SPOTLIGHT: THE COLOURS OF MUSIC

Published December 10, 2017
Urwa Hocane as Reshmi in a scene from Rangreza
Urwa Hocane as Reshmi in a scene from Rangreza

A greater number of flops and few hits has made the graph of Pakistani films released this year look inconsistent. This month Rangreza and Arth will battle it out for year-end supremacy and curiously both seem to revolve around musicians. Will this month be a cinematic battle of the bands?

But Bilal Ashraf, who plays a pivotal character in the former, disagrees. “Both films are poles apart and you will know that for sure on Dec 21,” he says confidently. “Both films have a different take on music and it would be great if they manage to do well [at the box office] as both are Pakistani films, and in the end it will benefit our industry.”

The cast of Aamir Mohiuddin’s Rangreza has a strange combination of senior actors, upcoming actors and those already established in the film industry. The trailer and songs suggest that a love triangle exists between Ali (Bilal Ashraf), Wasim (Gohar Rasheed) and Reshmi (Urwa Hocane). Ups and downs are shown as part of their struggle with music playing an important part. What made a new director take up a different genre in an era when romantic comedies and crime capers are shortcuts to success?

Rangreza, which will be going up against Shaan’s Arth at the end of the year, is an eclectic love story set in Karachi and revolves around the trials and tribulations in the world of music

“Rangreza is my writer Akhtar Qayyum’s struggle in the world of music,” the first-time director Aamir says. “He spent 30 years as a musician, starting as a drummer and ending as a lyricist, and that’s how he managed to churn out a well-researched script that helped us all in understanding the way things work. For someone like me, who has assisted others in making music videos and commercials it was an ideal opportunity to show to the world the real beauty of Pakistan. The Burnes Road and Garden areas are quite beautiful and through Akhtar bhai’s story I managed to capture these places the way I wanted.”

In a country where you are either the leading man or the protagonist, we get to meet Gohar Rasheed who is neither while playing the interesting character of Wasim Walay. “If the trailer gives you the feeling that Wasim is the villain, then we have succeeded in duping the audience,” Gohar says when asked about his role. “Wasim Walay is not a negative character but somewhere in the middle of hero and villain. You can say he is the anti-hero since his character has different shades, and I hope that people will like the way it has turned out on screen.”

The bone of contention between the two leading men, Reshmi, is played by Urwa ‘Help me Durdana’ Hocane who featured in the only two successful films to be released this year — Punjab Nahi Jaungi and Na Maloom Afraad 2. Had I been in her place I might have taken a break.

“The name of the leading men in the two films is also Ali,” Urwa says while comparing both Arth and Rangreza. ”I don’t know much about Arth but ours is a love story based in Karachi and has me playing a girl who understands music. Since it’s a film about family values I have a good relationship with my parents and all those close to me. The highlight for me was the chance to shoot in the old areas of Karachi which added authenticity to the script.”

In a film where all three leading actors are relatively new to the industry, the environment could have either been tense or creative. Gohar Rasheed and Urwa believe it was the latter because the leads are only shown to be on a parallel path on the screen; in reality, they are much more aligned. “This is the third film Bilal and I are doing together,” says Gohar, “so if there were any rivalry, why would any of us have agreed to work with the other? We are good friends who encourage each other on sets rather than feel insecure. Believe me, Bilal would be as happy for me as I would be of him if people like our character when they exit the cinema.”

Urwa seconds Gohar’s comments calling theirs a good team. “Whether we three had a scene or not, we were constantly giving inputs to each other as it is our film and also because the makers allowed us to create the characters ourselves. We used to cherish inputs rather than take it as an insult and, believe me, I was sad on the last day of the shoot because I had learned quite a lot during the making of the film.”

Gohar Rasheed as Waseem Walay
Gohar Rasheed as Waseem Walay

And then the million dollar question: who exactly is Wasim Walay? “The character of Wasim Walay was created by Akhtar Qayyum and he worked hard on it even before we cast Gohar in it,” explains Aamir about the unusual character. “The way he talks is all Akhtar bhai’s doing and most of the people who have seen the trailer ask me about it.”

“To be honest, Akhtar Qayyum should be given the credit for handing me the character of a lifetime,” Gohar adds. “He presented me the gift and I wrapped it in my own way. When they [Aamir and Akhtar] narrated it to me I was unsure whether I would be able to pull it off but, thankfully, because of their trust and our hard work, an under-confident me managed to perform it to the best of my abilities.”

The film also sees the return of many senior actors to the industry, including Akbar Subhani and Tanvir Jamal. Akbar Subhani had a cameo in Manto while it was two decades ago that Tanvir Jamal worked in Zor directed by Syed Noor. Then there are Saleem Mairaj and Shahid Naqvi who, according to Gohar, are assets if we know how to use them.

“I had a scene where I was supposed to get angry at Akbar Subhani’s character, but out of respect I was unable to do the scene the way I wanted. Akbar sahib was gracious enough to grasp my anxiety and told me that he will mind it only if I couldn’t do justice to the scene and after a very good take he hugged me for doing it well. While it was an absolute honour to work with him, it was horror when it came to Saleem bhai and Shahid bhai. They never gave their 100 percent in rehearsals so as to surprise you in the final take but, thankfully, since I am also from theatre, I knew what they were up to. I had to raise the bar high to come up to their level and this competition helped me a great deal in doing it the way I wanted it to do.”

Bilal Ashraf (Ali) and Urwa Hocane (Reshmi) play the leads in the film
Bilal Ashraf (Ali) and Urwa Hocane (Reshmi) play the leads in the film

The film has Bilal Ashraf in the role of a singer which is like casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as a singer. “I agree that I haven’t been cast as a romantic hero so far but people might be in for a surprise,” Bilal says with his famous dimpled smile. “People don’t know I can dance just because they haven’t seen me dance … so it’s all about perception. At first, I couldn’t imagine myself doing concerts and singing in front of the microphone but the director and writer gave me the confidence to break out of my action hero avatar and embrace something that I didn’t know I had in me. In my own way, I tried to pay a tribute to the late Junaid Jamshed through my performances in the film and it would have been great had he been alive today because he had been a big part of our lives and we still miss him.”

Be it Janaan, Yalghaar or Rangreza, people mistake Bilal Ashraf as the producer of the film when he is not. Is it because he looks like a producer or because he just works in one film at a time? “I have no idea why they think I am the producer. Maybe because I own my projects and use my connections to help the film grow. After the success of Janaan I became close to Munir Hussain bhai [co-producer of Rangreza] and also with the B4U guys who would also be distributing Rangreza internationally. I work for whatever small number of fans I have with the aim of doing Pakistan proud. That’s why I don’t dream of Bollywood but Hollywood and that’s what should motivate the new crop of actors because if we dream big, we can achieve big things in life.”

And for the director, which character is his favourite from the film? “Reshmi” comes the reply from the director who termed it a tricky character. “People would be able to relate to her character because she and the others go through the same experiences as us. Life, struggle, death … you name it and they experience it. That doesn’t mean that I will tell you who dies in the film because, for that, you will have to come and watch the film.”

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 10th, 2017

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