'I Would Like To Do My Gareeb Films'

'Filmmaking is such a weird line of work, artistic expression and collaboration.'
'It is letting go, then holding on to something, being democratic and then being tyrannical.'

In the new Pakistani film Lali, a small wedding starts off with a burst of celebratory gun fire. A bullet scrapes the groom's mother's leg and she is rushed to hospital by her four young male neighbours, who are almost like her adopted sons.

The wedding ceremony then moves to the hospital ward where a maulavi reads the religious scriptures to the bride and the groom.

All of this could be a serious affair, but in the world that Director Sarmad Sultan Khoosat creates, the drama is layered with humoUr, absurdity, pain and rich explosives colours -- especially the colour red.

The film's exuberant colours, however, balance out the underlying darkness in the narrative with a brooding, troubled groom -- Sajawal (Channan Hanif). The bride Zeba (Mamya Shajaffar) is burdened with the weight of three previously failed matches, where in each case the potential groom died a tragic death. Her last fiancé died after being bitten by a scorpion.

Lali recently premiered in the Panorama section at the Berlinale. It was a first for a Pakistani film. It was also for the first time that the Berlinale -- a major international festival -- programmed two films from Pakistan, including Seemab Gul's Ghost School.

Khoosat has earlier directed edgy films outside the mainstream genre including works such as Manto (2015), Zindagi Tamasha (2019) and Kamli (2022). His films have won him admirers within the Pakistani arts community and even among those who look out for films from Pakistan. But his films have often run into challenges from Pakistan's conservative regional censor boards, politicians and sometimes even with the clergy.

Zindagi Tamasha seemed like a direct threat to Pakistan's clergy and barely had a theatrical release in the country. The film won the prestigious Kim Ji Seok Award at the Busan international film festival.

In 2022 Khoosat produced his friend Saim Sadiq's debut film Joyland. The film premiered at Cannes where it won the Un Certain Regard's Jury Prize. Sadiq came on board as the editor of Lali.

After Lali's Berlinale premiere Aseem Chhabra spoke to Khoosat and the film's young lead actor Hanif about the making of their operatic cinema experience.

Sarmad, I want to ask you about the visual imagery of the film. How did you conceive of it? I know for sure you had great costume and production designers. But I loved the colour red and how it explodes on the screen.

Sarmad: Actually, I have not done such a colourful film ever. I would like to believe that most of my earlier works has been very consciously low key in the visual language. Both Zindagi Tamasha and Kamli were subdued.

This time we took a plunge into the brighter, colourful side of things. It came with the storyline. I feel that because I knew it was going to become so dark in the end, it was almost like compensating for it initially. It all came rather organically. Maybe that was at play because also red and purple are not my favorite colours.

Jewelry and costumes are the kinds of things I really run away from. I would like to do my gareeb films where things are low key and plain. But with this it was pretty daring.

Did the idea of red come from the fact that Channan's character Sajawal is given the nickname Lali because he has a birthmark on his face?

Sarmad: I think a lot of it came from the birthmark on his eye. And then it led to the bridal outfits, to the jamun stains on the characters' teeth. I think in order to just have that sense of celebration and that big life pulse to it, we decided let's be braver with colours.

Channan: I think it's the tone of the film, where it's so bright, so colourful, so ornate, where it adds to this kind of surreal feeling that's going on. Everything's so decorative and feels out of this world, almost, while being very much around it also.

'I don't think he looks too bad or ugly'

As far as the story is concerned, Channan's character has a physical, outwardly defect, but he's also suffering from within. Sarmad can you to elaborate on that how you built his character.

Sarmad: It's in a generic way. It's with any character dealing with a sense of trauma, that life has been unfair to him, and it could come in any form or shape. And for him, he has a very obvious reason.

We know how people in our culture can be so brutal because of appearances, colour of skin. No matter how much we would like to believe that we are woke enough, and we are not saying those kinds of politically incorrect things, it doesn't mean people have stopped feeling them.

There is also the really complex relationship with his mother Sohni Ammi (played by artist and singer Farazeh Syed), who would be fondly calling her dead husband as black as a crow. This weird, racist, funny, lovable woman is very outspoken and appearing to be very friendly, except towards her son because he reminds her of her husband.

Channan: I would also add that Sajawal's birthmark is the least of his problems. His problems are a whole other things, and maybe not even because of the birthmark. That's almost an alibi or just an excuse. I don't think he looks too bad or ugly. It's just something that's very loud and has to be addressed.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the four guys who live upstairs and can look down at Sohni Ammi's and Sajawal's courtyard. They sing songs. I am sure you thought of them like the Greek chorus or the sutradhars in the background who narrate the story.

Sarmad: Somebody also mentioned they reminded them of the witches from Macbeth.

We have grown up with so much of music and performances just being an everyday thing. It's a joke that whenever people get together for a lunch, particularly in Punjabi families, someone will say 'chalo bhai dolki nikalo.' I just wanted these people to be normal with their presence.

'The film got tighter during the edit'

But they are four single men, and they break into songs. I found it interesting that these men are close to Sajawal's mother and perhaps that is also why his relationship with her is strained.

Sarmad: The mother even says at one point to Sajawal 'You just take the bride and go back home and they will stay with me.' Also besides the four men, there is Bholi, the autistic neighbour, and her two sisters who wear identical clothes.

I did want it to be absurd enough, but they are still not outlandish. We can have situations where in such cluttered neighbourhoods, odd families and people live as neighbours in harmony. The back story for these four boys would be they must have left their small towns, and now they are just here.

And she became the motherly support to them. You let her die very quickly, because after that the film becomes rather dark.

Sarmad: She was meant to stay for a little bit longer, but then I think because of Saim's brutal editing (he laughs), we had let her go. There was even a little bit more of Sajawal and Zeba, but the film got tighter during the edit.

One of my absolute favourite scenes is when Zeba is sitting by Sohni Ammi's grave under the jamun tree and she's singing. Bholi (Rasti Farooq who played Mumtaz in Joyland) is singing from the other side of the wall and we see her through a missing brick.

That's Shiv Kumar Batalvi's poetry. In fact, we have mostly used his songs in the film.

'You can take risks if you feel you are in safe space'

I also found it interesting that while Bholi does not speak, she sings very clearly.

We contemplated on that for a long time, whether she should or not? Were we just taking dramatic license here? But then Rasti interacted with autistic children. She went to a couple of facilities and schools. That's when she realised that it is plausible. The spectrum is so big that non-verbal people can also be verbal.

I know you have known Saim for a long time, but was he was your first choice to edit the film? He edited Joyland also.

He also edited Kamli so we have worked together in the past.

Saim is the one who introduced me to Zindagi Tamasha. Lali is sharply edited but the last 10-15 minutes with Channan and Mamya are amazing. The camera and the edit moves so quickly.
Can you tell me about the thinking behind the editing in that section? And Channan how did you and Mamya work through the scenes? Were you conscious about not hurting each other?

Channan: We did hurt each other little bit. But Mamya is incredibly brave and down to trying anything. So you can take risks if you feel you are in safe space.

And Sarmad, can you tell me a little about the editing?

Sarmad: That sequence was shot pretty much in continuity. It needed that kind of drastic, disruptive feel to it, which Saim's edit has definitely brought out with that edge of the seat element. The camera in that whole scene it is not doing a lot of trickery. It was just there, at best it was a little handheld.

'Filmmaking is such a weird line of work'

It was also a small space and then there is a tree in between.

Sarmad: Yes. And there is a room upstairs looking down at the courtyard.

Channan: It almost feels like an action thriller.

Sarmad: I do feel that with Lali the biggest challenge was somewhere in my head. I was doing an abstract, a bit of an absurd thing. But is that absurdity enough so that does not look like a fault or like a mistake somewhere?

In the beginning with the way it was written, to the dialogue delivery, to everything, and then in the end I was still not sure if it's enough. Which is when Saim said 'We do not need to add more bizarre. You do not need to worry about that.'

As with all films, Lali also did get rewritten in the edit. Saim played around quite a bit and sometimes he would say 'I am not going to show it to you right now. You come after a few days, because right now you are going to have a heart attack.'

Channan: I didn't know how things work because I am new to film. But then I saw this analogy. Someone said that when you shoot a film you go shopping for groceries. Then the editing is cooking with eggs and butter. You can make 500 different things. So the edit is actually making a meal.

Sarmad: A lot had to be thrown off the table. Making peace with that was another kind of a tough journey. There's a clip in the trailer where we went to shoot it with a ton of extras, donkey carts, tractors and what not. Then a lot of VFX work was done on it.

And then one day Saim said 'Hold my hand, because I am going to tell you that that sequence is cut. Don't worry, trust me but look at it from the story's lens.' I thought that was the most stunning thing we had shot. But Saim said, 'The film is stunning on its own.'

Channan :I think we are still healing from that.

Sarmad: Filmmaking is such a weird line of work, artistic expression and collaboration. It is letting go, then holding on to something, being democratic and then being tyrannical. Though I did exercise my tyranny in some places.

'I have grown up around theater'

Sarmad, how did you find Channan? Had he done some films?

Channan: I have grown up around theatre. My mother's an actor as well. I have done a few small parts before, but they just asked me to audition. I did auditions for Saim and Sarmad. And we had acted together in theatre.

Oh you both have known each other for some time.

Sarmad: Yes, I am friends with his mother. He's Nimra Bucha's son.

Really?

Channan: Kyon lag nahin raha? (He holds his face with his hands.)

Yaar, I am such a huge fan of your parents. Your mother is a wonderful actor. Mohammed Hanif is one of my favourite South Asian writers. I love A Case of Exploding Mangoes. I get my Punjabi fix listening to his BBC Punjabi commentary.

Channan: We are all his fans. So I grew around this stuff.

Sarmad: I trusted the genes (laughs).

And how did you find Mamya?

Sarmad: She had done some television work, and worked in music videos. But I saw her in one fashion film that she had done for a designer. There was something about her I liked. We auditioned her. I think Channan used the word demure.

For me, Zeba was somebody who could ride a bike, bring a dead body back. It could come with a lot of cliches to it, which I didn't want. I just wanted that delicacy and that weird flash 'Oh, this girl is just magic.' She could help Sohni Ammi pee in bed, jump off the balcony, and also become the jinn.

You didn't think of casting Nimra Bucha as Sohni Ammi?

Sarmad: I have cast Nimra in a few of my films -- Kamali, Manto. At one point I did think of her, but she just wasn't Sohni Ammi. Farazeh Syed was exactly her. It was the first time she acted. And it came so naturally to her. And she can sing as well.

Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff