Pulasta Chakrabarty

A Cinema shot completely in a 1:1 ratio to highlight the claustrophobia and entrapment that every character in the movie feels. A story about an unexpected love encounter between a married man looking for a job to save his masculine reputation, and a woman, struggling to make her way within an hypocritical society. While the movie sheds more life on the two main characters, Haider, a presumably homosexual man, and Biba, a presumably transsexual woman, every other character has a veil of societal conformity, that hides their true motive. Haider's wife Mumtaz - financially independent, intelligent, supporting, but sexually deprived, struggling to fit in her patriarchal roles; Nucchi, the wife of his elder brother - a housewife who fails to fulfill the social expectation of delivering a boy, yet, cannot stop herself from smoking a cigarette in the alley, or cursing everyone after Mumtaz's death; the patriarch father - who feels loved from an elderly widowed woman, one fine night, yet succumbs to his own societal standards of a woman staying away from her house. Every character is socially flawed, yet there is nothing wrong about anything that they feel. None of these characters are dealt with explicitly. The feelings, discussions by/for every character is spoken out through scenes and subtexts throughout the movie. There are no catchy dialogues, and every scene has a story of its own There are cinematographic moments that hide these characters within the crowd of everyday - in trains, at platforms, in alleys, so much so that many a times, the lead characters are invisible in the crowd. It emphasizes the Director's vision to emphasize their omnipresence, yet indicate their invisibility. There are beautiful shots in the movie, highlighting the distance between the brothers, and the subtle chaos within the family. While, the color palette is on the darker side, there are plenty of colors used throughout. It works beautifully in the movie to emphasize everyday moments of 'Joy', in a 'Land' of questionable misery. As the movie ends, the Director rightfully casts light on Haider. A family which never accepted him, a lover who could not acknowledge his misery - all the tragedy culminated into the climax with him losing his wife and child, and possibly everything that remotely made sense to him. He had been a man with an inner confusion all his life. And for that one moment he decided to embrace his true self, he ended up losing everything he had. What does it speak of? What does it highlight? I can talk so much more about the movie but there has to be a time to stop. The movie is a character study of thousands of people, who hide behind their walls within the narrow lanes of not only Pakistan, but many places across the Globe. Art is the greatest when it makes you look and feel about things, in a way you would not have done ever. Art is the greatest, when it makes you think about everything around you. Joyland (2022) is incredibly artistic.