Runway

This film surely has more to say than it shows. One will regret how much Tareque Masud was to give in future despite his untimely death.

I have respect for him and went to the premiere of Runway and found myself pleased. This film has many positives including good screenplay, excellent cinematography, thought provoking concepts and so on.

The life shown was a typical poor society living just beside an airport runway. The life vibrates with sounds of the flights everyday. But the battle of survival of the poor family goes on with a desperate and frustrated man, Ruhul.

Controversial thoughts were experimented by the director, like the formation of the radical Islamic group and their supporting political parties. It was surely a brave attempt in a Muslim country. What was really notable here, director played a neutral role and let people decide the right path.

The time frame was superb. Things happened recently in the country was the basic of the story. Like the booming garments industry, unemployment problems, terrorism, politics etc.

Finally I would like to recommend this film to all. Its worth watching.

Yes, I'm being overly simplistic here but Tareque Masud's Bangladeshi film gives us a highly tangible, fictional account of how a fairly routine family background scenario spawns, in a young man, a move from poor family and unemployment into being sucked up and into a fundamentalist group, whose word is spread by violence.

As a white westerner, it's all too easy to suppose how some young men get caught up in such and that is why as a Bangladeshi himself, the director paints a wholly credible and engaging story about his country- folk. He doesn't take sides, the story does the talking, though the metaphors and symbols are all there.

Looking at some of the gorgeous landscapes, where cows graze under setting suns, it is in fact only western technologies and influentials that mar it, more and more. From the jets screaming overhead, to the internet cafe, where our young man finds his new spiritual 'guide' - "There's Islamic stuff on the internet?" he asks, when he is shown a military training exercise on the PC screen and then says "I thought there was only naked women".

When I watch a world cinema movie, especially a rarer one (this was shown very late by those great mavericks - Channel 4), I loosely make a mental note on how many western words have infiltrated the dialogue. These are often sentences. It is chilling and really rather repugnant that towards the end of this film, the western words used here include 'bomb, detonation, terrorism, preliminary search, electrical device' and so on.

An introduction before the film (by I don't know who, a woman, not the director, who died aged 54 last year) talks briefly about the casting and making of the film, how all the cast are non-professional. This cast are uniformly very good and the film overall feels well made, particularly well shot and put together. I couldn't find any DVDs of it on Amazon, which ultimately means that it'll stay in its largely unseen and unknown slot.

I don't think that Marsud tries to or makes any over-spectacular statements, at least politically, though I (of course) could be wrong. To fit a story into 90 minutes there's always going to be contrivances sown in and in some ways, I was almost wanting to say that this story is far too simplistic, or contrived, or whatever. Because I cannot actually say such and whilst far from my own world and daily life, the film certainly has to be admired and highly commended.

I admire Tareq Masud's work as he always tried to tell some known stories in different style with his brave voice. This is the story what someone from Bangladesh would think twice to visualize.

The story of Runway starts with the protagonist, Ruhul, who studied in madrasah (Islamic institute) but didn't sit for final exam. He lives with his mother, sister and grandfather nearby an airport. The life of Ruhul passes with aimless and frustration due to finding no job. One day he meets a young guy named Arif in a cyber café. The story begins from here.

I appreciate the story as it conveys a strong message and relates to some real life incidents in Bangladesh. I also like the cinematography. What I like most is the metaphors. There's a shot where a small kid uses his small catapult to throw a stone to a flying aeroplane. At that point we see anger of being so small in this world than others; that shot visualize his helplessness. Like this shot, director tells his story with combination of many metaphors.

The music of this film is good too. Especially, some music reflects director's strong music sense.

I strongly recommend to watch this movie. If you are in Bangladesh, you should buy the original DVD and watch this film. I guarantee, your money will not waste.

I admire the director for giving us such a precious film. He go through a very complicated story, he walk on a very sharp line and always maintain the constancy. Shows all the very details moment, never disrespect religion. This is the best part of every movie of Tareque Masud that he never disrespect the religion. He points out many reasons why and how the religion is manipulated by terrorists. I saw many Hollywood movies with similar concept where most of the film give the wrong message like religion itself is wrong and bad. But in this film director apart terrorism and Islam very nicely. He just made another masterpiece. HATS OFF TAREQUE MASUD R.I.P.