My Pure Land

My Pure Land doesn’t mess around. Bul­lets start fly­ing with­in the open­ing min­utes of Sar­mad Masud’s fea­ture debut, a real­is­tic por­trait of life in some of the most trou­bled areas of mod­ern Pak­istan, where the action waits for no man, or in this case, woman. Based on an inspi­ra­tional true sto­ry, the film fol­lows a moth­er and her two daugh­ters, who are forced to defend their home from their uncle and a group of armed intruders.

The non-lin­ear nar­ra­tive reveals cru­cial aspects of the plot via a series of flash­backs, enabling us to explore the family’s his­to­ry. Yet the place­ment of these flash­backs often dimin­ish­es our imme­di­ate con­cern for the women’s safe­ty. Impor­tant moments from the past are shown only after a char­ac­ter has died, mean­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to mourn them is lost. Occa­sion­al­ly the line between the past and present is blurred, as when the enjoy­ment of a fam­i­ly wed­ding is replaced by the sud­den fear of encroach­ing gunmen.

The cen­tral con­flict that takes place over the course of a sin­gle day and night plays out in near-silence, except for the sound of gun­fire and anx­ious shuf­fling on both sides. The music used through­out these scenes suc­cess­ful­ly con­veys a col­lec­tive sense of unease, but fails to cre­ate a sus­pense­ful atmosphere.

Masud uses the film to com­pare the treat­ment of the poor to the treat­ment of the rich in rur­al Pak­istan. Police bru­tal­i­ty and gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion are seri­ous prob­lems which the peo­ple of Pak­istan face on a dai­ly basis. Most strik­ing, how­ev­er, is the way Masud por­trays strong inde­pen­dent women over­com­ing their strug­gles in this patri­ar­chal soci­ety. There are sev­er­al instances where male char­ac­ters label the women as weak and infe­ri­or, but My Pure Land defin­i­tive­ly shows that this is not the case.