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Bad old days of cinema
Every film industry creates its own culture, a world simultaneously real and make believe, weaving life as it is and fiction in to a fabric of varied designs. For the major part of its history, Pakistani cinema followed this pattern and created by and large an indigenous texture. It is still the same, at least in a manner of speaking, but with a not very pleasing difference: local films have forgotten how to smile.
Images and their contents cannot remain static; they must undergo changes over time. Deviation from the pattern became sharp and took a totally different direction on the local screen about two decades back. There has been a complete transformation of directions, albeit a negative one, during the last decade or so.
The world became an increasingly dangerous place in this period. A wave of violence swept across the globe, destabilizing societies and triggering changes all over, a terrible process that persists unabated. The name of this new and horrendous game is violence. The media, particularly visual expression, reflects it with an almost gruesome focus and violence has become a virtually constant theme of cinema that remains the most powerful and influential medium, despite multiple and continuously forming challenges to its dominant position.
Pakistani cinema has possibly been more of a victim of this trend than other countries because of a paucity of intellectual and creative resources. The local screen has been inundated by blood and gore. However, violence has merely served as a smokescreen for the national film industry’s real content, which is dark and forbidding in its grimness.
Cinema here originally followed the tradition of entertainment as practised in films of the subcontinent. The concept of entertainment comprised, besides romance, music, dance and of course a smattering of villainy, a measure of intrigue, an element of suspense and occasionally action to settle the conflict between good and evil. Humour was one of its integral components. These elements were not only retained, they were further developed and chiselled in the early period after independence when film-makers established a concrete base for films that was both populist and creative.
But things started going awry in the mid ’80s and by the early ’90s, Pakistani cinema was wallowing in its self-created mire. It had lost the capacity for joy and simply forgot to smile. Humour has been the biggest and most regrettable casualty of local films in the preceding decade.
National cinema started changing course during the martial law years of General Zia-ul-Haq, when the government introduced policies to control the film industry. The decision that had far-reaching negative repercussions for the industry was the law for registration of producers, particularly its implementation. One has nothing against the law itself, because a measure for placing a sector on an organized footing is essentially a positive initiative. But it took the authorities more than a year and a half to start registering film-makers, halting all production work in the industry and turning studios into wastelands, leaving theatres to show only reruns.
The first to feel the pinch were investors who suffered colossal losses as more than 50 films were in the pipeline; their resources were blocked. A majority of the people who financed film projects called it a day. As it is, cinema is not a reliable field for investment because recoveries are time-consuming and profits unpredictable. But professional producers knew their way around and could afford to wait for success at the window. That came to a halt under the registration dispensation.
With the exit of experienced investors who had established communication channels and understanding with directors and writers, many senior and qualified professional directors and writers also started exploring other options. They felt ill at ease with the new investors who were generally uneducated or semi-educated, and their resources were largely of a black hue. They had no idea of the finer aspects of cinema, let alone ability and willingness to appreciate them.
The second and third string members of the industry were happy to get a chance beyond their expectations and made whatever compromise was demanded by the new set of investors. In the past, writers and directors had the final say in professional matters; in the post registration period, financiers gradually assumed total command and called the shots, for which they were not qualified. All this led to a steep decline in the quality of local movies and made Pakistani cinema a crude and senseless scene marked by tastelessness.
The change was instrumental in the selection of subjects for films also. Many financiers had shady backgrounds and used cinema to glorify themselves and their associates. Meaningful social themes were chucked out and replaced with stories justifying hoodlums and their activities. Among other things, this kind of cinema had little use for the light-hearted approach. Its humour was confined to the stupid antics of sidekicks. Earlier, films of Pakistan almost invariably cast a humorist and usually accorded him reasonable footage and exposure. The first notable comedian was Nazar who started with the late actor-director Nazir and soon enough became a star for every third or fourth feature. He was joined by a host of competitors like Charli, Asif Jah and Diljeet Mirza. Then Zareef appeared on the screen and immediately established himself as a distinguished and highly talented humorist. In the mid ’60s arrived Rangeela, his very entry in the frame causing full throttled laughter in theatres. Lehri was another popular humour tool of that period. These comedians had the capacity to communicate with the film-going public at different cultural and aesthetic levels.
Most of these artists continued to entertain the public till the late ’80s. Their tribe suffered the exit of Zareef, but he was replaced with son Munnawar Zareef who proved an exceptionally resourceful artist. He took the level of humour in local cinema to an artistic level.
Comedy flourished in the ’80s with Munnawar Zareef, Nanha and Ali Ijaz cast in main roles in a number of full-length humour features. Some of their films as lead players were quite popular at the box office and were even plagiarized by film-makers from across the border. But they began to face a stiff challenge from vendetta, villainy and violence-oriented movies like Wehshi Jat and Maula Jat. As the trend set by these films caught on, humour was assigned to the backseat; it was gradually forced out of the frame or replaced by uncultured and crude gesticulation and double meaning dialogue.
Humour in cinema was not the preserve solely of comedians but other major artists were also equally at ease rendering light roles. M. Ismail, Alauddin and Talish had a vast range of facility of expression. These artists, as also a number of their lesser-known colleagues, had no problem moving from serious situations in to light ones. Their presence enhanced the quality of cinema for the film-going crowd from all segments of the populace.
Popular lead players like Waheed Murad, Shahid and later Nadeem were cast as multi-dimensional characters that required them to roam around as romantics, move people with emotionally charged performances and make them laugh as well. Actresses also had to do their bit. Rani, Shabnam and Babra Sharif demonstrated versatility in many movies. That tradition and range has come to grief over the years, virtually buried under the senseless antics that are being churned out.
There are some reasons for the changed course. We are passing through volatile times with very few pleasing events and developments. One presumes that writers of cinema and film-makers have submitted to the new deal like many citizens. But the fact remains that Pakistan’s films have become sullen. Even worse, the desire and intention among people manning the industry to reverse the trend seems to have fizzled out altogether. It is not that cinema has wholly abandoned the light mood and altogether given up joy. For the first time in Pakistani cinema there, however, is no artist specializing in humour.
Some film-makers have tried to fill that vacuum with Afzal Khan, better known as Rambo. But his exact position has not been determined and he keeps shuffling between sidekick openings, cardboard villains and fake toughies. His is a floating presence carrying considerable promise that, unfortunately, is unlikely to be fulfilled.
Strictly speaking, characters like these could be rip-roaringly humorous but the film-makers have reduced them to pathetic pawns. They do not represent any zest for joy and bring no happiness to people who watch local films. The sum total is forbidding grimness.
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