For the last year and a half, there has been a lot of hue and cry about how the Pakistani cinema is dying and what can be done to revive it. Growing up Karachi, I have always wondered how our music scene just keeps getting better and better while our cinema just gets from bad to worse. No, I was not around when Waheed Murad wooed the women of Pakistan with his side parting or when Nadeem made the whole country weep with his histrionics in legendary films like Dehleez and Bobby. Neither was I there to enjoy Ghalib or Santosh Kumar and whatever they did. Ok…Ok I admit it; I was alive in Nadeem’s time, but a bit too young to make it to the cinema. Plus, at that time going to the cinema was an elegant activity; meaning it wasn’t something parents took toddlers to. I still remember my parents going to watch a flick every Thursday night with their friends.

In those days, I think our film industry had less competition from our neighbors as well and we had a rich vein of talent to draw on from. I did leave out one famous name while mentioning legendary actors, Mohammad Ali of course, who scared me to death when I was a kid with his “Judge Sahab” type dialogues, which continued to scare me till my adolescent years. There were better moments of course; Noor Jehan’s songs are still a delight to listen to today. So who is to blame for our pathetic film industry? The public’s disinterest in Pakistani flicks has peaked over the last 10 years or so. Thus, meaning lower budgets and constant cutting of production costs have lead to meager offerings for our visual palette. Even if someone tries to make an experiment by spending a few carores, it’s still the same sauce in a new bottle. For example, Yeh Dil Aap Ka Hua released in 2002 by Jawed Sheikh, and the other 200 Syed Noor films have had the same heroine in 199 of them, all with the same story, although quite remarkably with different names and the latest copied songs from Bollywood, Hurrah!

The filmmakers and the cinema owners have now started using the media to question the public as to why we do not flock to see their movies anymore. Well, I would like to ask them, how many Pakistani movies have they themselves taken their families to watch recently? Have they ever thought about the experience a slightly sophisticated person goes through when watching a “Jatt in London” or “Daku Gujjar” or something of that sort? Hint: Grown overweight men with stained teeth and waxed mustaches dancing around trees with dandasas do not lead to fulfilling cinematic experiences!
I don’t want to come across as pretentious here, but come on! The movies are worse than one can make with a handy cam; the sound is of equal quality and most of the time, the dialogue delivery is dubbed about a second behind the actual lip movements. This of course makes even erstwhile actors like Shan and Momi look absurd. I wouldn’t even bother to delve into our heroines of today. How fabulaaas they are and affcourse how they are getting offers from India every other day.

Despite of all this, there is still hope for a few producers. Recently some of them actually have had the guts to depart from the usual manic formula and tried to make something out of an actual story. For every “Manila ki Bijlian,” there is a “Botul Gali,” and so on. In fact, I think I may have the solution to Pakistani cinema’s problem. The producers need to let go of their botuls and walk through a few galis of our nation to first get a feel of what “reality” is like. Perhaps they can then sit down and go about making a worthy movie, like the recently released “Khuda Ke Liye” which was seriously, fabulaaas. Not only because of its story or camera quality, but because it was original, simple and professionally done. It also hit the public where it matters, involving the topic most in discussion these days. That’s why people are referring to it as the revolution in our cinema. As far as the flop actresses and flop directors are concerned…God help us!