‘The Price of Honour’ will shock rather than excite audiences
BY GHULAM HUSSAIN
LAHORE- Recently, Lollywood showman Syed Noor announced a film with producer M Afzal Khan, titled ‘The Price of Honour’, which would be a short, 100 minutes long feature presentation. Earlier, Afzal Khan has produced ‘Larki Punjaban’ with Noor. The Nation Plus Metro conducted an exclusive joint interview with the producer-director duo with special reference to ‘The Price of Honour’.
According to Syed Noor, the story of the film is based on true facts. For instance, a school teacher (played by Resham) dares to stand up against the feudal lords in the village of Firozpura. Dreadful Sardar Kamal allows no opposition to his rule. He flares up as soon as he learns about a romantic liaison between his mentally retarded sister and Resham’s brother, and orders the public rape of Resham.
Overlooked by the police and humiliated by the villagers, Resham now faces another threat from within her own family.
M Afzal Khan said the film was set in Firozpura in southern Punjab, which is a small village, and portrays the brutal manner in which the landlords rule the lives of the impoverished villagers.
He opined that ‘The Price of Honour’ would be a gritty, realistic portrayal of the village community.
Noor said that the film was an effort to highlight the way the tribal elders continue to inflict inhuman punishment on the poor and the defenceless.
“It’s a community where men are allowed to abuse and murder women in the name of Honour and they are also protected by the law of the land.”
Noor said this was going to be “a film for adult, intelligent audiences looking for a ground breaking film!”
He said that he together with Afzal Khan had researched for almost nine months, “We took over six months on the script. We had to project the regional dialect and retain the local flavour. This meant a lot of work.”
Noor said that there would be no songs in the movie, no special sets. The entire movie will be shot on location, the fictionalised village of Firozpura.
“There will be no glamorisation of contents,” he continued, “The key cast of characters will be selected after intensive auditions by me and Afzal. People will be selected on merit. They must be able to deliver.”
Auditions for the various characters in the movie are being conducted these days.
Noor said that he had built a reputation for family movies. “I have, wherever possible, tried to give a social message in all my movies whether it was ‘Mehandi Waley Hath’ or ‘Dupatta Jal Raha Hai’. All that was done keeping in view the family audiences.”
‘The Price of Honour’ will not be a family film, though. “I know some people are going to ask me why I made a movie that had harrowing scenes of rape and murder.
My answer to them is, we haven’t included these scenes to titillate the audience. I am confident that the audience will be shocked by the scenes and not excited by them,” he said.
M Afzal was quick to add, “The more I researched the subject the more I was shocked by the details.”
He said that this was an effort on their part to change the situation of women in Pakistan.