Movie Review: In the Name of God or Khuda Ke Liye

This weekend my husband and I watched the Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye, or as it is known by its English title, In the Name of God. Here are my thoughts, a quasi-review if you will:

The story: There are three interlocking stories here. Musician brothers Mansoor and Sarmad are enjoying success when one day Sarmad is lured by fanatical Mullah Tahiri into joining his ranks as a fundamentalist and giving up music and all other things perceived as haram by the fundies. As in reality, the fundamentalists in this film are not interested in spiritual development within an Islamic framework, but are instead highly focused on superficial and easily controllable issues like being anti-music, wearing a shalwar qameez, sporting a beard, controlling women’s morality, etc. In the meanwhile, Mansoor and Sarmad have this half-white British cousin Mary who is planning to marry a white British boyfriend against her father’s wishes. Her father, himself a completely irreligious womanizer, fears his reputation in the British Pakistani community. He concocts a plan to bring Mary to Pakistan and forcibly marry her to one of her cousins. He succeeds, as neo-fanatic Sarmad agrees to marry her to keep her within the folds of Islam and earn points for himself in heaven. Mary is kidnapped and taken to a nameless village near the PK-Afghan border. As all of this is going on, Mansoor goes off to Chicago to earn a graduate degree in music. He meets and marries a white woman. Then 9/11 happens and Mansoor is mysteriously whisked away and detained for no apparent reason by U.S. authorities who beat and torture him to elicit a confession of his role in terrorism. Mansoor’s captivity by U.S. authorities parallel’s Mary’s forced marriage and imprisonment in the Frontier village.

The film touches on many important issues. Rather than ask the audience to use any interpretative capacity, the intended messages in the Khuda Ke Liye are spelled out for us in much of the dialogue and several soliloquies during the lengthy 3 hour film. One issue was the gross hypocrisy of Mary’s non-traditional, irreligious father who feels it necessary to impose Pakistani cultural and religious constraints on his daughter because of her gender. There was also a lot of time spent highlighting the ridiculous behavior of the so-called religious authorities of contemporary Pakistan and how they mislead the masses and spend energy on soullessly labeling everything remotely pleasurable haram, while promoting oppressive and violent practices. The last message was that the American Empire is evil, and this is demonstrated through the torture inflicted upon innocent Mansoor in the name of unjustifiable anti-Muslim sentiment.

Generally speaking, the film is entertaining and has depth. The messages hit you on the head like a hammer, but the movie is a pleasurable hammer. There are several flaws about the film which deserve address.

One was the casting of Mary. Who the heck chose Pakistani model Iman Ali to play the role of British born and raised biracial Mary? Iman Ali has zero acting skills. Her best scenes were those in which she was silent, posing like a model as she cried over her fate as an abductee. Her entire manner and style is extremely Pakistani. Her phony British accent was as torturous to watch as her character’s imprisonment. What a dreadful attempt at a British character with British English. Watching her character, whose British English sounds completely non-native, suddenly switch into fluent Urdu with her Pakistani family and her captors required a huge leap of logic. If her father never put her in touch with her Pakistani or Muslim roots, how on earth did she master Urdu? Though her character’s story was captivating, Iman Ali herself gave such a terrible performance that it detracts from the quality of the film.

A few other flaws were that in addition to the positive messages about Islam, there were two conspicuous and racist scenes that perpetuate negative messages about Jews and Sikhs in the film. The anti-Jewish scene was just nonsensical. On September 12, 2001, an orthodox Jewish man with a black hat and coat and those long dangly sideburns stands on a street corner passing out anti-Muslim flyers. This scene just reflects conspiracy theories. The Jewish character functioned as a symbol: a Jew fostering hatred between mainstream (Christian) Americans and Muslims. This scene in the film was just a cheap shot and fits well with conspiratorial positioning of Jews wielding secret agendas to manipulate Americans into doing their will. As a Muslim, it is very embarrassing that this anti-Semitic glitch was in this Muslim-made film. It will confirm stereotypes about Muslims as irrational anti-Semites to non-Muslims who view this film, and reinforce negative images of Jews for Muslim viewers.

The second racist scene included a Sikh attacking Mansoor. The Sikh blamed Mansoor and all Muslims in the U.S. for the terrorism of 9/11. The 9/11 attacks caused a racist backlash by opportunist bigots against not only Muslims, but many Muslim-ish looking ethno-religious groups. This included Sikhs. Rather than have the characters empathize with their shared vulnerability, the filmmakers pit the Sikh character against Muslims. This is a conscious choice reflecting the filmmakers’ own prejudices. It seems that the filmmakers see a bridgeable divide between white Christian America and the entire Muslim world while they discount sensitivity to any other groups.

There is one final yet major complaint about this film: Call me naïve, but the entire story about Mansoor, an irreligious music student living in the U.S. on a proper visa and then being incarcerated and tortured for no reason other than a call from a racist white neighbor is hard to swallow. There were truly many such calls made after 9/11. This is sad evidence of American racism and paranoia. And such racism and Islamophobia continues to this very day. However, the idea that one of these racist phone calls would actually be taken so seriously by U.S. authorities to the extent that was depicted in the film is just completely implausible. Not impossible. Just implausible.

Despite these very irritating leaps in logic asked of audiences by the makers of Khuda Ke Liye, the film does have important messages for both Pakistani and international audiences. The scenes of the Pak-Afghan border are beautiful, and the small side stories that occur there were a joy to watch. Also, the sound track of this film is excellent---it is a must own CD. Barring that of Iman Ali, the film is also packed with great performances. Rasheed Naz was spectacular as the fanatic Mullah Tahiri. He gives the character creative embellishments in mannerism and style of diction. Better known and well-loved Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah also gave a good cameo performance. His character was that of an enlightened mullah set to counterbalance the Islamic viewpoints presented by the fundamentalist mullahs. Mansoor’s white American wife Janie, played by Austin Sayre, made me giggle to myself with the nuances of her typical 20 something white female style of talking replete with copious “like” punctuating her speech, eye-rolls, gaping mouthed gasps, and exaggerated hand gestures. That looks like how I talk sometimes, and watching American women act like that from abroad makes me feel conspicuous because I know how strange those manners seem outside of the U.S.

One final thought about Khuda Ke Liye is that international audiences will learn a lot about Pakistan if they are willing to put their prejudices and pre-conceived notions aside. But what will Pakistani viewers gain from this film? Much pride in the fact that Pakistan has produced such a good film! Anti-fundamentalist thought is common in many Pakistani circles. However, the pro-fundies won’t be the types to see this film anyhow, so perhaps this film engages in a bit of preaching to the choir.