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10 reasons to watch Khuda Kay Liye
INSTEP Magzine](INSTEP Magzine)
Superlatives are not enough to describe this film and neither can a deconstruction of the plot suffice. Instep is still so blown away by Khuda Kay Liye that all we have for you are reasons why this film cannot be missed.
By Muniba Kamal
- Shoaib Mansoor’s first feature film
Shoaib Mansoor is a living legend in Pakistan. The creator of television like Alpha Bravo Charlie, Fifty Fifty and Guys and Gulls, he also directed the classic Ankahi. Beyond that he was the godfather of Vital Signs, to date, Pakistan’s most successful pop band. He directed Music 89, the groundbreaking show that got banned, but not before it launched the career of a young singer called Ali Azmat. And who could forget the Supreme Ishq videos? ‘Teray Ishq Nachaya’ and ‘Anarkali’ still reverberate in memory. Shoaib Mansoor has historically had his fingers on the pulse of the nation and 35 mm just gives him a bigger canvas to play on than he has ever had before.
- Shaan is not a gujjar badmash for once!
Shaan plays a clean shaven pop musician in the film as opposed to a gandasa wielding village bumpkin. He puts in a poignant performance as Mansoor who loses his brother to mullahs and then his freedom to the US after the planes crash into the World Trade Center. And the fact that he’s so good looking makes it believable when Janie (Austin Marie Sayre) falls in love with him while they’re at music school in Chicago.
- Iman makes her big screen debut
Iman Ali makes her film debut with Khuda Kay Liye and it is as far away from Anarkali as you can get! Female roles in Pakistani cinema are famous for being regressive. All thinking women feel disgust when they see the stereotypical portrayal of women as whimpering seductresses cum damsels in distress in Lollywood. Iman Ali’s plays Mary, who faces the worst circumstance - being forcibly married off to a conservative Sarmad in Afghanistan after being born and brought up in London - with guts and a steely determination. Mary is the 21st century Pakistani woman. She has a mind of her own and acts accordingly and yes no actress has ever looked this good in a shuttlecock burqa!
- Fawad Khan rocks in the film
All you EP fans out there - you have to check his performance out. The meatiest role in the film goes to Fawad Khan. From pop musician to mullah to jihadi and then back to moderate, Fawad’s story is actually the throbbing heart of Khuda Kay Liye around which the rest of the film pivots. His good looks make his transition from musician to mullah very poignant. Moreover, Fawad has the intensity that carries this character through. Thank God, Ali Zafar said no this movie. This role fits Fawad like a glove.
- Naseeruddin Shah’s court room scene
Actor extraordinaire did not charge Shoaib Mansoor a single penny for the film and when you hear the dialogues he delivers in a court room scene, you will figure out why. That scene will make your hair stand on end and your soul brim over. Called in by the court as a religious expert to elucidate on what Islam says about forced marriage, music and jihad, the soliloquy he delivers as a thinking religious scholar puts Islam in a new perspective. It is a passionate speech, but one that employs the faculties of logic and reasoning even as it refers to Muslim history and Islamic traditions. This should go down in Pakistan’s film history as the finest dialogue ever penned. Shoaib Mansoor’s great challenge as a script writer now will be to top this in terms of impact.
- The clash of ideologies
Shoaib Mansoor’s uses the three characters of Mansoor, Mary and Sarmad to stunning effect by intertwining their stories. Mansoor and Sarmad are brothers happily making music in Lahore and Mary is their cousin British born cousin blissfully in love with an Englishman called David. Their lives are changed when Sarmad starts going to a mosque and discussing Islam with a maulvi who insists that music is haram. Simultaneously, Mary’s father who is a Pakistani Muslim brings her over to Pakistani so that she does not follow the wayward path (he lives out of wedlock with a British lady) that he has. Mary is married off to Sarmad in Afghanistan and as she tries to escape, he goes to fight Jihad. And while Sarmad is doing that, Mansoor has been detained in America and is being questioned for links with Al Qaeda. 9/11 has happened and the world has changed. Khuda Kay Liye is a definitive account of how it changed Pakistan. And Shoaib Mansoor does this by telling three stories of Muslims, each with their own perspective of religion and its role in their life. It shows the soul searching that started in the Muslim World after 9/11 from a uniquely Pakistani perspective.
- Khuda Kay Liye is our story
A far cry from the escapism that has historically plagued Pakistani cinema and which is endemic to Indian cinema as well, Khuda Kay Liye is rooted in reality. Mansoor and Sarmad are pop stars; there is a thriving pop industry here. Mary is brought to Pakistan and forcibly married; there are plenty of newspaper headlines that tell of similar cases. Sarmad is radicalized by religious zealots and goes to Afghanistan; again there have been umpteen cases of that happening in Pakistan. Masoor is unjustly detained in the States after 9/11 and is tortured; that is precisely what happened in the US with so many Pakistanis and Muslims. Khuda Kay Liye is a searing tale of what has been happening to Pakistanis since 2001.
8) Khuda Kay Liye is pluralistic
The danger of telling a story like Khuda Kay Liye is that the film could have been used as a platform to bash mullah culture (which is the easiest thing to do these days). It could have been used to show liberals as good and religious conservatives as bad. Shoaib Mansoor’s script masterfully steers clear of that and he does it by using a very simple technique. He’s just followed the story from his heart and let each character express his or her unique logic. The result is a narrative that grips you because there are no heroes or villains. Every character comes with their own baggage, including the maulanas. Khuda Kay Liye shows the radical fringe and then it shows the ones who favour introspection over retaliation. Both co-exist in Khuda Kay Liye, just as they do in our society.
- The music and the magic
Shoaib Mansoor is as much of a musician as he is a filmmaker and he surpasses himself with both as he blends the soundtrack of Khuda Kay Liye into the visuals. Two of the most memorable instances are when Shaan presents eastern classical music to his class in Chicago and one by one they all join in with their instruments. The ‘Jana Mana Gana’ scene from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham pales in comparison. ‘Tiluk Kamod’ makes one realize the power of the music of this land, even as the song just becomes a part of narrative signifying how music can break all boundaries. The picturisation shows how via this language of notes and chords and sur and tal, people from different races who speak different languages can flow as one.
In a different vein, the remix of Saaen Zahoor’s ‘Allah Hoo’ is used to chilling affect in the film. When Mary flees the Afghan village to escape her forced marriage, the techno strain of “Allah… Allah… Allah… Allah” fills the cinema hall. Ditto when Fawad goes for jihad in Afghanistan and sees Muslim fighting Muslim, the same song is used. The remixed Sufi song that still reverberates in memory drives home the gravity of the situation in Khuda Kay Liye, even as it reminds you that this is everything that happening to your kind. And that you, like everyone else are a part of it.
10) Khuda Kay Liye is not Indian at all
It was delightful to sit in a cinema hall and watch an indigenously Pakistani film that borrows nothing from Bollywood. Khuda Kay Liye makes you realize how crass and over the top Bollywood is with its restrained, subtle narration, which is peppered with the most hard-hitting punch lines. Khuda Kay Liye wins your heart because it speaks to your head. Mainstream Bollywood plays a different game - it dazzles your eyes with colour, makes your feet tap with music, causes your heart to palpitate with melodrama and fills your brain with the implausible cotton candy of fairy tales. As much as one is addicted to Bollywood films, one is glad that a Pakistani director has made a film that has such a distinctly Pakistani voice.
