Bol

Recently I have rekindled my obsession with Bollywood movies and started watching all the new releases.  I was pleasantly surprised when I came across a film which was actually not from the Bollywood world, but from Pakistani cinema.  

The film was called Bol and is a must see for fans of Pakistani or Bollywood films.  This film is unlike old Pakistani movies and competes with best of Hollywood and Bollywood cinema. This film had me hooked from start to end and delved into many issues which affect not just Pakistani communities, but are big issues in Pakistan.  

The film revolves around a family who live in Lahore, a family mainly made up of a group of sisters and a son who is born with a boy’s body, but a female inside.  It starts off with all the sisters and their mother in jail and the eldest sister about to be hung to death for a crime.  She has asked for one last request before she is hung and that is to be able to tell her story to the press and her wish is granted.  She could possibly have saved herself if she had told this story earlier in the courts but she remained silent, there is one journalist who is trying to save her and the question is will she be successful? 

The story begins with her introducing her family background and the fact that she had left her marriage because she did not want to have children until her husband was financially stable.  A crime in the eyes of her in laws so she had moved back home, her father is not happy and rules the house with an iron rod.  The father battles to feed all his daughters and the thought of having a son who is not actually a son. The family go through a vast amount off issues which test them and in the end the father commits some dreadful crimes and before he commits another, his daughter kills him.  The final crime he was about to commit after killing his son and having an affair with a prostitute for money to pay off debt he had accrued was to kill a baby.  The baby was his daughter who he had with the prostitute.  

The story touched on so many issues wrong a right in modern day Pakistani including the role of women, the cast barriers we have, the war between Shia and Sunni Muslims, education for girls, love stories and should families keep trying for a boy when they can’t financially support the family they already have .  

This is a thought provoking film and even had me thinking where do i stand on these issues.  Check out the trailer below;