Joy­land

Saim Sadiq’s Joy­land begins with a game of tag: a man draped with a white bed­sheet lis­tens for his nieces’ sup­pressed gig­gles, his wan­der­ing arms out­stretched as he attempts to catch them. Yet under­cut­ting the ten­der­ness of the way the pair even­tu­al­ly col­lapse togeth­er in rau­cous laugh­ter, the cam­era hov­ers too close, and the sheet feels as much like an invis­i­bil­i­ty cloak as an inno­cent cos­tume. We won­der why the first time we meet this man, Haider – brought to life with an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly sen­si­tive per­for­mance by Ali June­jo – it’s as a ghost in his own home.

Off-screen, his sister-in-law’s water breaks. In a mat­ter-of-fact voice, she tells Haider to bring the motor­cy­cle around and informs her daugh­ters (three of them, but she’s hop­ing this baby will be a son) that a neigh­bour will be over with lunch. Some odd and every­day machin­ery clicks into place: the birth of a child; the rules that define this fam­i­ly; hus­bands and wives; boys and girls. In this film we con­stant­ly see peo­ple through door­frames, their bod­ies boxed in by the house and its walls.

Joy­land weaves a tapes­try from the lives of a fam­i­ly in Lahore – or rather, con­tem­plates what’s left behind when every­thing comes unrav­elled. Haider lives in a house where the pre­or­dained famil­iar­i­ty and sim­mer­ing con­tra­dic­tions of patri­ar­chal expec­ta­tions co-exist. His wife, Mum­taz (Rasti Farooq), is free to con­tin­ue the work she loves as a make­up artist because the unem­ployed Haider takes up house­work along­side his sis­ter-in-law. But when he finds a job at an erot­ic dance the­atre, Mum­taz is forced to stay at home. Slow­ly, aching­ly, the machin­ery of the house begins to disintegrate.

At the the­atre, soft-spo­ken Haider is a back­ground dancer for an aspir­ing star named Biba (a com­mand­ing­ly beau­ti­ful Ali­na Khan), a trans woman whose fierce authen­tic­i­ty enthrals Haider for how opposed it is to the hes­i­tant spec­ta­tor­ship of his own life. But the sen­su­ous unfurl­ing of Haider and Biba’s mutu­al attrac­tion is just one thread the film patient­ly tugs at, in turn pulling at many more intertwined.

Pushed into an unwant­ed life of domes­tic labour and reg­is­ter­ing her husband’s slow estrange­ment, Mumtaz’s claus­tro­pho­bia qui­et­ly floods the frame. The dynam­ic between them is exquis­ite­ly writ­ten; hus­band and wife whis­per to one anoth­er with a gen­uine yet rue­ful affec­tion that floats above the depths of what they wish they could con­fide in each oth­er, if only the house of cards wouldn’t come tum­bling down.

A beau­ti­ful­ly inti­mate yet open-end­ed inter­ro­ga­tion of the spaces its char­ac­ters are forced to nav­i­gate, Sadiq’s intri­cate debut is a haunt­ing ele­gy that mourns the dead­ly suf­fo­ca­tion of desire, ele­gant­ly trac­ing how the lib­er­a­tion of men, women, cis, and trans peo­ple is always entan­gled. Named after an amuse­ment park where Mum­taz and her sis­ter-in-law swing high into the sky, neon lights punc­tu­at­ing their delight­ed, dizzy laugh­ter in a rare moment of escapism and reprieve, Joy­land swells with the silent pleas of bod­ies sim­ply want­i­ng to be seen, held, and free.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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