Silent Waters

Starring Kirron Kher and Aamir Ali Malik. In Punjabi with English subtitles. Unrated.

To many western moviegoers, Pakistan is a mysterious place where Islamic fundamentalism is teeming and Osama bin Laden may be hiding. The main draw of Silent Waters is the chance to see an articulate female director pull back the veil on the country and reveal the tortured history that has led it to where it is today.

Sabiha Sumar's film is deeply political but told through an intensely personal, albeit slowly told, story. It is 1979, the year when Islamic law first sweeps through Pakistan. The widow Ayesha (Kirron Kher) is haunted by flashbacks to her youth: the cryptic, recurring nightmare of a running girl screaming and an ominous well. For years she has kept her secret, which has its roots in the religious violence of 1947's partitioning of Pakistan from India. But now, as her beloved son Saleem (Amir Ali Malik) becomes involved with religious extremists and starts targeting Sikh pilgrims, her hidden past threatens to divide her from both him and her neighbours.

Sumar's film is about the abuse of women during religious wars, but it's also a timely look at the rise of extremism. Saleem's transformation from lovelorn flute player to angry zealot is a tad abrupt, but Malik, with his long, slacker hair, gives him a sense of adolescent angst that translates easily to western eyes.

The way fundamentalism seeps into the village is portrayed more adeptly; soon, the older town men who once joked about Islamicization are scared to say a word to the young militants. "Blood-that's what you get for laughing," a barber metaphorically tells a boy getting his first shave.

The film itself starts with a cloyingly light, romantic-comedy feel but eventually spirals into dark tragedy. By the end, the sense of Ayesha's monstrous injustice is so authentically moving that viewers will be able to forgive any of Silent Waters' early oversimplifications and plodding pace.

That said, the movie's eerie memory flashes of the screaming girl and the well give it a smart, sophisticated feel of suspense. And the richly shot scenes of the village-coloured fabric blowing from a sacred tree, or red chilis and bright fruit stands against the dusty-orange earth-reveal the surprising beauty of the Pakistani landscape. They also display the director's love for her country-a love that runs like a current through Silent Waters and keeps it from being as hopeless and bleak as it might sound.

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