THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
Saim Sadiq’s first feature film arrives in theaters, already loaded with a long history. A story of glory and setbacks that begins in May, at the Cannes Film Festival, where joyland is the first Pakistani film to be selected in the Un Certain Regard section. He even received the Jury Prize and the Queer Palm. The director, 31, is over the moon. Six months later, it’s a cold shower.
Indeed, a few weeks before its release in Pakistan scheduled for Friday, November 18, the film sees itself withdrawing the authorization of diffusion which had however been granted to him in August. The government, having bowed to pressure from radical religious groups in the country, finally decided to ban joylandinvoking “its highly objectionable content”. The controversy swells, crosses borders, the Office of Censorship is summoned to review its copy. Which is returned Thursday, November 17: it announces that distributors can broadcast the film the next day if they wish.
All these reversals which dampened the enthusiasm of the teams have, with hindsight, the merit of perfectly illustrating the contradictions depicted by the film, through the portrait of an ordinary Pakistani family and the story, within it, of a love story made impossible by religious and patriarchal traditions. To write his script (with the help of Maggie Briggs), the director drew heavily on his own story and what, as a child, questioned him: his mother occupied all his life with housework, the injunction made to boys to be virile, the place granted to transgender people, both accepted (from 2018, a law grants them the right to determine their sex themselves on official documents) and marginalized, most of them do not having no choice but prostitution or begging.
Grace and subtlety
It all takes shape in joyland, is concentrated between the walls of a family house in Lahore where the sick old father, his two sons, Saleem (Sameer Sohail) and Haider (Ali Junejo), as well as their respective wives, Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) and Mumtaz ( Rasti Farooq). Under this roof and the authority of the patriarch, everyone plays the role assigned to them. Well almost. Because, as we have noticed, Haider, if he does not balk at household chores, shirks when it comes to slaughtering a goat. This boy, decidedly, does not quite meet the codes of virility that are expected of him. Worse, he has no job or children, unlike his brother, who ticks all the boxes. The patriarch worries. We don’t mess with the rules.
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