Dukhtar

So the Busan International Film Festival 2014 started with a rock. There are so many flicks being played and people are queuing up to buy the left over tickets. When I first started to scroll through the list of the movies that were going to come on at the BIFF I was pretty uninterested in all of them until I saw Dukhtar in the list. I have been hearing a lot of good things about this movie from my friends in Pakistan. I was surprised and mostly excited to find that the movie will be showing at the BIFF.

The movie started of great. The cinematography was breath taking. The locations are memorizing and brought back memories of all those places I had visited few years back during my trip to Pakistan.

The story was well penned and the characters were well groomed. I felt connected to them and understood their emotions. The story is very true to life and makes you want to sympathize with all the victims. I liked the fact the movie didn't drag for too long and it ended at good point, anything more than that would have been a more obvious cliché.

Music of the movie was great. Songs composer Sahir Ali Bagga, has done a brilliant job at composing the songs. I am still humming the tunes after leaving the theater. Background score by Peter Nashel makes the hair at back of your neck stand up, of course in a good way.

I am not going to talk about the overall plot of the movie, as most of you know by now what it is about. Overall the movie is a must watch! And why is it a good movie because at the BIFF after the movie ended the whole audience in the theater stood up and applauded. That was brilliant moment and if we were allowed to use cameras in the room I would have recorded that moment. Some Koreans thought it was an Indian movie, and before I could turn around and correct them, one westerner corrected them by saying, "I am sorry, but you are wrong. This movie is from Pakistan."

Decide it for yourself. I loved it.

Let me start the review by saying that if this movie was to be judged on the basis of visuals , it comes in par with some of the best internationally ,but some poor casting choices and lame screen play along with novice dialogues it made it a just an OK film , it had the potential to be a bench mark film , the subject of the film was very powerful which deserved a powerful presentation , the film started great but as soon as Mohib Mirza appeared the whole mood of the film was destroyed , Ajab Gul and Saleha Aref were the only two castings that did justice to their roles , Samiya Mumtaz is a good actress but she was not into the character properly, her accent kept changing in the whole film .Overall its good that Pakistan cinema is at least trying to make its own impression and it will improve with time .

Last year's Waar made headlines everywhere because of the jingoistic message it brought. Dukhtar (Daughter) has so far been quite a mellow affair, partly because of its dealing with the poignant issue of child marriage in Pakistan's rural areas.

Shot absolutely beautifully in the North of the country, it is a story about the fierce love of a mother who is not about to give off her young daughter's hand in marriage to settle a tribal dispute.

One of the best things about this movie is that it doesn't get monotonous. The director, Afia, does an excellent job in keeping the story fast-paced with a load of twists and turns despite the relatively banal topic of the flick.

Acting-wise, I was impressed with all the performances except probably that of Mohib Mirza, the truck driver from Punjab. I think he wasn't the right-fit for the role because he visibly struggles to generate that Punjabi pang expected from him. However, this shouldn't be a hindrance in watching the film because the dialog is carried more than aptly by the rest of the cast.

The songs are refreshing, which brings me to another good point about the film; they don't last for an eternity and just are fleeting occurrences during scenes to accentuate the emotions.

All in all, Dukhtar is easily the best film to come out of Pakistan in 2014. It might not see the commercial success of Waar but it's story is infinitely better. A must see.

Dukhtar (دختر) "Daughter" is a new entry in emerging independent Pakistani Cinema. I was expecting it would be 3 hrs flick and first half of the movie will be based on the issues of "Dushmani" and "Jirga" and second half 'll be about their escape.

But Director concluded the "Dushmani" issue in first 15/20 minutes. (Thank You Afia Nathaniel).

Then we came across the astonishing beauty of northern areas of Pakistan...the mountains...The Ford Truck...Karakorum Highway....Plateaus...great frames and great colors filled with thrill of situation...innocence of characters...reality based sounds....

Seems...you are enjoying....but suddenly it ended....means film ended in a very unclear way....Therefore I said plot is weak.

Acting of Samiya Mumtaz (اللہ رکھی) is really good. Supporting characters also played well (Ajab Gull, Mohib Mirza).

Overall a good effort and good movie for art lover and serious audience. (Not just for sake of entertainment)

I heard of this movie in 2014 and it has Thrown a decent trailer back then, As i know Dukhtar (Daughter) has not much publicity at the time. i didn't expect much from from it. So when it came out i haven't Go to theater to see this movie and i didn't heard of this movie from any friend, until i saw in the news paper that this movie gained such selection in several film festival also good ratings and positive reviews. by the time it was long gone from theater. so i waited for it come out on DVD/Blu-ray and finally it has arrived. and when i saw it I just really surprised that they made such movie with magnificent Performance by actors/Actress and an amazing soundtrack with excellent Direction. I mean the shooting angle and screenplay are really impressive. I know Most of the people doesn't know about it or they just simply don't wanna see a Drama movie. This movie is really a good one!