In the simmering, ambrosial melting pot that is currently Pakistani cinema comes Ho Mann Jahaan. As a film it promises new flavours with a dash of spice, a blend of regional music and plenty of bittersweet poignancy. The movie’s lead trio features television’s favourite chocolate boys, Adeel Hussain and Sheheryar Munawar, alongside Mahira Khan, who has been dabbling with cinema throughout this year and has an enviable knack for always looking good. She is veritably Pakistan’s héroïne du jour. Sonya Jehan, also in a pivotal role, looks beautiful.
Behind the film is of course Asim Raza. This is the ace ad-maker’s cinematic debut and the trailers look slick and riveting. There’s plenty of curiosity surrounding whether the movie will turn out to be just as interesting or if, in the wake of recent cinematic disasters, it will fall victim to over-branding and a disjointed script.
“Our key sponsor features in the movie in very subtle ways,” promises Asim. “Branding needs to co-exist with the movie rather than take over the script. My script is sacred to me and I haven’t let it suffer.”
“Cinema is no longer larger than life; rather it is life.” Ad-film director Asim Raza talks to Images on Sunday about his much-awaited debut film Ho Mann Jahaan
It is genuinely Asim’s ‘mann’ that forms the movie’s core. He wrote the script over a span of many years. The movie was filmed in over 18 months and Asim is now eager to tell audiences a story that is close to his heart.
“This is my first cinematic effort and I honestly don’t have any dreams of ruling the box office,” professes Asim. “Yes, I did extend HMJ’s release date when I found out that it was earlier clashing with the release of Humayun Saeed’s Jawani Phir Nahin Ani. I think that at this point in time, when local cinema is still in its nascent stages, we all need to work together rather than in competition with each other.”
“My movie has been shot in Karachi because it traverses the lives of young people living in an urban city. I do hope, though, that people everywhere will be able to relate to the story. HMJ focuses on how love dictates our lives, but also on how we end up pummelling the people we love into following our dictates. The story talks about relationships and emotions, on the dilemmas faced by today’s youth and their parents and how they eventually find their paths. Cinema is no longer larger than life; rather it is life. And I have tried to capture the delicate moments and nuances that make life real.”
Despite this predilection for relating life’s realities, HMJ also appears to be a glossy movie, replete with scenic locations, romance, some very catchy thumkas a la Shakar Wandawaan and even a guest appearance by possibly our glossiest hero, Fawad Khan. “It is an aesthetically strong movie,” agrees Asim, “and it has nine songs! It is nearly three hours long and there is beauty, lighter moments and gray shades to every character.”
Much of HMJ’s storyline can also be predicted by watching its trailers. Shouldn’t Asim have kept the narrative vague in order to pique the audiences’ interest? “I haven’t revealed the narrative at all,” he laughs. “A good ad-maker presents his story in an interesting way but there are plenty of surprises that will only get revealed once the movie is released.”
One of these surprises will obviously be the ending, in which one of the leading men will be driving off with Mahira into the sunset. The easy camaraderie and chemistry shared between HMJ’s cast is certainly one of the movie’s biggest selling points. What made Asim zone in on this ensemble?
“They’re all actors that I am comfortable with,” he explains. “I have known Adeel and Sheheryar for a very long time and Mahira and Sonya started their commercial modelling careers with me. I had faith in them and they in turn, had faith in me to bluster my way through my first movie and eventually shape it into a believable story.”
“My movie has been shot in Karachi because it traverses the lives of young people living in an urban city. I do hope, though, that people everywhere will be able to relate to the story. HMJ focuses on how love dictates our lives, but also on how we end up pummelling the people we love into following our dictates. The story talks about relationships and emotions, on the dilemmas faced by today’s youth and their parents and how they eventually find their paths.”
It’s been a long, arduous journey for Asim and his cast. To make their characters more realistic, the actors learnt different skills; Sheheryar took on a three month long course in learning how to play the guitar, Adeel became proficient in playing the drums and Mahira learnt how to drive. Asim did not have to contend with starry tantrums but life, in general, placed plenty of impediments in his way.
“We shot a song in Chitral and planned it to the tee, vetting out a beautiful rocky plateau area with a river flowing around is,” recalls Asim, “On the day of the shoot, though, it just got very windy. Everything was flying off and I had to tell Adeel to make sure Mahira didn’t lose balance. Fortunately, it all still looks beautiful on film.”
The twists and turns continued in Karachi. In a sequence where the cast had to run around playing with water guns, Sheheryar slipped and nearly hurt his elbow. In another scene where the actors were throwing paper planes at each other, the pointed end of a plane pierced Adeel’s eye, turning it a bloody red. “We had to administer first-aid immediately. By this point, I had begun thinking that we needed an ambulance following us around perpetually!” says Asim.
“Then, my team took 25 days to set up Frere Hall for the Shakar Wandawaan song and just three days prior to the shoot, it rained heavily in Karachi. I was literally howling in misery. Our cardboard and cloth fixtures were mostly ruined. Somehow, miraculously, we managed to put back the set together within three days and just when we were rehearsing, Mahira fell down two stairs and bruised herself very badly. She could barely stand and I thought that we would have to change the dance steps altogether. She insisted on going through with it, though, and you can’t tell that she’s in pain when you see her in the song.”
Fine-tuned and tweaked, HMJ is now finally up for release. It has already captured the enthusiasm of the country’s social media-savvy youth and Asim hopes that the story will appeal just as easily to older audiences. “By the time the movie ends, every individual in the audience will be able to relate to some character or the other in the audience,” he says. “It’s been difficult dedicating two years of my life to this movie; refusing prestigious ad assignments that have long been my bread and butter. But I wanted to focus all my attention on this movie.”
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 27th, 2015
