The trailors running on television had intrigued people enough: they were all dying to know what Khuda Kay Liye would be all about, and more importantly, would it actually be as controversial as it promised to be?
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It has shattered stereotypes because for a film that promised to revive cinema, the presence of film wallahs was overshadowed by the rest of the industry. That was evident in the turn out. Shan didn’t turn up for the premiere but Iman Ali and Fawad Khan, both of who have delivered extremely realistic performances in their lead roles, did. Meera and Reema were nowhere to be seen but television artists such as Javed Sheikh, Bushra Ansari, musicians like Rohail Hyatt, Ali Azmat, Salman Ahmad and from the fashion industry Sonya Battla, Deepak Perwani, Tapu Javeri, Umar Sayeed, Batul Rizvi, Sadaf Malaterre and many more came to share the glory of a man who has risen from television to save cinema.
High expectations that people came with must have weighed down heavy upon Shoaib Mansoor, but he showed none of the nervousness any other man would have felt under the circumstances. “I usually don’t say much,” he spoke to an emotional audience that gave him thunderous applause and rose to give him a standing ovation at the end of the screening, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t have much to say.”
Soft spoken and humble in his speech, the notoriously reclusive Shoaib Mansoor joined Imran Aslam on stage and thanked the cast and crew of Khuda Kay Liye, especially Naseeruddin
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Shah. “He wasn’t familiar with me or my work when I called him for the first time, but asked me for the script,” Shoaib Mansoor related. “It took the courier two days to get the script to Bombay and Naseeruddin Shah called back. ‘I like it,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it and I won’t take any money for it.’”
The impact that one glance through the script had on Naseeruddin Shah was the same as the impact KKL’s trailors had on the audience. The lobby was jam packed, shoulder to
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shoulder, invitees fanning themselves with the film passes, but not risking to step out for fresh air incase they missed a ‘moment’. There was a buzz of caution in the air too - the heavy security outside the cinema hall bundled with metal detecting gates and the fact that the film had picked up on an extremely controversial theme promised that.
Khuda Kay Liye is no average, formula flick. It is a film that raises issues and poses questions to the audience and that too about the most taboo topic in Pakistan – religion. Would it bash the mullahs or bash the liberals? Would it end happily or tragically and most importantly, would Shoaib Mansoor be brave enough to give it a conclusion at all or leave the end in mid air? As it turned out, he did all that and more.
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As the crowd was gradually ushered into the cinema hall and the opening credits rolled, one realized that Khuda Kay Liye was going to be an extraordinary film. The mood had been set and the audience sat and watched with an open mind, bursting out in applause at the slightest trigger. It was a film everyone could identify to; it reconstructed moments that every Pakistani at home or abroad has been through. The dilemma of what Islam permits and what it prohibits; the definition and difference between a good Muslim and a good human being. It captures a Pakistani boy’s vision out into the world and the world’s vision into Pakistan.
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“I love America. I am not a terrorist!” screams Mansoor (played by Shan) who has come to the USA to study music and is taken in by the FBI post 9/11.
“All Muslims may not be terrorists,” replies the agent, “but all terrorists are Muslim.” The film highlights the transition of the world view on Muslims and how they transform from being the “mujahideen” to the “terrorists”. KKL
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reveals how Mansoor’s “I Love USA” becomes “I Love USAMA” because that’s the light American authorities want to see him in.
The audience sat glued to their seats, through the soul searching songs and the life threatening moments. Within the first ten minutes of the film, when Muslim radicals were shown breaking on to a stage being pepped up for a music concert and tearing it down, one actually believed the film to have the same impact on extremists outside. One actually expected shouts of condemnation and cries for censorship from within or outside the cinema hall. It went safe
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and sound as the premises was highly protected but KKL made one wonder how the masses would react to seeing their religious leaders in the light of reality. No one has dared show what Khuda Kay Liye does.
The film has suspense, it has traces of romance and meaningful music, it has vision and most importantly it has soul. The audience reacted accordingly – their laughter, silence and sighs of exclamation came at the same time. Half way through, when the vendors brought in complimentary drinks and bags of popcorn, one could hardly believe that half time was up. For its three hour duration, KKL seemed to go by in a flash