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A gentle man falls for a brassy trans woman in \u201cJoyland,\u201d but that\u2019s not exactly what this lyrical, well-acted Pakistani drama is about. With its multiple intersecting narratives, writer-director Saim Sadiq\u2019s debut feature takes an almost novelistic approach to its central theme: the repression of human individuality by a regimented traditional society.<\/p>\n
At the center of the several stories is Haider (Ali Junejo), who lives with his wife, Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq), in a cramped Lahore household. Also resident are his father (Salmaan Peerzada), brother (Sameer Sohail), sister-in-law (Sarwat Gilani) and the latter couple\u2019s three daughters, who are about to expand to four. Haider is unemployed while Mumtaz works as a makeup artist for brides, an arrangement that doesn\u2019t please the family\u2019s hidebound patriarch. Haider is comfortable in a domestic role \u2014 he\u2019s introduced while playing a game with his nieces \u2014 but hesitant about such supposedly manly duties as sacrificing a goat to celebrate the birth of that fourth child.<\/p>\n
When a friend steers Haider toward a possible job, it\u2019s not one he can tell his father about. There\u2019s an opening for a backup dancer for Biba (Alina Khan), a transgender performer who gyrates to Bollywood-style music at an \u201cerotic theater.\u201d (The talent bumps and grinds but doesn\u2019t strip.) Haider is not much of a hoofer, but his eagerness to perform simple tasks endears him to Biba.<\/p>\n
Early in their relationship, Haider accepts an assignment that also serves as a metaphor: He picks up a massive cutout photo of Biba, more than twice her actual size, and transports it awkwardly on his motorbike. The photo looms over him physically as Biba does emotionally.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mumtaz is increasingly unhappy. Now that her husband has an income \u2014 he tells the family he\u2019s working as a theater manager \u2014 Mumtaz\u2019s imperious father-in-law has decreed that she must quit the job she loves. She\u2019s stuck at home while her husband is out late almost every night, whether rehearsing or performing or otherwise catering to Biba. When Mumtaz learns she\u2019s pregnant, the other members of the family are much more pleased than she is.<\/p>\n
Joyland, by the way, is not the name of the theater where the ambitious Biba is trying to supplant a better-known performer. It\u2019s a nearby amusement park that Mumtaz and her sister-in-law like to visit, which one evening leads to an unfortunate and telling incident with a neighbor while they\u2019re at the fair. The place is hidden behind a high, thick wall, as if to protect the residents of Lahore from the faintly disreputable sight of people having fun.<\/p>\n
Rasti Farooq, left, and Sarwat Gilani in \u201cJoyland.\u201d (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
\nSadiq, a Lahore native who studied directing at Columbia University, seems to enjoy mystifying the viewer. He keeps expository dialogue to a minimum and doles out information slowly, or not at all. (It would be nice to know, for example, why the shy and clumsy Haider even gets hired as a dancer. Is it just because so few Pakistani men are prepared to cavort behind a transgender entertainer?) But most of the small incidents and offhand anecdotes are gradually revealed to be part of a grander design. For instance, a comment about someplace Haider has never been points to the melancholy but lovely ending, which is as hushed as Abdullah Siddiqui\u2019s ambient score.<\/p>\n
Cinematographer Joe Saade shot the film in a near-square format, ensuring that facial close-ups nearly fill the frame, and mostly employed available light. Bright outdoor episodes convey Lahore\u2019s heat, but most of the sequences are shadowy. Twice, power failures require people to light a room with just their cellphones. More showy is a nighttime love scene in which twinklings cast by green lasers play across Haider\u2019s and Biba\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a moment of enchantment that can\u2019t last, partly due to Haider\u2019s and Biba\u2019s own personalities but also because of the society in which they uncomfortably live. After a few cuts, \u201cJoyland\u201d was eventually released in most of Pakistan. Yet it remains banned in Punjab, the province where it was made and where its director grew up.<\/p>\n
Unrated. At Landmark\u2019s E Street Cinema and the AFI Silver. Contains sexual situations, strong language, smoking and simulated animal sacrifice. In Urdu, Punjabi and some English with subtitles. 127 minutes.<\/p>\n
View this article at The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Joyland\u2019: So much more than a trans love story: A gentle man falls for a brassy trans woman in \u201cJoyland,\u201d but that\u2019s not exactly what this lyrical, well-acted Pakistani drama is about. With its multiple intersecting narratives, writer-director Saim Sadiq\u2019s debut feature takes an almost novelistic approach to its central theme: the repression of human
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