This September, a collaboration between producer Babar Javed, actor and director Sarmad Khoosat, and writer Shahid Nadeem successfully brought celebrated Pakistani short-story writer Saadat Hasan Manto to the big screen. It used a huge ensemble of prolific actors with Khoosat himself playing the lead role. On September 11, 2015, Manto, the film, was released.
The movie – over two hours in length – follows Saadat Hasan Manto through the last seven years of his life: the ones he spent in Pakistan, writing some of his most important short stories.
Saba Qamar as Noor Jehan
The Screenplay
How does one “write” a biography – a story in which all the events have already been set down by someone else? Should screenplay writers of biopics be given credit equal to that given to fiction writers? If anybody can answer these questions aptly, it is Shahid Nadeem.
Manto’s writer, Shahid Nadeem, is himself a heavyweight in the Pakistani film industry. Director of Ajoka Theater and PTV Academy, Nadeem has directed and written many TV dramas and plays in the past. Not surprisingly, a lot of them – including Toba Tek Singh (1992) and Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh (2012) – were based on Saadat Hasan Manto or his works. Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh, which was enacted at Alhamra Arts Council in 2012, itself was somewhat of a precursor to the motion picture.
Undoubtedly, there could not have been a better choice than Shahid Nadeem to write a movie about Manto.
The film begins with Manto receiving electric shocks, against his wishes, in Lahore’s mental asylum. It then travels back in time to when Manto had newly moved to Lahore after the partition of the Subcontinent. His wife, Safiya (Sania Saeed) and three daughters lived with him.
As most Manto enthusiasts would know, the sensitive writer found it hard to rid himself of the disturbing experiences of the Partition, and most of his post-Partition writing was centred on its events. The true mastery of Shahid Nadeem lies in his ability to insert Manto’s short stories in the story of his life. Because – as any writer, fiction or non-fiction, would tell you – the works of any writer are inspired by his surroundings. Nadeem does a brilliant job of recreating Manto’s life on the big screen, marbling it with his various short stories and radio plays – which is what made Manto complete.
Sarmad Khoosat as Manto
The Acting
A biopic, more often than not, is only as good as the lead actor’s performance. If this generalization is considered to be true for Manto, the film was a stellar act – because that is the expression that best defines Sarmad Khoosat’s performance.
Despite the fact that he looks little like the literary genius, Khoosat managed to adapt the mannerisms, personality and speech that we imagine Saadat Hasan Manto must have possessed, and ended up convincing his viewers that it was in fact Manto himself that they were watching on the big screen. On the acting front, Pakistan’s leading actors and actresses can certainly learn a thing or two from Khoosat’s performance, because that is one front that our movies can certainly improve on.
Other than Khoosat, actors like Saba Qamar, who plays Madam Noor Jehan, Shamoon Abbasi who plays Eishar Singh from Thanda Gosht, Nadia Afghan who plays Saugandhi, and Faisal Qureshi who plays a radio actor, also gave very impressive performances. This shows that Khoosat is not only a good actor himself, but also a good director – someone who can inspire his actors to give in their hundred percent. I personally found Faisal Qureshi’s short act as the radio actor brilliant.
Other than the aforementioned, Mahira Khan, Mohammad Hanif, Humayun Saeed, and Sarmad’s veteran father, Irfan Khoosat also appear in the star-studded film.
Mahira Khan
Losing the Drama Feel?
With a movie like Manto, there is hardly a negative comment to be made. However, despite its brilliance in all other fields, it is disappointing and slightly frustrating to see that even a masterpiece like Manto could not shrug off the feel of a drama that has been haunting Pakistani motion pictures in the age of the “revival”. It is disappointing because Pakistani dramas have always been commended and watched the country over – but is that all we can do, make a drama? And are we so hooked to the longer format that we cannot tell the difference between a drama and a film, or have lost the ability to make the latter? This is especially annoying since a TV series by the name of Main Manto with the same cast is, in fact, being released in December this year. How different would that be from the film?
It is high time that Pakistani film makers found a way to adapt their drama-centric creativity to the medium of the film – and, then, perhaps, we would be justified in saying that Pakistani cinema has “come of age”.
Pakistan's leading actors can learn a thing or two from Sarmad Khoosat
Why Watch It: Literature, Biopic and Literary Film Lovers Would Love It
Needless to say, lovers of literature and intellectual or literary films would certainly love Manto despite any flaws that it may have. Those who like to watch biopics would also certainly find the experience worthwhile if they do not mind watching slow movies. Manto also has the feel of an art film so admirers of that genre would also likely enjoy the movie.
Why Not: Loud Entertainment Lovers, Look the Other Way
Do not wander anywhere near the cinema screen if you are unable to watch lengthy, slow movies that have no loud entertainment whatsoever. If you are looking for two hours of entertainment, you are better of watching the Bollywood movie being shown in the theatre next door.
