Is Zindagi Tamasha Worth the Hype?

Zindagi Tamasha tackles a complicated subject delicately and with much finesse.
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[@imaliazhar]

As someone who’s born Punjabi but never taught to speak Punjabi, listening to this review in my supposedly mother tongue brought me tears of joy for finally seeing it spoken so unabashedly and at the same time, tears of sadness because I will never be able to speak it like this myself.

[@feminustani]

I am in the same boat. Punjabi boltay huay zabaan larkharaati hai, which I hate. But I try to speak it as much as I can now and where it feels especially pertinent. Lucky to have a partner I can speak it with. Tussi vi try karday rahvo. Esay tarah hee sikhda ai insaan

[@stdew07]

Urdu superior zaban hai. Accha hua paindu zaban ahusta ahista kho raha hai.

[@freehagullhashmi1878]

Favourite notification of the day 🎉 wonderful analysis, resonated with almost everything you said.

[@themissfarooq]

Very good analysis and yes it's a powerful movie, evoking pathos, and your Punjabi is really good :)

[@faizayousufwitpk]

My mother tongue is Gujarati/Memoni but I have grown up with lots of Punjabi-speaking people around me. Loved the way you spoke, and also, I am proud of myself to be able to understand every single word you spoke :)

[@zainbuttar1]

bht acha analysis dita tusi. aur twadi punjabi te bari hi wadiya ay. bara acha laga twadi punjabi sun k. aur film di tarah video v jido end te phnchi te enj lagya jenj twano saah charh gya ay 🙂

[@asifabro818]

Tusi Urdu or Sindhi wich v kr sghdi ae jatu menu v smj aawe😂huge respect from Larkana 💚🙏

[@bazlatariq3317]

بہت اعلی۔ ایک خوبصورت فلم کا ایک خوبصورت زبان میں ایک نہایت خوبصورت ریویو۔ اپنی اس کاوش کو جاری رکھیں ❤

[@adilyousaf5388]

I found the film very weak. For me, his best work was Kamli's second half. The conversation that lead to the guy's dancing could have been built. Afterwards those characters (friends?) were completely abandoned. "What led the protagonist to dance?" was something that should have been explored more since the whole story depends on it. I also thought that film tried to explain everything, an issue that is we have in our TV writing. Being predictable is alright when it comes to story. It becomes a little difficult when a scene becomes predictable. There were issues with acting too minus Samia Mumtaz's work. I think she and the guy who played the policeman did the best acting, but there were scenes where I think the acting could have been better.( like that daughter's video call). The film's visual language and music is really good but really found it difficult to connect with the story. I agree with your analysis of the last fifteen minutes but I liked the last frame. It reminded me of a polish film Keislowski's Camera buff. It hinted at his self-awareness/acknowledgement. I liked Arif sahab's eyes too, particularly the way he looked at his daughter during that wedding. His walking scenes were really good. It reminded me of Jafar Panahi's Crimson Gold. Nevertheless, I am very glad for the people who connected with this film. It is important that films, thought provoking films get made. Also, As usual great work. Your videos are so well-made. The language is accessible and you choose very important and rarely discussed topics. All the best for your work. Naik tamannaien.

[@sheryarahmed6331]

two uploads in 1 week we're so back

[@danishkhalid9255]

best review ever

[@masononemine1702]

THESE ARE MY PERSONAL FEELINGS: I personally felt ke the movie was, not as good as I expected, my expectations were reasonable if anything after watching joyland. I will be a bit harsh, but its only because i care, we dont get such movies in Pakistan. So here goes: The "Nara lgaun kya?" Started off as a decent scene, but it went to teletubby land when the guy starts singing naat and then the other guy, who is just a volunteer also starts singing naat, not to mention that he had basically no reaction to this dude saying ke woh blasphemy ki allegation lga dega, and they shouldnt even know each other apparently, how da hell did they come up with this on-sync, shaking their heads and everything, just completely down played it. Reality is much worse, yes, but the movie did not underplay it as much as it made a sort of caricature of it, deleting a lot of nuance out of it. This was not really a mind-blowing scene. I did enjoy the scene way before, where khuwaja sahib says "ke aap jo masjid ke chande se ghar banwate ho woh?", But on further thought even that lacked water, mostly because it felt like the movie was just trying to hit bulletpoints regarding Maulvis and their vices, so it just had the main character slap a dialogue at the end jese koyi wadda kaam krdita ey, hollywood ich ik maqbool kehni he "show, no tell" but unfortunately the movie seems to be more interested in making like the most cookie cutter criticisms of a cartoonish Maulvi group, he even said "aur jo baaqi maulvi bachon ko molest kre hein woh?", Not that that is not true, but it goes to show that Sarmad khoosat really did not put alot of thought behind the movie or even tried to build upon the themes that the movie so desperately wants to address, kurti vi gilli gilli lacha vi gilla gilla pinde te phirya mahiya hath tera tilla tilla, yehi haal he bus movie ka. (infact this is a problem that plagues the whole movie). This was supposed to be a character driven drama, but none of the characters (besides khuwaja sahib) are well developed. They do not grow, they don't have an arc, they are basically 2d caricatures. The plot is thin as paper too. Its basically, Khuwaja Sahib dance video gets leaked, introduce shame train, address maulvi bullet point because ofcourse, wife dies, banda loses everything. There is something to be said about such movies which depict "ThE haRsH reAliTy" but with basically no nuance or levity, and everyone must be miserable as fuck because Art ✨. I can bet half of my salary on the fact that Sarmad Khoosat got the idea for this movie when this one video of a Maulvi dancing in a similar way was 'leaked' and he had to make an apology video saying ke unse koyi barri galti hogayi he. This is demonstrated in the scene where the blasphemy dude is recording the apology video and he states that the dance video should be played side by side with the apology video to give people context just like the original 'meme' that this was inspired from, not that that is a bad thing in anyway, but it is clear that Sarmad didnt build further from that idea. The ending was supposed to be this penultimate moment, but it did not feel connected to Khuwaja Sahib's fall from grace, and neither did it really mean anything to his growth because the movie ends after that. The character of his daughter was puzzling to me, besides the Okay-ish acting, the dialogue seemed to have not been re-written even twice, it felt like it was taken from the first draft without further revision. Her lack of affection for her dad was never really explained, even though the father is showen to be quite the sweety and also not authoritative even once, and the movie does not do a great job showing how the dance video affected her personally or how it made her life worse, the film just uses her as the part of the shame train that goes over Rahat Khuwaja, mtlb Akhiyan millavan gi toh ki devega ve mere naal mukde sohniya. Their relationship in the end did not really mean anything. Other than that, the editing was not done too well, this very important song keeps playing in every other scene, which was diluting the impact of it, and at worst was highly annoying. There is this one bizarre scene which highlights this issue. I suppose someone wanted to put in Ali sethi in there somewhere? So Ali Sethi's "ranjish hi sahi" starts playing, awkwardly out of nowhere when Khuwaja Sahib's daughter is searching for a video on KZbin. Unlike movies like Khuda ke liye, bol, or Joyland, Sarmad's Zindagi Tamasha does little to move the conversation around the shaming culture, and also awkwardly moves towards addressing Maulvis in a cookiecutter manner. And the movie ended where i felt like it was about to begin. This was not a masterpiece like how it is being touted. The movie also had a rather bizzarre lack of humor. Sarmad Khoosat apparently cannot make a movie depicting disturbing social dynamics, while also having humor, or using humor to sort of use as a bitter pill for such truths. The movie Joyland for example does this wonderfully, one of my favourite being this dialogue exchange between Haider and Biba: Haider: "Hafiz Kon?" Biba: "yahan ka thoku" It so conveniently showed something disgusting and disturbing about society with just two lines of dialogue, the movie never even shows the Hafiz character but we already know who he is. I have issues with how you think the movie is about "Blasphemy", its far from it. If putting a rather half baked scene like that makes this movie about blasphemy toh, I guess "mere pass tum ho" was a social commentary on how Men have the power and the means to practice kindness and stoicism, and not to the credit of their own, and that might still be a more fair analysis than saying "Zindagi tamasha" addresses Blasphemy. Although this would be nitpicking, but I felt the cinematography to be servicable at best. The movie hardly uses visual story telling, something that even The Legend of Maula Jatt did really well, let alone the masterpiece that Joyland is. If seen as movies on the whole, "Zindagi Tamasha" in my opinion is not a good movie, and even compared Pakistani movies it falls short.

[@rbatool6836]

Your review needs to be made into a post.

[@masononemine1702]

@@rbatool6836 it is.

[@archand1681]

I watched your complet video only because of Punjabi. Tuhade jehe insan di zubani Punjabi sun k changga lagda ae.

[@sadiachaudhry6257]

Hi I also agree Arif sahab da Punjabi lehja matha hi si

[@talathussain1483]

They deserve such an appreciation.

[@A0008A]

Are you Pakistani for real? Fan❤!

[@harisnasir656]

Very good analysis

[@malaikaimtiaz6446]

Their romance was the most lovely thing in the movie

[@bilawalhasan]

I started the movie then stopped after first 20/25 mins. But I’ll give another try after your video

[@bilawalhasan]

Also I remember Kamli being a memorable cinematic experience

[@AyeshaUsuf-f8h]

You're too good Girl.

[@gugukt9478]

Please tell me one thing........ Zindgi da koi shobha dassonge jeehde vich tusi khunjje hovon. Tusi Punjabi O.....maan mehsoos hunda ae...

[@naumankhawaja]

Love your Punjabi. Right on about ZT not being Sarmad's best work. Though don't agree with your opinion about Manto. It is the best movie ever made in Pakistan, followed closely by Kamli which was completely surreal and out of this world. You missed it!

[@feminustani]

But I DO think ZT is Sarmad’s best work, and Manto ended up showing Manto as only a victim. A one-sided portrayal that lacked any layers or complexity

[@anarkali_217]

❤

[@xherii]

you speak punjabi fluently, please use urdu since we better understand it

[@joosimando3992]

ur so lovely💕💕💕

[@nadeemhaque8396]

weird..........

[@fahadyousafzi]

dont do the reviews in punjabi language, i cant understand it.

[@feminustani]

Sure. I’ll try to subtitle anything I do in punjabi in the future

[@stdew07]

Aunty Urdu mei bola karein. Yeh paindu zaban samjh nahi ata 😂

[@androiduser3991]

Koi Zuban paindu nahi hoti. Apnay roots ko Bhool ke angrezo ke zehni gulam mat banain. Ye har Punjabi ki madari zuban hai aur hamain proud feel krna chahiye Punjabi boltay huay.

[@botanyofficial693]

Soheniya dar na urdu ko kuch nai hota

[@stdew07]

@@androiduser3991 Urdu mei baat karne ke liye shukriya. Pakistan ka qaumi zaban urdu hai. Baki zaban jitna marzi ghar pe bole lekin public mei urdu mei hi baat karna chahiye shareef parhe likkhe logo ko.

[@stdew07]

@@botanyofficial693 Paindu logo ne urdu ka beragark karke rakkha hai 💔

[@sanasama2209]

Tab to teri ammi aur abbu bhi painde hai aur tera khaandaan bhi kaafir hai paanch sou saal pehle😅

[@shawnbutt]

jinna maza aaya si movie vekhen da, onnai maza aaya ae es film de punjabi review da.

[@pipe.smoking.modern.cat.]

It seems more pertinent after the recent Jaranwala incident 😢

[@minecamf-ee7ih]

You and all world should know this is not eruope where you do any and Muslim stood and just watch the justice will serve it has to

[@pipe.smoking.modern.cat.]

@@minecamf-ee7ih اگر انگریزی نہیں آتی تو اردو میں لکھ لو۔ کیا کہنا چاہتے ہو ؟

[@pipe.smoking.modern.cat.]

Loved the movie. Sarmad has the potential to be Pakistani Shaym Benegal.