[If you haven’t seen the film please note that this article contains spoilers.]
Joyland is a film that deserves to be better known by mainstream audiences. Made last year in Pakistan, it’s a first feature from director Saim Sadiq.
It made its international debut at Cannes 2022 where it was rapturously received and won two Palmes d’Or. It then landed an Oscar nomination this year for Best International Feature.
The characters and the eternal triangle
The film is a variation on the eternal triangle. The story’s central character is Haider, a young man living with his extended family in Lahore. He is unemployed, which embarrasses and annoys his father and brother Saleem, who feel he is discrediting the family. This is made worse by the fact that he and his wife Mumtaz have yet to have a baby, while Saleem and wife Nucchi have four children already.
Haider finally gets a job as a backing dancer to Biba, a transgender woman who performs at Joyland, an erotic club popular with men. He’s uncomfortable disclosing this to his family and when he forms an emotional connection with Biba while practising his routines, this relationship strains the family to breaking point, leading to tragedy.
Biba, Mumtaz and others
While the story is ostensibly about Haider, it’s the sympathetic treatment of the women in his life that makes Joyland so worth watching. Making a trans woman one of the central characters in a story set in a hugely conservative and patriarchal society like Pakistan is a bold decision that makes the film both remarkable and very contemporary.
Biba dominates the frame whenever she’s on screen. She is played by Alina Khan, an actress who has made a name for herself for being open about being trans and has faced substantial challenges to establish a career as a result. She brings a steely determination to the role, willing and able to face down abuse (you imagine she’s drawn on plenty of personal experience) and committed to her career as a dancer. The bravery she shows in not being deterred from doing what she feels born to do is admirable.
Rasti Farooq as Mumtaz doesn’t get the same amount of screen time but her story arc mirrors the dilemma many young women likely face in Pakistan. Her marriage to Haider is an arranged one but it’s very clear they love each other. Mumtaz has made a career for herself as a beautician, but she is forced by family pressure to give it up when Haider reveals his job. Her role as a housewife gradually wears her down and in spite of Nucchi’s support and becoming pregnant, she can’t cope and commits suicide.
Two other women with minor roles elicit our sympathy too. Nucchi is more accepting of her traditional role as wife and mother but her children are all girls. It seems inevitable that she too will face ostracism because she’s unable to conceive and bear a son. Meanwhile elderly widow Fayyaz stays overnight to care for Haider’s father while Mumtaz and Nucchi are out. She does no more than anyone else would do — except this is Pakistan and her son is disgusted by her behaviour.
Art not propaganda
Joyland is an important feminist film. When it was first released, the authorities banned it which led to an outcry in protest and a powerful article in Variety from Malala Yousafzai, one of the film’s producers, condemning the decision. The ban was rescinded following minor cuts demanded by the censor.
In her article, Malala stated that Joyland is “about the ways in which patriarchy hurts everyone — men, women and children. It’s a film about the healing powers of female friendship and solidarity. It’s a film about the costs of ignoring our own dreams to conform to society around us.”
Her argument that art is not propaganda and governments have no business dictating what is and isn’t acceptable is something the UK government, which is weaponising culture, would do well to note.
