Price of forbidden desire

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Did you know a Pakistan-India co-production film won two significant prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, the prestigious Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section (in official selection) and the Queer Palm Prize? This is a massive achievement for a struggling Pakistani cinema, and for South Asian cinema. The film got a long standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival that finished yesterday. Yes, in the midst of the hysterical armies of right-wingers snorting fire on both sides of the border, comes a compelling, tender and heartbreaking film by young Pakistani director Saim Sadiq. It is thrilling and gratifying that, despite all our macho, destructive politics, how art can also rewrite history.

Saim Sadiq's Joyland is about how a patriarchal Pakistani joint family falls apart after the married son secretly joins an erotic dance theatre in Lahore, and falls for Biba, an ambitious transwoman starlet. The film has made history at the Cannes Film Festival for a number of reasons. One, Joyland is Pakistan's first feature film in the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. Two, with his very first feature, Sadiq already made it to Cannes, in the Un Certain Regard section. Three, he daringly casts Alina Khan, a transwoman, as a key protagonist, that too in an Islamic country run by deeply conservative political parties. And fourth, yes, it is, in a sense, a Pakistan-India-US co-production. The film's producers are Indian-American Apoorva Charan (Hyderabad-born, LA-based), Sarmad Sultan Khoosat (Pakistan; also director of Zindagi Tamasha that won the Kim Ji-Seok Award at the Busan Film Festival) and Lauren Mann (US). Sadiq questions South Asian traditions of patriarchy, gender, sexuality and independence, that suffocate so many lives today, and he skewers old habits like marriage.

A number of Muslim filmmakers and talent originating in the Indian sub-continent walked the red carpet at Cannes this year. Before Sadiq's Joyland was at Cannes, his Darling, Pakistan's first film in the Venice Film Festival's official selection, won Best Short in its Orizzonti section in 2019. India's only new feature film in Cannes' official selection in 2022 was Shaunak Sen's documentary All That Breathes (in Special Screenings; apart from the older classic films), whose protagonists are three compassionate Muslims, who have devoted their lives to healing injured kites in Delhi - Nadeem Shehzad, Muhammad Saud and Salik Rehman, that also got a long standing ovation at Cannes (the film was earlier at the Sundance Film Festival).

In Joyland, the Rana household is ruled by its patriarch Abba, iron-willed, despite being in a wheelchair. When the older son Saleem and his wife Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) produce their fourth daughter, Abba turns the heat on the younger son Haider (Ali Junejo, brilliant) and his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq, excellent) to produce a male heir. The gentle Haider and spunky Mumtaz share a warm camaraderie, while flipping gender norms: she earns a salary at a salon, while he is the househusband, cooking and raising his nieces. But when Haider gets a job at an erotic dance theatre and falls in love with Biba (Alina Khan), a trans dancer, the joint family unravels, as Sadiq deftly dissects the hypocrisy around morality and desire. The narrative explores a love affair goes awry; an unexpected pregnancy; and a tender bonding between sisters-in-law. But Sadiq underlines how, when men, women and transpeople struggle for freedom from stifling social norms, that freedom can come at a very high price.

In fact, his story is about two men, or rather a man and a transperson, Haider and Biba, both in touch with their feminine side in very different ways, who fall in love, with dire consequences in a patriarchal society. As a reflection on how patriarchal machismo suffocates men who are in touch with their feminine side, Joyland is a fascinating counterpoint to Madhu C Narayanan's incandescent Kumbalangi Nights (Malayalam, 2019). Again, it is interesting to note how both Joyland and Sarmad Sultan Khoosat's Zindagi Tamasha (Circus of Life, Pakistan, 2019), explore how a family implodes after a Pakistani man is associated with a dance.

Sadiq, who studied film direction at Columbia University, New York, directs with assurance and empathy. The layered screenplay and dialogues by Sadiq and co-writer Maggie Briggs, is laced with irony and humour. There's a hoot of a scene in which Biba, frustrated at not getting any action with Haider, tells him "Get out, you faggot!" That's rich, and poignant, coming from a transwoman to a heterosexual man. Ali Junejo is brilliant as the vulnerable Haider; Alina Khan nearly runs away with the film as Biba; Rasti Farooq is excellent, and Sarwat Gilani is good - she's also in Churails on Zee 5. Lebanese cinematographer Joe Saade's cinematography works superbly to reflect the characters' inner feelings. The editing by Jasmin Tenucci and Sadiq is very good, with a poignant punch in the climax. Ramin Bahrani (White Tiger) is Executive Producer as well. The women in key positions thrillingly include producers Charan and Mann, co-writer Briggs and editor Tenucci. Bring on more gifted women, I say, the results will speak for themselves.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com