In the 70’s, Pakistani films were pretty much at par with Indian Films. If India had Rajesh Khana, Dharmendar and Hema Malini churning out super hits we had Waheed Murad, Munawar Zareef and Shabnam doing the same here as well. Then worst ever martial law of General Zia ul Haq imposed and the film industry almost finished resulting a huge gap in the quality of Pakistani and Hindi films. His policies to radicalise the society murdered the creative people and the culture of the land.
It took us decades to recover. It was Yeh Dil Aap Ka Huain 2002 which broke the monotony and stopped the process of cinemas converting into marriage halls. For the 1st time, a Pakistani film looked belonging to 21st century largely due to veteran Javed Sheikh’s efforts. But following a couple of years, it was literally nothing which could make a statement in the cinemas. The Pakistani cine goers had to wait for 5 years till Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda KeLiye was released. Junaid Jamshed signed the lead role but he walked out of the film. Good or bad, publicity is the backbone of film business. The film was discussed in every household long before it was on the floors!
Junaid Jamshed’s walking out was a major dent for Shoaib Mansoor who had a long history of mentoring his band Vital Signs but he went ahead with the project and decided to bring in EP’s lead singer Fawad Khan for this leading role. It changed Fawad’s life forever. Shan gave the best performance of his life proving himself to be the best actor in Pakistan. Bringing Naseerud Din Shah in the film gave larger than life persona to the whole project. The music stood out with every song hummable and making perfect sense. This is where we all thought the industry may well be revived and will grow from here on. But, alas, no!
Another 4 years went by but no notable addition till another Shoaib Mansoor directed Bol was released. This time around, the cinematography wasn’t up to the mark which SM had set himself with his earlier film. Humaima Malik stole the show with her sterling performance. The dialogue, jab paal nahi saktey tau paida kyun kartey ho, was discussed across the country. Atif Aslam was another star attraction for many to go and watch the film in the cinemas. Manzar Sehbai was simply outstanding while Saqa Kanjar played by Shafqat Cheema was epic. The melodious music from Bolis is still being played on FM stations. Wasn’t this an indication for our filmmakers that this is the way to go, but instead they resorted to cheap stories and vulgar item songs in the years to come and in “trying too hard” to be like Bollywood, they lost the plot completely.
In the last few years, every other film comes as revival of Pakistani cinema and falls flat. When it doesn’t work, you start asking people to come and watch it as it’s“ Made in Pakistan”. Then, you watch terrible films which make no sense at all and eventually lose faith in the good films as well. See you go to the cinema to watch a film, spend 500 rupees minimum to get one ticket and you would buy some popcorns, nachos, soft drinks to enjoy the experience which makes it easily 1000 rupees. Add petrol money or cab service you take to get to the cinema which roughly makes it 1200 per person. Naturally, the person going to the cinema won’t be watching the film all alone so he/she will be taking a friend or family along with him and it means that he would spend a few thousands rupees and no one will like to waste their money on something which doesn’t entertain them. They will prefer watching an English or Hindi film any day. Resorting next time to “safely” and “maybe” watch a Pakistani film at home free of cost on TV instead.
So is it story, script, music, star cast or something else? To find out the right recipe, I spoke to internationally acclaimed filmmaker Farhan Alam whose film Sawaan was nominated for an Oscar from Pakistan and has already won 7 awards at film festivals in Italy, India, USA and Spain.
“Powerful story and script is the key for me. While in Pakistan, casting for fair skinned good-looking actors is the priority. If Nawaz ud Din Siddiqui would have been in Pakistan, he would only be getting roles of chaprasi. What do you get from casting a pretty face or a perfect body? The performance of the actor matters. That’s what they come to watch in the cinema.
Connecting with the audience is really important. When my film Saawan was being screened at a film festival in Italy, the women cried while watching the film though they couldn’t even understand the language being spoken in the film. They could feel the pain of the character in film while they didn’t know any of the actors.
Filmmakers in Pakistan start the film project when they don’t even know ending of the film. Alright, you change a scene or two but don’t shoot half of the film this way. Then, there are bloggers who wouldn’t have taken a single class regarding filmmaking and they dissect the film in a way that discourages the audiences from watching films made on social issues. Like my film is on importance of the education. While in India, recently released Toilet was declared tax-free for bringing up such an important issue. In Pakistan, there is hardly any luxury like this given to the filmmakers. Recently, there was Hum Film Festival held in Karachi where they didn’t even include us. This attitude needs to change. We should back each other up, so more quality films are made and the industry grows.”
It’s a really long way to revive the film industry in the true sense but when we have filmmakers like Farhan Alam, we don’t have to worry much. Young aspiring filmmakers must watch Saawan and learn how could you make a successful film with low budget. The key perhaps is a strong story and expressively powerful actors to portray it as after all, there is a difference between acting and modeling for a zarasasabunwalatvc!
– Basit Subhani is a performing artist, motivational speaker and social activist. He could be followed at https://twitter.com/BasitSubhani