How many world’s can you inhabit ? This question sort of reverberated with me as I binge watched the 2nd season of ‘The wheel of time’ thanks to some provoking from my daughter. I am not a series person and definitely not a binge watcher. 1 movie / day or 1 episode is the max I can take.
But I was recovering from an annual viral meltdown and was in the deep end of the tunnel. Everything was a bit dazed and confused - a bit blurry and hazy. Feeling better on Sunday we covered ourselves with Quilt (rajaai sound so much better) and binge watched 7 episodes. It was like getting out of 1 tunnel and getting into another. Sleep was under the haze of and everything was a cocktail inside my head and thoughts around the series kept drifting in out of my mind. I could not think of anything else much while the younger one would have already watched many K dramas. How ? was not a relevant question for them.
It took another movie to pull me out of this reverie.
JOYLAND by saim sadiqi is a Pakistani movie which got awarded in Cannes this year. The milieu of JOYLAND was similar to India and very real. Every character had a past which unfolded slowly and the present was clouded with mystery. Photography - Cinematography was beautiful, capturing Lahore beautifully and the close up shots got the expressions just right.
I am in a space where I have the advantage of time to rewind / rethink / dig deeper - introspect understand the directors nuances in the story.
Should we ? Or just hop on to the next ......after all it’s just a movie.
Some musings on JOYLAND:
JOYLAND is all about desire physical, ambition, societal pressure / prestige. In a highly repressed society like India or Pakistan (more so) it comes out in many ways like the masculinity we see in the boys who are part of the erotic dance group or the attraction which the star feels towards the trans without knowing why etc. Each of them cope with it in their own way - some by suppressing some by just going with the flow. BUt either ways it is gonna effect both. In last decade the desire is not necessarily a straight one and in most occasions there is a queer angle - Is it a reality ‘coming out of the closet’ or just a ‘commercial need’. At Least in case of JOYLAND it felt genuine.
Listening to interviews of JOYLAND’s cast and director did not give much insights and was quite bored listening to the same kinda recorded phrases and words. Maybe it’s the cannes training. That does not take away from the fact that it was a brilliant.
As I write this I desperately look at Normal People By Sally Rooney. A world I have been meaning to inhabit for a week now after I finished my last book. But the OTT world had me in its grip. Let’s hope I dive in this weekend.
