75th Cannes Film Festival | Joyland: gender confusion in Pakistan

(Cannes) Repressed homosexuality, suffocating patriarchy, established transsexuals: joylandthe first film from Pakistan in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, is surprising, carried by an irradiant transgender actress, Alina Khan.

Saim Sadiq’s first feature film, presented in the Un Certain Regard section, sweeps away all the clichés current in the West about Pakistani society. One of the morals of the film is that transsexuals have, in certain respects, more leeway to assert themselves than heteronormative couples, from whom we expect procreation and submission to a patriarchal model.

“Transsexuals do not live as freely as they would, for example, in France, but their way of life is far from what we imagine in the West when we think of the ‘Muslim world'”, described for AFP Saim Sadiq.

Pakistan “is very schizophrenic, almost bipolar, in that you have, of course, some violence towards a particular community (transgender people) on the one hand, but also this very progressive law, passed in 2018, which allows everyone to identify by their gender, including a third gender”, unfolds the filmmaker.

His film tells the story of Haider (Ali Junejo), youngest son of a family unit of two couples who live under the same roof and under the authority of the patriarch. His wife works, he doesn’t, they don’t have any children yet and you can tell he’s disappointing his father, an old clan chief, by not fitting in with the virile contours in force.

“Represent the trans community”

Height of the situation, when he finally finds a job, it is as a dancer (a little awkward) in a cabaret whose stars are transgender artists. And now he falls under the spell of one of them, Biba, nicknamed “Madame”, an ambitious and colorful magazine leader.

She is wonderfully embodied by Alina Khan, who responded to an ad from the director for her short film Darling (2019). It is one of the revelations of the 75^and Cannes Film Festival and she made the happiness of the photographers at each of her passages on a very pale red carpet with regard to her outfits.

“Very happy to be in Cannes”, Alina Khan is proud to “represent the trans community which does not always have such a great opportunity in Pakistan”, as she told AFP. “The message I want to send to the world is that the trans community should be able to do whatever they want like anyone else.”

Her diva character will take an increasingly important place in Haider’s life. Like the giant advertising sign bearing the image of Biba that he is obliged to keep overnight in the family home for a logistical problem.

“Always in the fight”

A devastating domino effect: as Haider has found a job, his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) is asked to let go of hers and stay home to help her sister-in-law who has four children. An infernal gear.

Mumtaz withers like an insect stuck in a jar when “Madame” flutters under the lights of the cabaret where she performs, trying behind the scenes to create a life as a couple.

“Women fight against their domestication and for trans women it’s practically the opposite, they fight for a place in their homes. They fight to stay with their families, so as not to end up on the street, ”explains the director.

“Madame”, all in long nails, does not hesitate to show her claws to assert her place. “When you say ‘no’ to Biba, she does everything to hear ‘yes’, to take control. This is why Biba and I, Alina, are alike, two big bosses, always in a fight, ”depicts the actress.

Haider, in full confusion of genres, will lose much more than his bearings. “Even in the West you know that straight white men take the top spots. In Pakistan, it’s the same thing”.