Haider is the black sheep of a crowded Lahori family. He is young, meek, jobless and married to a breadwinning woman. His domineering old father (Salmaan Peerzada) sneers at his inability to provide and breed. His elder brother (Sohail Sameer) treats him like an errant child. Haider (a Riz Ahmed-esque Ali Junejo) spends his days playing with his nieces and ‘home-making’ with his tireless sister-in-law (the timeless Sarwat Gilani). Nobody respects him. He is both a victim and villain of patriarchy.

When Haider finds work at an erotic dance theatre, he falls for Biba (a mercurial Alina Khan), the fiery trans woman leading the troupe. His kindness bowls her over. When he agrees to pick up her giant cutout on a bike, his face is buried between the legs of the cutout. Their love story blossoms behind the cloak of fairy lights and shadows. At long last, they feel seen – by each other, by themselves, by the democracy of desire. He struts around on stage; she steals flirty glances. They sweat and breathe in public, but kiss in private. The two disparate outcasts complete one another.

This swirling romance in modern-day Pakistan might have been the rousing centerpiece of most movies. It features all the themes: Sexuality, social stigma, sensitivity, (be)longing, a transgender actress playing a transgender dancer, the crisis of identity, coming-of-age feelings. But Saim Sadiq’s Joyland (2022) — which has received much critical acclaim and is one of 12 titles competing for this festival’s Aurora Prize — is not most movies. Joyland goes beyond the striking joylands of storytelling to reveal the hidden wastelands of living. It’s about the tragedies sketched by the triumph of liberation. In fact, the film counts on our conditioning – it wants us to segregate the narrative into ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ threads. It is crafted to make us notice Haider and Biba, the strength and the sadness and the complexities of their love. In rooting for them, however, we mirror the broader prejudice that shapes the societies we occupy. We see them, they see each other – but everyone forgets to see Mumtaz (an unforgettable Rasti Farooq), Haider’s wife. All three of them are marginalised in their own ways. But the interconnectedness of South Asian society forces hierarchy even upon the downtrodden. As in life, it’s the desires of a man – no matter how subversive or cinematic – that steal the spotlight from the desires of a woman.

As in life, it’s the desires of a man – no matter how subversive or cinematic – that steal the spotlight from the desires of a woman.

Joyland opens with a moment that hints at this inherent invisibility. Haider is dressed as a ghost – a white sheet draped over his body – during a game of hide-and-seek with his little nieces. He pretends to look through them while slinking across rooms. His pregnant sister-in-law Nucchi’s water breaks in the kitchen, but she resists Haider’s attention – like a veteran who’s been through this routine several times before, but also like a woman immune to the curated care of the men in the house. The scene ends with the birth of yet another girl – for them to look past – in the family. This sets the stage for the rest of the film, which plays out almost as if Mumtaz’s track is fighting for relevance in a story that is destined to neglect her.

The irony is cruel: Haider’s arc takes off when he gets a job as a background dancer, but it’s Mumtaz who is relegated to the background. She has to sacrifice her own job at the parlour and replace him as Nucchi’s domestic soldier. Haider’s scenes with Biba are lofty and sensual, their rhythm often punctured by Mumtaz’s silent grief. It feels like she’s jostling for narrative and emotional and sexual space in a film that has eyes for two other underdogs. Joyland is staged to make the viewer wonder why Mumtaz’s life is ‘interrupting’ the real picture. In doing so, it reflects our own culpability in a culture of skewed agency. Little by little, Mumtaz bleeds into the movie, striving to be seen by a partner who is distracted by his own awakening.

Joyland is determined by its relationship with the audience. It is constructed to let Haider and Biba – a couple who expose our preconceived reading of love stories, as well as our liberal sense of entitlement about LGBTQ+ stories – hijack the film. We expect Biba to be not just a person but also a noble statement on trans rights. Yet, by normalising her individualism and ultimately treating her as one of three persecuted characters, the writing humanises her in a way no other story can. It does not look at her through the lens of pop-culture and porn, like the men in the film do. By design, the film’s more attractive scenes are reserved for the couple. Like a lovely moment in the metro, when Biba is judged for taking a seat reserved for women, until Haider ‘legitimises’ Biba by sitting next to her – and breaking into a coy smile. Or like their dance performance in a dark hall, illuminated by an idea that Haider steals from Mumtaz, whose corresponding scene at her parlour pales in visual comparison. Even when Mumtaz literally decides to take matters into her own hands, a beautifully lit scene of her masturbating is cut short by another member of the household. It’s like nothing she does can trump the novelty of the romance between a man and a trans woman.

This invisibility branches into all directions. It’s not just validation that Mumtaz seeks. There are times when she is even denied the courtesy of oppression. At one point, a frame opens with the implication that she is being punished for one of her “transgressions”. The shot is blocked to suggest that the family – headed by the toxic patriarch – is ashamed of her; she stands, head bowed, in front of them. But that’s not the case. It’s then revealed that this is not about her, but another woman sitting in their midst. All Mumtaz can do is watch quietly, and marvel at how nobody affords her the luxury of being defective either. Even the camera doesn’t examine her as she wants it to; she’s almost willing it to transcend its male gaze and European aesthetic, and film her trauma without decorating it. She succeeds only during a slow zoom-out towards the end in the toilet, in the film’s most haunting sequence. At another point, even the old man – an enabler of all that’s wrong with the home – is offered the dignity of a disability story. It’s like he, too, is robbing Mumtaz of the attention she deserves.

The heart of Joyland, though, is rooted in the unsaid. Haider and Mumtaz have an arranged marriage in the purest sense of the term. She is the only one who understands him and accepts him, and he is the only one whom she can be a career-driven and childless woman with. They shield each other from the scrutiny of his family. In an early scene, his father forces him to “be a man” and butcher a goat in the yard. He struggles. She senses his weakness and does it herself. It’s the first time we see them together, and for a second, they look like siblings looking out for one another. It’s a scene brimming with platonic affection. Theirs is more of a friendship than a companionship; even the (rare) sex they have is more primal than romantic. In another film, they might have been queer characters in a lavender marriage. Equality is the bond that binds them. So when he finds love elsewhere, it’s not betrayal that Mumtaz feels so much as a sense of abandonment triggered by the violation of their unsaid agreement. She is left to fend for herself, in a new setting and an old system. They thrived on being alone together, but now she is alone and he is not. Where he finds joy is incidental to what he leaves behind.

At some level, it’s like watching one friend ditch another for ‘cooler’ company in school. And the other flays around, thrashing and waiting and hoping to reclaim a lost self. This dimension of 31-year-old Sadiq’s film echoes the central conflict of Close, 31-year-old Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s soul-crushing drama about two teenage best friends and the sudden rift between them. It’s fitting that Close, much like Joyland, is one of the international favourites to be shortlisted for an Oscar. The two movies come from specific cultures, but they are spiritual companion pieces, linked by a moving inspection of gender norms and its implicit casualties. Because the truth at the core of both is universal: Breaking is a subset of breaking free.

Credits just rolled and I don't have words to describe what I'm feeling, the tension is still reverberating in my room. It will take some time for me to detach myself from the movie. Saim has the artisitc finesse to pull off a grand celebration of cinema and it's evident throughout the movie but what's surprising is his ability to understand people, particularly women, and their inner turmoil. He, like the protagonist of the film, is the antithesis of the old school Hollywood definition of a man (the definition which could pass off james bond attempting to rape as a harmless masculine humor) . There are too many yet not enough perfectly crafted scenes where the tension of a lahori household is transferred smoothly onto the 70 mm screen. A brilliant screenplay and use of camera, the flat composite shots and wes andersonesque sense of harmony and balance even in the asymmetrical shots of chaotic streets of lahore, the deafening moments of silence throughout the movie. But scratch all that, what I'm surprised, most, is how seamlessly embedded is the social commentary, subtle or otherwise, in the drama and the tension among the characters throughout the movie, a rarity coming from a pakistani filmmaker. Haider, the film's protagonist, the hero, the antihero, the calming smile among all the chaos, is acted brilliantly by Junejo. His inner turmoil can be felt on the screen all throughout the movie, and, especially towards the end, and particularly, in his confrontation with his brother. What a movie. (I've never written a review in my life, I'm most likely incoherent in this one as well. Apologies.

[spoiler]
• The 1st hospital scene where the nurse is casual about the delivery of the child, enot fussing about the change of the family's usual doctor. It reflects how the childbirths has become a mechanical process and has desensitized the medical community in south asian countries over the last few decades because of overpopulation (one of the reasons for that is waiting for a boy child)
• The scene where the doctor informs nucchi's fourth child is a girl and they are surprised as they were told it's a boy in the ultrasound. This scene can only be understood if you're informed of the stark realities of the female foeticide in pakistan, then you'll know how misinforming the father/family of the gender of the child in case of a girl is an accepted practice among the medical community as a safeguard against ff.
• The scene where Nucchi tells Saleem how they all have contributed in Mumtaz ending her life and they all know it inside and saleem suddenly starts shaking even though he is angry. In any other regular setting if nucchi would have shouted at him he would have continued to rage until she shutting up or him hitting her but, here, he didn't do it because, as nucchi said, he knows it inside that he's responsible for the tragedy and is driven by his guilt. This is exactly how men in this part of the world functions, driven purely by their own guilt/moral compass. They are restricted of their animal behavior only if they know it inside of them and nor if it's wrong.
• Fayaaz Aunt in the 1st half of the movie can be understood as a regressive villainous figure when she complains of Haider for the cut out piece and says it's a shame if people got to know about his job. But in the later half, we see, she's ready to sidestep public gossiping to take care of Haider's father by living with him. This is a very revolutionary act for a widow in a pakistani society yet it seemed an easy decision to make for Fayyaz. You'll think this contrasts with her earlier persona but it isn't actually, she can still be pretty regressive even after taking a progressive turn. This is because her progressive thoughts are out of her volition but she, otherwise, is conditioned brutally by the regressive patriarchal society that she doesn't realize the ideological divergence between her thoughts and opinions on different things. It's a laborious task for her to be fully emancipated.
[/spoiler]

I guess people have forgotten the difference between the meanings of "promotion" and "depiction". For those who really don't know what these words mean: promotion means to encourage, to support something. And depiction means to show something, to make people aware of something by showing it to them.

Now, Joyland, nowhere in its 126 minutes run supports or encourages or "promotes" homosexuality or anything that is anti-Islamic. In fact, this isn't even the only theme of the film. It covers pretty much every aspect of the domestic life of a lower middle-class Pakistani man and a woman (I didn't mention transgender persons because those poor things have only one class of lifestyle). It shows every harsh reality of our society. It shows all the plagues our country is being devoured by, those which aren't remotely related to Islam but have become a part of our tradition despite being highly toxic. These are the stigmas that we suffer from in our lives but no one wants to get rid of them because they have been here for so long that they have become normal. And a life without them would be abnormal or even disgraceful and shameful according to our "elders".

The film does show the homosexuality that exists in our country. It doesn't tell whether its good or bad, it just shows it. The only thing that could be a negative point in my opinion would be the graphic scenes. They weren't really that necessary.

In the end, I would say that Joyland is probably the best film that's come out of Pakistani industry in a long time. We need to support such films and accept the existence of all the brutalities of the society they make us aware about. And lastly, try to do something about them.

The title here is a theme park that features only tangentially in this enjoyable and potent tale of "Haider" (Ali Junejo). He lives with his extended family, unemployed, whilst his wife "Mumtaz" (Rasti Farooq) goes to work. He is a bit put upon: he must carry out many of the household chores - even doing the ironing for his brother "Saleem" (Sameer Sohail). His brother has just had a child - another daughter and his father (Salmaan Peerzada) is desperate for a boy to carry on the family name. "Haider" goes and gets himself a job - and an unlikely one, at that. HeThanks to his friend, he auditions for a dancer's job at the local theatre and despite having two left feet, manages to secure a job at ₹40,000 per month for just two concerts. He fibs to his family about the exact nature of the job, and is soon flailing around at the behest "Biba" (Alina Khan) who is the undoubted star of the show. As we progress, however, we discover that there is a bit more to "Biba" the originally thought and as the two become friends we also discover a little more behind the reasons why a son is so slow in coming for the otherwise loving married couple. There is an effective chemistry between Khan and Junejo and as the story unfolds we are exposed to quite a few scenarios that challenge established (admittedly, Western) views of just how society should operate - from the role of both women and men through to the increasingly obvious issues faced by people who don't run in that linear two-horse race. It is funny at times and the dialogue is efficient at helping this characterful story along towards the denouement. Now this is where I felt a little disappointed. Not that it doesn't work - but somehow it seemed to me to be a bit of a sad cop-out from the writers who almost seemed to go along with the prevailing spirit of compliance at all costs. Still, you must judge that for yourselves if you watch it - which I suggest that you do.