Art=(Love)2: ‘A refreshing change of theme’

Film had won six international awards, says the director.

LAHORE:

A movie made by a Pakistani director based in the United States that has nothing to do with terrorism, religious fundamentalism or other tropes of cinema created by Pakistanis for a Western audience.

Mumtaz Hussain’s film Art=(Love)² was hailed as a refreshing change by art students, film professionals and fans at its screening in Lahore at the Zahoorul Akhlaq Auditorium, National College of Arts, on Tuesday.

The film, made in New York, revolves around a struggling artist (Dean) seeking to unravel the mysterious death of his girlfriend (Isabella), a mathematician studying for a master’s degree at Columbia University.

Dean refuses to believe the police’s conclusion that Isabella, who suffered from bipolar disorder and had stopped taking her medication, committed suicide. His loss and struggle to come to terms with her death inspires him to paint. In his work, he sees clues to her murder and eventually that Isabella is trying to communicate with him. As he gets closer and closer to unravelling the mystery, Dean uncovers Isabella’s answer to a mathematical equation that she had started working on before her death.

The answer to the equation is that love is the biggest force in creating art or in trying to accomplish a difficult task.

“It was an interesting interaction between art and mathematics. The movie was very sensitively made and quite refreshing too as it didn’t have the South Asian themes used by other directors of the region,” said playwright Shahid Nadeem after the screening.

“It is a good thing that not all Pakistani filmmakers are making formula films. They are doing great work. This movie is just a glimpse of it,” said artist Rashid Rana.

Mumtaz Hussain, the director, said that the film had won six international awards.

He said that the art painted by the main character in the movie was inspired by Zahoorul Akhlaq himself, who used a lot of stripes in his work. He said that it had been his dream to become a film-maker and he was living his dream.

“The basic premise of the movie is that love never dies,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 22^nd, 2013.