AbuAhzan Reviews

Ferestadeh (1983)

The moral struggle of figuring out for yourself how to tread the path of righteousness

[26 February 2003]

Parviz Sayyad, a popular comic director in Iran before the revolution, had to leave his homeland and wound up in America with no funds to pursue his cinematic art. Somehow he scraped together the shoestring to get this one filmed, fortunately. It's a brilliant, compelling examination of what it means to follow your ideals, after you find out that everything you thought was wrong.

A young Iranian arrives in New York. He is a quiet, serious, pious Muslim. His orders: find the ex-SAVAK officer and kill him. While trailing the ex-SAVAK officer in New York's subway, he accidentally meets him face to face while helping him escape muggers. From his pocket falls the Qur'an with Persian translation. The ex-SAVAK officer picks it up and sees the Persian writing. Hey! You're from Iran too, what a coincidence, we must become friends! They do, in fact, become friends. The pious young Muslim assassin finds out that the ex-SAVAK officer is a nice guy, not a bad guy after all. He has two cute kids, and they love their new uncle from Iran (the assassin). How he can find it in his heart to kill this nice guy? Meanwhile he makes ablution and prays in his cockroachy apartment. The assassination commander tries to call him on the phone, but he does not answer so as not to interrupt his prayer. The assassination commander comes to see him, saying "Why don't you answer the phone? Praying? Oh, you are so pious" -- while he guzzles beer! So the young assassin faces a dilemma: he wanted to serve Islam, but he is forced to confront the question of where is real Islam -- in the revolution? Or in his heart? Then he is not sure what he should really do. The tragic ending is wrenching indeed.

This movie is made with heart and sympathy, about discovering moral ambiguity in one's own soul. An excellent view of the spiritual problems with the Iranian revolution made by an expatriate with no resources but his wit and his heart. If you ever get a chance to see it, don't miss it.

Hideous Kinky (1998)

I like the spiritual dimension of this story

[8/10 · 29 May 2001]

I liked the way this film shows, quite realistically, how easy it is for a foreigner or anyone to approach the spiritually loving side of Islam through Sufism. As Kate Winslet's character drifts through her random adventures, experiencing joys and frustrations, she has only three anchors to keep her in touch with reality: 1) caring for her kids; 2) love for the Moroccan gentleman; 3) discovering mystical nearness to Allah through Sufism. This last focus is open to anyone visiting a Muslim country like Morocco; it makes it easy and natural to be accepted by the common people and become part of their lives, no matter what country you come from. The Sufi Islam of Morocco is more open and welcoming than most cultures in the world. There was one telling scene where Kate finds an impenetrable barrier to communication with a wealthy modernized Moroccan who rejects his people's Sufi heritage. But she has no trouble fitting in with the common people once she gets used to their ways.

The Iron Giant (1999)

A mirror held up to humanity

[10/10 · 12 August 2000]

The enigma of the Iron Giant's complex nature is a literary device to make us look at ourselves. The Giant is a mirror of humanity; making him a space alien is a way of bringing another perspective to our human nature. On the one hand, we humans seem to be programmed as death machines. On the other hand, we have compassionate souls. Which will predominate? The key to the whole story is simply "You are what you choose to be." Your innate compassion can override your death program.

The character of Mansley the bad guy is so malicious as to be actually psychotic. His only function is to show the madness of the human death programming taken to extremes. It makes us look back on the Cold War and wonder what the hell went wrong. The name "Mansley" symbolically reflects on Man, who has allowed this insanity to run away with the human race. The Giant's choice of compassion over death programming is inspiring and uplifting; to get that across in a movie any more you have to disguise it as a kid's movie, but this one is equally enjoyable for kids and adults alike.

The technical side of this film shows the impressive advances in conventional animation, to remind us that computer animatronics are not necessarily the last word in this art form. The most stunning light shows, however, involve weapons of mass destruction.

The Giant's seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate himself as well as whip out a mind-boggling array of destructive devices reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's dictum: "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."

East Is East (1999)

Warmhearted, compassionate look at family foibles

[9/10 · 10 July 2000]

It's natural if this film invites comparison with My Son the Fanatic (both about the tribulations of Pakistanis in Bradford, both starring Om Puri). But they are radically different. MSTF was ideologically driven, because Hanif Kureishi was trying hard to make a point, so his view of Islamic fundamentalism came off as forced and unreal. East is East has no such ideological ax to grind. It has a lot of compassion for the characters in this family and treats them as real human beings. Om Puri's acting job in this one was brilliant, to take a character as brutal and blockheaded as this, and still infuse it with warmth and sympathy. That must have been almost impossible, but he pulled it off.

The portrayal of plebian Muslim life was (in some respects) much more true to life, unlike in MSTF. Another comment criticized the character praying in the morning after the sun had risen high in the sky. Actually, it is not forbidden in Islam to pray when th sun is risen high, only when the sun is on the horizon. The dawn prayer is supposed to be before sunrise, but if you oversleep, you make it up whenever you awake. Since this film was set in the summer in North England, when the sun rises awfully early, it would be easy to oversleep. So given this condition, the film was actually realistic. In any comedy, they have to play up certain exaggerated characteristics. But you don't have to be too thin-skinned about racism. I didn't see the film as an attack on Pakistanis or Islam. Om Puri's character said that in Islam, everyone is equal, no black or white. That was true and well spoken. But otherwise, he was ignorant that in Islamic law the parents cannot force the children to get married if they don't want to. I thought it was more a comment on ignorant Muslims than an attack on Islam. But non-Muslims seeing this may not realize that Islam is actually more liberal than Om Puri's character showed. They will just have to investigate on their own, I guess, or Muslims like me could point it out.

I see other commenters going on about the dog gags in the trailer. Well, I didn't see the trailer, so I just went in with an open mind and had a great time! The best line in the film was the one about half-breeds vs. inbreeding. That hit home especially because there really is too much cousin marriage in India & Pakistan, not good for the gene pool.

I also richly enjoyed the moment when Enoch Powell was smashed to smithereens, and the redheaded kid who kept saying "salam `alaykum" at the most inopportune moments was priceless!

Paar (1984)

Symbolism of the struggle of existence

[3 October 1999]

Here's a poor couple (Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah) on the run from their enemies, who (while herding a flock of sheep, and despite Shabana's pregnancy) have to swim across a wide, swiftly flowing river, in which they nearly drown before reaching safety. The dangerous river crossing symbolically sums up all worldly burdens and trials.

Just a Gigolo (1978)

Offbeat, parallel-universe look at Weimar poised between romanticism and despair

[7/10 · 25 September 1999]

This is one of the most unusual films I have ever seen. It's an offbeat, sensitively filmed look at Weimar Germany in a sort of parallel-universe version. "Cabaret" it is not! If you ever get a chance to see it, I don't want to spoil the ending for you . . . but when you see it, you'll say to yourself, "Of course! Why didn't I foresee that coming?!?" David Bowie plays a sort of innocent ne'er-do-well discharged from the German army after World War I and drifting through existence; he can't find anything to do with himself except hire himself out as a "gigolo" for rich, proto-Eurotrash war widows in ballrooms where they "dance to forget". Bowie's father is a once-domineering tyrant who has been silenced by a stroke. Bowie tries to break the news to him that he has descended so far as to play the gigolo, a betrayal of his father's macho ideals, but Dad only sits in stony silence -- a disturbing scene. Bowie plays a poor lost soul. As Western civilization decays all around him, a sinister character stalks him and tries to gain control over him; this bloke is vaguely homosexual (only suggested), and one of his lines is a real groaner of a double-entendre: "We will have you in the end!" Marlene Dietrich is the center of romantic gravity in this story; she sadly, sweetly tells Bowie the raison d'etre of forlorn women dancing with gigolos in the ballrooms -- the only way to assuage loss and stave off despair. Then she performs the song "Just a Gigolo", bringing out all the heartbreak from its depths. The end of the film is dark and truly chilling. Go see it if you can!

My Son the Fanatic (1997)

It doesn't seriously engage the problem of fundamentalism

[1/10 · 16 July 1999]

Went to see if My Son the Fanatic offered any insights into the troubled world of intra-ummah conflicts, the strictures that fundamentalists try to impose on ordinary Muslims and the ways we find to cope with them. No such luck. There was no normal Muslim to be found in this picture. Nobody I could identify with. The choices are either: 1) a drinking, whoring Muslim totally alienated from his faith; or 2) a bitter, violent, foaming-at-the-mouth zealot. The closest person to a regular everyday Muslim is a minor character, the tired old chap at the mosque who wistfully observes that the youth accuse his kind of being deficient in Islam. He is on screen for about half a minute.

The "Islam" depicted in this film gave an odd sense of disconnect with the reality that I'm familiar with: it came through in patchy, discontinuous, incoherent glimpses. Maybe Hanif Kureishi's aim was to show how bewildering this phenomenon looks from the outside, from the father's point of view. It certainly will not give the non-Muslim audience the least idea of what Islam means in the lives of ordinary Muslims. The maulvi imported from Pakistan is an odd cipher: he conveys nothing at all about his beliefs. Mostly he stays silent, but he's too superficial a character for his silence to even seem enigmatic. All he does is giggle at a televised cartoon and ask for help with immigration. Maybe Kureishi deliberately meant to show him as totally vacuous; if so, he succeeded at that. Therefore the son's impassioned conversion comes across as an entirely negative reaction to his circumstances, with little suggestion of any positive beliefs.

The most disturbing element in the film, and the one that hit home the hardest, was to show fundamentalist Islam as heavily male and harshly anti-woman. There was one moment of intense poignancy: the lad's mother being banished from the family dining table to eat alone in the kitchen. This scene was in its quiet way the most powerful and eloquent of the whole film. The other activities of the fundamentalist crew (starting a squabble in the mosque, haranguing hookers on the street) may have seemed annoying but harmless--but when they firebomb and beat up women, they become truly frightening. Why does fundamentalism always seem to come down to this--violence against women? The Taliban are a nauseating real-life example. On the other hand, we need to ask why filmmakers choose to show Islam only in the ugliest way, without any sense of its beauty and love and peace that keep bringing in so many converts. However, there is a counterpoint to this theme shown in the nasty bruises on the hooker, inflicted by the obnoxious German who hired her. Here Kureishi seems to suggest that whether it's Islam or non-Islam, no matter--all systems still come down to violence against women. Yet he never suggests any positive alternative to all this social nihilism. A point of inaccuracy: the fundamentalists are shown speaking approvingly of Ayatollah Khomeini--however, among the Pakistani fundie groups I have met in real life, like the Tablighites and Maudoodites, all Shi`ites like Khomeini are condemned as anathema.

It was impossible to feel any sympathy for either of the two antagonists in this film. Each one acted like a jerk in his own way. The son was obviously a jerk for turning so viciously intolerant--but the father, who was supposed to be the sympathetic character, was an even bigger jerk for the way he neglected his family and cared only for himself (and in nearly every scene of the film he's holding a glass of booze). The main theme of the movie was not even about Islam at all; it's about how men are jerks by nature. The only character I felt sympathy for was the neglected wife. Her husband tries to justify his adultery by crying out for "tenderness"--and yet although his wife shows that she's dying for a little affection, he only responds with cruelty. True, she gets a bit shrewish herself, complaining about missing out on the fun that the rich guy's wife is having--but is that supposed to be the whole justification for his ill-treatment of her? In the end, he stubbornly refuses to learn anything at all from his experience; when his friend and his son tell him the plain truth of his behavior, he reacts with sudden rage and beats up his son. He just holds on to his swing records and his liquor, for whatever comfort that might offer after he's gotten alienated from everyone in his life and left all alone. This film was a well-directed, wrenching study in how family members hurt one another, but its contribution to Islamic discourse was insignificant--it never came close to engaging the problem of fundamentalism in a serious way, but only exploited it as a vehicle for jerk-itude.