Probing him further on the 'burqa monster', he responds with a smile,
"Let's just say, weird things happen. Things are revealed that
are bizarre and extreme."
Omar Khan calls himself a student of classic horror films. He grew
up consuming EC comic books (Entertaining Comics) that specialized
in horror and crime fiction and were so shocking that they had to
be banned, along with Hammer films ( that include The Curse of Frankenstein
and Dracula) and Lollywood films of Zeba and Muhammad Ali.
"I'm not
ashamed to admit I grew up watching Lollywood films. I used to stick
up for them, whatever they were like. But the films that come out
now, we just can't identify with them. No disrespect to Javed Sheikh,
but his work is based on trying to achieve the gloss and excellence
of Bollywood. I'm sorry but we can't keep imitating Bollywood. Our
strength lies in following our own instincts. Even a film like Maula
Jut with all its crudeness is more Pakistani than something like
Yeh Dil Aap Ka Hua. One represents the soil and nuances of Pakistan,
the other is an insipid, beautiful copycat," he says.
He regrets the fact that in Pakistan, people have grown up on a
diet of big budget Bollywood and Hollywood films, and don't have
a tradition for cult films.
"You get mainstream, great looking horror films. The Hills
Have Eyes for example. That's worth a million dollars. I wish we
had that kind of money but we don't."
"I was honored to be one of the jury members at the Kara Film
Festival in 2003 and I got a taste of what people are enjoying.
They watch something like Armageddon or 300 and are like "wow,
what a movie". True, they're visually stunning because of their
massive budgets, but at the same time, someone like David Lynch,
with limited resources and a brilliant mind, is an unknown entity
to these people. People will aspire to slickness rather than the
creativity that comes out of being bound by budget constraints."
When the script of Zibahkhana was initially written around five
years ago, the purpose was to make something extremely over-the-top
and wacky with about as much subtlety as a Pushto film. But then
Omar started writing the sequel to Zinda Lash or The Living Corpse
(a 1967 Pakistani Dracula movie) which somehow turned into Zibahkhana.
He is extremely proud of the fact that the cast and crew are all
Pakistanis and it has been made entirely in Pakistan in an area
near Rawal Lake next to the Naval Club in Islamabad.
"When I first saw the location, I thought, this is it. It looked
good and it was near our homes too. And then the police showed up,
asking us to get out of there. I asked them why, since I didn't
see any signs reading 'stay out'. And the police responded that
a lot of dead bodies get dumped in the area." Just the right
touch of authentic creepiness.
Luckily, they got permission from the police commissioner to use
the area and with extreme duress of budget and time, heatstroke
and nastiness of the month of June, along with cockroaches and the
appearance of a couple of cobras, shooting for Zibahkhana began.
He recalls the experience in extreme words: "Miserable and
awful."
"But working with the cast was an absolute pleasure. The kids
are free-thinking, spirited, politically astute individuals from
Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. The crew was also interesting. For
the first time I witnessed the famous Lahore-Karachi divide among
the crew members with their preconceived notions and generalizations."
Staying away from the typical hairy-faced fang monsters, the film
introduces a new kind of monster with the help of the stunt double
of Sultan Rahi, Sultan Billa, on whose appearance the audience in
the festivals broke into applause.
Omar apprehends that some people might call the film a rip-off.
"Well, it's so easy to criticize but I'm certainly not reinventing
the wheel. This is just a fun, jaunty, midnight movie that follows
the typical underlying morality of horror films, which is, if you
misbehave, you'll be punished."
But Zibahkhana is more than just a mindless slaughter film. There
are various interesting references, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
to Psycho and Evil Dead to Adnan Sami Khan. Yes, Adnan Sami Khan.
"It's a love letter to all those great, zero budget horror
films we grew up watching and loving," says Omar.
Some serious undercurrents are also palpable throughout the film.
Characters depict a certain dichotomy in their personalities that
a lot of us experience living in this society. One character highlights
our ignorance in treating certain segments of the society as 'untouchables',
something the foreign audience didn't pick up on. A scene of a protest
rally staged against contaminated water forms a decisive part of
the film.
"I'd like to say the political awareness in this film, though
not very overt, is certainly tangible," he says.
All this talk stimulates the right amount of goosebumps for sure,
but will we get to watch it on our big screens? With its mild curse
words and some scenes with drug usage, will it pass the censor board?
Has it even been sent to the censor board?
Till now, it hasn't, nor are there any plans at the moment to send
it to the board.
"There is so much red tapism involved. You have to sweat and
run around dealing with people you don't even want to."
"But if the censor board rejects it, I could take my lawyer
with me and show them some of the films that they have passed, like
the Pushto film Kacha Ghotay which is obscene to say the least.
I am stunned to see the films they've passed. I even put up a clipping
of one film passed by the censor board on You Tube, and it was pulled
off within days for being offensive."
"As far as I feel, a film should not be anti-state or anti-Islamic.
Anything else should go. I really don't know whose sitting on the
censor board and I have no disrespect for anyone nor have I tried
to antagonize anyone. We're living in a world scenario where you
can't even afford to be controversial with vigilante burqa clad
women just around the corner. But I do have one thing to say: Please
grow up and get a grip. Let adults be treated as adults. Let's give
our movies some soul. We can't watch 'rich boy- poor girl' love
stories anymore. We need to show the audience something other than
Jut in Lahore and Vehshi Haseena. People who want to watch these
films, let them watch them. But we need to broaden our horizons.
We need people like Saqib Malik on the censor board, people who
know about films and have their livelihood depending on films."
For now, there is no plan of screening the film in Pakistan. He
wishes a private TV channel would buy its rights and bleep out some
words if it has to.
"It's not like I'm going to become a millionaire. This film
has cost me an arm and a leg, but if I'm going to make another film,
I need to at least recover the money."
If no one buys it, he will let a British DVD label release it. Even
then, issues of piracy haunt him.
"What will I do if the movie is pirated and cable operators
start showing it here everyday. Let's face it, piracy is officially
protected here. It's not like we go to some shady little alley from
a backdoor to buy pirated DVDs. We go to major, flourishing, event-sponsoring,
double-storied, air conditioned shops. Who's protecting piracy?"
He is also expecting some people to complain that 2007 is a 'Visit
Pakistan' year and that he hasn't projected Pakistan in the most
positive light.
"My response to such people is, look around; there is ugliness
all around you. You have people selling kidneys on the street for
God's sake. Grow up and tackle all sorts of issues."
"There's an interesting scene in the movie that we shot near
Nallah Leh in Rawalpindi where you can see the greenish-blue water
of the nallah and literally a foliage of paper on the surface of
it. People outside Pakistan asked me, 'how did you stage the pollution
shot?' It was funny. I could only wish I had staged it."
He hopes this movie will encourage young fresh blood to get off
their backs and stop playing safe.
"We've noticed theatre blossoming in Islamabad and it's a very
positive feature, an avenue for kids to express themselves. I really
wish these people would develop a sense of self-worth and value
to trust their own ability and gradually move away from adaptations
and regurgitating musicals. The ultimate aim should be to write
something yourself."
The opening of multiplexes by the government in Karachi and one
in Rawalpindi is seen as a positive and encouraging sign by him,
but he wishes that at least one screen would be reserved for local
films; otherwise, these multiplexes would be useless to our industry.
He's going to start work on the sequel to Zibahkhana soon, and keeping
in mind the previous experience, it won't be shot in July.
"We've learnt so much and won't be making the same mistakes
again. My message to kids learning courses in film-making is this:
there is no substitute for going out there and shooting. Nothing
prepares you for the real thing. This was the biggest crash course
of my life."
The walls of Omar Khan's ice cream shop The Hot Spot are framed
with posters of Alfred Hitchcock's horror movies and painted with
desi monsters, along with a few additions of Zibahkhana's zombies.
It makes one realize that he has genuine love and passion for this
particular genre. This film is something he feels he just had to
do and was long overdue. We hope and anticipate that Zibahkhana
gets its due encouragement to become the first in a long line of
horror films, cheesy r not, to give us frightful midnights in our
own endearing, direly needed, desi flavour.
|