So really for these ten minutes, because of the emotional intensity were bringing, and because I had been slowly preparing the audiences for this very moment, I just didn’t want them to blink!”
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“Walter Murch compares an edit cut to the audience blinking their eyes. Abbasi wrote the climax as a single shot to heighten its intensity.
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Time seems to stand still and the scene unfolds like a Gothic play, albeit one that moves from set to set with the help of a gliding camera. The sequence is a dizzying 10-minute single take where characters move from room to room squabbling. The movie’s biggest technical achievement, however, is in its climactic scene, where the Jamali family’s secrets boil to the surface after Zara confronts Zareen over an unsent letter. Cake is also gorgeously shot by Mo Azmi, her softer lighting emphasising mellow colours. There’s rarely an unartistically arranged frame. After all, the team spent over a month in London rehearsing scenes prepping included ‘therapy sessions’ where actors got to know each other better, their emotional triggers.Ībbasi also encouraged them to improvise - this is perhaps why little moments like the family playing cards feel real and unembellished, almost like peeking into your neighbour’s living room. Sheikh and Saeed turn in deft, charismatic performances but the movie’s scene stealer is the irascible, pill-popping matriarch played by veteran Pakistani comedian Beo Raana Zafar. One of the movie’s many joys is its fine cast. The men are largely emotional anchors to the women who take centre stage.Ībbasi explains that “the idea was to move away from the image of an alpha male - the aggressive male hero who woos and chases until the woman says yes - and explore and normalise other forms of masculinity.”
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“… I guess over the years I have built a bigger database of women in my head than of men,” he notes.Ĭake also presents a very different idea of manhood. For Abbasi, penning female protagonists came quite naturally since he grew up observing strong women in his family. And yes, they smoke cigarettes, perhaps a reference to the controversy over the photo of Pakistani actor Mahira Khan smoking last year.īest of all, Zareen and Zara’s sisterhood aces the Bechdel test. They are both empowered, and dislike the other meddling in their life. She lives in London, and her marriage has dissolved. In Cake, the steely Zareen, the middle child, unmarried, takes care of her parents and manages the family estate. When was the last time we saw a Bollywood movie that focused on women in their mid-30s? Cake’s emotional backbone is the relationship between sisters Zareen (Aamina Sheikh) and Zara (Sanam Saeed). His education in London Film Academy after a decade-long career in finance, broadened his creative vision.Ībbasi says that Cake has an understated tone because “the idea of storytelling became sacred to me, and I couldn’t help but gravitate towards realism, honesty and authenticity.” The movie’s specificity is pronounced because he also drew from his own family’s experiences. It has the unenviable task of straddling divergent film cultures but pulls it off with aplomb.Ībbasi grew up on Hindi films and became well-versed with the aesthetics of Bollywood melodrama. Written and directed by feature-film debutant Asim Abbasi, the movie is desi murgh served with Sundance indie cutlery. But what the movie does with this premise is anything but contrived. But Cake, a family dramedy, which doesn’t fall into either category, has set a new bar, with publications like The Guardianthat don’t usually feature Pakistani films in their review pages describing it as ‘quietly revolutionary’.Ĭake begins with those hokiest of premises - siblings reunite in the elite Jamali household when the patriarch falls ill. Recently however, there has been a resurgence - although box office success is often limited to slapstick romcoms and patriotic action dramas. (where it was the first Pakistani film to premiere at Leicester Square) is as sharp as a tack while exploring the sometimes farcical dynamics of South Asian families.įettered by censorship and lack of government support, Pakistani cinema has long played second fiddle to Bollywood in its own land. Gently roused from sleep, Amma smiles a beatific smile, hugs her daughter and a few moments into the conversation asks, “Speaking of haramis, apne baap se mili?” (Have you met your father?), referring to her husband who is recovering from a medical emergency in hospital.Ĭake, which was released in March in Pakistan, the U.S. On the stereo, Asha Bhosle croons that cabaret classic ‘Piya tu ab toh aaja’. Zara, who has just returned from London, walks into her palatial home in Karachi to find her mother asleep on a chair, wearing a ghastly wig.