Khuda Kay Liye is another lovely movie I got to watch last week...The movie is really a masterpiece of Pakistani Cinema. After watching this movie I have given up my thinking that Pakistan can only imitate our Bollywood movies or the people over there are only busy in piracy of the good movies from around the world.
It is very normal that we generally like to watch the movies which have some of our favorite actor/actress or at least some known movie personality. I don’t know any of the Pakistani actor before - Shaan, Fawad Khan, Iman Ali, etc. are unknown to me before watching this movie but I was happy to see Naseeruddin Shah in the movie, moreover I brought the movie by seeing his face on the DVD cover. Although he has appeared for very less time in the movie, at the climax only, but he has come up as a show stealer. He has appeared in the character of Mullah with a completely different typical Muslim appearance but he has very good mindset.
Being a liberal Muslim he has no obligations on the freedom of Muslims in this modern world. In the court he confidently denied each an every objections and uncompulsary rules made by fundamentalist Mullahs of Pakistan to compel the Muslims to follow all the rules of their religion to show respect. According to him its not necessary to have typical Muslim appearance with traditional clothes, a long beard and to cover your head with a topi, pagdi or safa. One should have the name of Allah in his/her heart and s/he should be a good human first.
This movie is mainly the story of two brothers and their family. The movie attract the viewers right from the first scene in which the two brothers were practicing for their live concert and gang of some fundamentalist Muslims destroy their arrangements...both the brothers passionate about music and their family also motivate them to live their passion. In the meanwhile the younger brother came into contact with a fundamentalist mullah who brain wash his thinking and he also started believing in typical Muslim regulations like -
wearing typical Muslim outfits with beard
stop practicing music
removed all the paintings from his own house
started praying (namaz) of all the five times
and above all changed his attitude towards life.
But the elder brother was not happy with him and he left to USA for further training in music where he fall in love with a American girl and also marry her.
Also there is a story of their uncle who live in London with a British lady without marriage and also he had a daughter from his first wife. He is very liberal for his own life but when he came to know that his daughter is in love with some British boy, he started thinking of his religion and Muslim fundamentals. He is so partial for his daughter that he forcibly marry her with his younger Pakistani nephew placating him on the basis of religion and kept her in prison in a small village in Afghanistan which is in far remote place where the conditions of women was very bad.
In the meanwhile, the infamous incident of 9/11 happened and all the Muslims have been treated very badly in US. The elder brother also got arrested and terribly interrogated by the US police and intelligence. After a long time they freed him but with many damages to his body and mind.
Now the climax
The girl who was kept in prison got a chance to write a letter to her boyfriend and he along with her so-called mother do some arrangements to free her from the prison. Both the governments (UK and Pakistan) came into action and the father of two brothers come and get free his niece. Now another issue of her child’s custody arose and she has to come in the court for the custody of her child. There were many arguments happened between the fundamentalist mullah and the lawyers in the court and ultimately our very own Naseeruddin Shah came into the court on the request of the sad mother (young British Muslim girl). He presented very good thoughts and beliefs and do the arguments in the favor of liberalism to the Muslims. Also the father of the baby (younger brother) took the case back and feel regret of his misdoings with the girl...
Both the sons came back to their family and they all try to start living their life happily as before by motivating the elder son who is now heavily broken with his mind. And the Muslim British girl came back to the same village to teach the villagers. Her father got the punishment that she didn’t look at his face again.
I have many Muslim friends right from the childhood and I am known to many of their traditions. But I came to know many other things about Muslims, Islam and Pakistan after watching this movie...I am very thankful to the maker of this movie to bring important issues in light through this movie.
The movie is all about the difficult situations in which the Muslims specially the Pakistani people are caught up after the incident of 9/11 in USA. Also there was a war going on between the Fundamentalist Muslims (Mullahs) and the Liberal Muslims. This situation is creating a drift not only between the Western world and the Muslims, but also within the Muslim community. The educated and modern Muslims are in a difficult situation because of their approach towards modernism & life and their western attire. They are criticized and harassed by the fundamentalists and on the other hand the Western world look at them as potential suspects of terrorism just because of their Muslim names.
The movie has dialogues mainly in three languages - Hindi, Punjabi and English which could be easily understood to all.
I generally can’t watch movie in a single sitting but I feel stuck before the idiot box during the whole running time (about 168 mins) of the movie just because of the subject, storyline and the acting of the main cast. The producer/director/writer of the movie Shoaib Mansoor has given excellent treatment to the movie. He has put all his honest efforts in making this movie. Now I have become his die hard fan and I am looking for some of his other movies.
The music director of the movie Javed Bashir has given his best performance in the movie. All the songs have been so wonderful that anybody who loves music will surely like them and enjoy.
*I strongly recommend this movie for the real movie buffs.
Thanks for reading this review.
Comments most welcome if you read the review...
Best Regards,
Akash