In Flames 2024 Movie Review Trailer

 “In Flames” by Zarrar Kahn takes place primarily in a cramped apartment located not far from the noisy and busy streets of Karachi. The hustle and bustle outside (not to mention the social forces that define it) continually threaten to infiltrate within the walls of that apartment, which serves as a safe haven that may well crumble under the weight of the world order itself. that rules beyond its walls. A ghostly parable about Pakistan's insidious patriarchal order, Khan's film (the first Pakistani film to screen in Cannes Directors' Fortnight in nearly half a century) finds mother and daughter slowly losing the grip on reality they've always had. acquaintance.

“In Flames” by Zarrar Kahn takes place primarily in a cramped apartment located not far from the noisy and busy streets of Karachi. The hustle and bustle outside (not to mention the social forces that define it) continually threaten to infiltrate within the walls of that apartment, which serves as a safe haven that may well crumble under the weight of the world order itself. that rules beyond its walls. 

Director: Zarrar Kahn
Writer: Zarrar Kahn
Stars: Ramesha Nawal, Omar Javaid, Bakhtawar Mazhar

A ghostly parable about Pakistan's insidious patriarchal order, Khan's film (the first Pakistani film to screen in Cannes Directors' Fortnight in nearly half a century) finds mother and daughter slowly losing the grip on reality they've always had. acquaintance.

Mariam (Ramesha Nawal, a revelation) may sense that her life is destined to change. While he has been diligently studying to be a doctor, he knows that the death of his grandfather will surely have disastrous consequences for his family life. 

Modern Pakistan is still quite hostile to independent women, whether they are studious young women like her (they call her a whore and throw a brick at her car on the way to the library) or self-sufficient women like her mother, Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar), who For years she has been dealing with the death of her abusive husband.

Patriarchal violence surrounds them everywhere. No one can escape it. But while Mariam seems constantly on guard, she has to witness how unprepared her mother is for the change ahead. It is a generational difference, yes, but one that puts mother and daughter in great danger, forcing them once again to depend on men they would rather do without.

For example, Mariam's uncle shows up out of nowhere, eager to help with the many expenses Fariha has had to deal with lately. And although Mariam is suspicious, she can't stop her mother from taking this generosity at face value.

 In fact, at the heart of “In Flames” is a question that women like Mariam have to constantly ponder, if only to themselves: Are there any good men? Mariam distrusts all of them, so at first she is scared to go on a date with Asad (Omar Javaid), an affable fellow student who urges her to skip family time and ride with him on his motorcycle to a seaside cabin. for some time alone.

 Her tenderness finally dispels her worries. Maybe there are some good men around her, men who won't constantly judge her and who will encourage her instead of wanting to make her feel small.

When an unexpected tragedy strikes Mariam and Asad during her outing, the young aspiring doctor sees her grip on reality slowly slip through her fingers. Memories of violence in her home, of familiar corpses approaching her from beyond her graves, and intermittent placid fantasies of time at sea shake her both physically and emotionally. 

Her childhood asthma attacks have returned and she soon faints without warning. His body and her mind become as tormented as her home, something that Kahn's own editing prowess (alongside Craig Scorgie) and a cacophonous soundscape that brings urban horror indoors add to the stress with a welcome welcome. aplomb. “In Flames” sometimes sounds like an intimate horror movie whose jump scares come from all-too-familiar fears (in every sense of the word).

In fact, along with Mariam's increasingly supernatural threats, Khan focuses on the more mundane, but no less terrifying, nightmare situation that Fariha finds herself in. Despite warnings from her daughter and facing a legal system that really has little support for a single woman. Like her, this devoted mother sees her world and her options shrinking every day.

Together, Fariha and Mariam's stories illustrate the subtle but inevitable ways in which men who dare not see them as individuals in their own right codify the lives of women.

Watch In Flames 2024 Movie Trailer