Life & Style

‘Sarkata Insaan’ director sharpens his axe again

Saeed Rizvi on importance of visual effects for a film industry and upcoming project

Hasan Ansari May 24, 2015

Sarkata Insaan is remembered for a sequence featuring Babra Sharif dancing with Pink Panther and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. PHOTOS: FILE

KARACHI:

During the late 1980s, Robert Zemeckis’ film Who Framed Roger Rabbit proved to be a turning point for Hollywood. The movie successfully merged 2D animation into a live-action series. Drawing inspiration from these visual effects, Pakistani director Saeed Rizvi attempted to breathe life into the then dying film industry with Sarkata Insaan (1991). It is remembered for a sequence featuring Babra Sharif dancing with Pink Panther and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It also established Rizvi as a visionary director.

Rizvi is set to make his comeback with his latest project, to be announced after Eid. Keeping the details under wraps, he reveals it would be a “sci-fi movie but with a romantic angle to it.” He says, “Neither am I Hrithik Roshan’s father nor do I have the kind of money to get my friends from the US to work on the film. But one thing is for sure that I’d do the layering of the effects in Pakistan and have them blended abroad.”

Having started his career as a TVC director, Rizvi always had a flair for visual effects. “Mary Poppins inspired me to use live-action animation in an ad I did for a bubble-gum brand,” he tells The Express Tribune. His passion took him to Los Angeles, where he refined his skills by working as an apprentice in a visual effects company. Upon his return, his father, a filmmaker himself, urged him to try his hand at the silver screen. Keen to test his newly-acquired skills in the local industry, he directed the sci-fi Shaani, which sustained at the box office.

Recalling the challenges of working during the 1980s, he shares, “Things were even more difficult as everything was analogue. You had to draw on each cell and it used to be a time-consuming process.” Having witnessed the rise, fall and resurgence of Pakistani cinema, Rizvi holds that the downfall was merely the outcome of our own inefficiency and the inability to keep up with international standards. “With the arrival of the digital age, the cost of production rose, and there were only a few multiplexes. We just couldn’t keep up.”

Rizvi (center) speaking at a press conference last year

Mindful of the logistics of international cinema, he thinks the Pakistani industry is lagging behind, citing the dearth of film-financing corporations as a major factor. “We need film-financing corporations to encourage more producers. The government should give loans at low mark-up otherwise we’ll continue to have very few films each year.”

Even the current film releases have failed to impress Rizvi. He says, “Movies, such as Na Maloom Afraad, are not films … they are like telefilms. The directors of these movies need to go abroad and upgrade their style.” He feels people are interested in sci-fi films and if they have the added element of “desi ghee ka tarka” [visual effects], they’d be more popular. He recalls how people loved Sarkata Insaan, a movie which was ahead of its time. “People were screaming in cinemas when they saw Ghulam Mohiuddin’s head crawling in.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2015.

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COMMENTS (1)

Enthan John | 3 years ago | Reply The Best Film Of The Year 8 Nigar Award Winner - Sir Katta Insaan - 1994 The Rizvi Family Of Filmmakers From Karachi Ought To Be Lauded For Their Risk-Taking As Several Of Their Home Productions Have At Least Attempted To Break Away From Stale Lollywood Formula Of Light Romantic-Comedy Violence And Mushy Dramatics. The Family Being Devout Karachi Folk Even Built Their Own Studios So That They Wouldn t Have To Travel To Lahore Each Time They Shot A Film. In 1989 The Rizvi s Released A Much Hyped First Science Fiction Film Of The Sub-Continent Named Shanee Which Proved Popular And Managed To Bag An Award Or Two Along The Way. Now He Aimed Even Further With An Oddball Mix Of Starman Frankenstein And Dirty Harry And Sir Katta Insaan A Film That Went On To Garner No Less Than 8 Nigar Awards Which Are Pakistan s Version Of The Academy Awards. Clearly Encouraged By His Success With Science Fiction And Hooked On Special Effects The Senior Rizvi Now Began To Concoct His Next Magnum Opus - A Film That Would Again Be Heavily Reliant On Special Effects And Make-Up But Instead Of The Raiders Of The Lost Ark Like Scenario Of 1989 s Shanee This New Film Would Have A Sort Of Desi-Gothic Setting With Horror As The Story s Backbone. The Rizvi s Signed Up Several Of The Actors From Shanee Including Babra Sharif Nayyer Sultana Asif Khan And Talish Who Were Joined By Izhar Kazi And Ghulam Mohiuddin In The Key Role Of The Sir Katta Insaan. The Story Of This Film Follows A Very Similar Pattern To That Of Shanee s - A Dead Man Returns From The Outside To Find That He Appears To Have A Mission To Accomplish As Well As To Track Down Those Who Were Responsible For His Premature Death. However While Shanee Was More Of An Adventure Film Sir Katta Insaan Is An Outright Horror Film That Includes Fleeting Moments Of Spectacular Gore Some Memorable Imagery And Even Some Thinly Disguised Political References. It s A Horror Film That Attempts To Be Somewhat Profound At The Same Time - A Noble Effort But Whether It Succeeds In This Endeavour Is Certainly Questionable. In 1967 Lollywood Produced The Stunning Zinda Laash Which Was A Straight Remake Of Stoker s Dracula And This Time Around Rizvi Appears To Be Taking More Than A Leaf Out Of Shelley s Frankenstein As The Film Begins With A Mad Scientist Qavi Attempting To Bring A Cadaver Back To Life. This Experiment Has A Strange Twist To It As It Involves Not Only Bringing The Dead Back To Life But Also Merging One Man s Head With Another Man s Body - And Here s The Twist - The Head Freshly Killed Belongs To Some Brilliant Police Officer Anwer Ghulam Mohiuddin While The Body He Is Being Attached To Is That Of A Cold-Hearted Murderer The Mad Scientist s Diabolical Experiments Are Being Funded By A Notorious Group Of International Terrorists Whose Aim Is To Destabilize The Country For Their Own Nefarious Purposes. Unfortunately Like All Mad Scientists Deranged Schemes This One Too Goes Horribly Wrong And Super Mission As The Creature Is Known Simply Walks Up To The Severed Head And Attaches It Onto His Neck And Walks Off Triumphantly Having Caused Qavi s Lab Some Serious Damage. The Creature Seems To Be Ruled By The Brain Of The Instinctively Good Police Officer By Day But By Night The Creatures Body Is Taken Over By The Murderous Spirit Of Its Previous Inhabitant And It Takes To Removing The Head From Its Neck And Walking Around Town With A Sharp Axe In One Hand And The Severed Head In The Other - Not A Pretty Picture At All. The Good Anwer Tries To Subdue The Killer Instincts Of The Mass Murderer But Doesn t Really Succeed As The Body Count Continues To Mount. Then He Realizes That He Has To Harness And Channel The Murderous Rage By Turning It Against That Criminal Terrorist Network That Had Been Responsible For His Own Death Less Than A Week Ago. So The Headless Creature Prowls At Night Searching Out The Scummy Terrorists One By One. Meanwhile An Impish Lois Lane Type By The Name Of Ambreen Babra Sharif Develops A Massive Schoolgirl Crush On The Dead Creature Which Leads To Some Awkward Complications. This Desi Fusion Of The Typical Revenge Masala Film And The Frankenstein Story Needs To Be Commended If Only For The Fact That It Is Something So Different From The Drab Run-Of-The-Mill Norm. However It Suffers From The Usual Problems That Films Of This Nature From The Sub-Continent Suffer - They Don t Quite Know If They Want To Be A Horror Film Or A Romance Or A Typical Commercial Film And It Seems That Film Makers Are So Straight Jacketed By Their Reliance On the Prescribed Formula That They End Up Having To Pander To All The Ingredients Of The Magic Formula And Thus You Get Horror Films Being Injected With Romantic Sub-plots And Extended Comedy Routines As Well As Songs Which Completely Destroy Any Semblance Of Tension That The Story Might Have Been Able To Create. Another Rigid Formula That Seemingly Has To Be Followed Is One Of Running Length - It Seems That The Filmmakers Perceive That Unless They Provide Films That Are Above 2 Hours And 20 Minutes In Length They Will Be Seen To Be Ripping Off The Public. Sir Katta Insaan Could Have Benefited Enormously With Some Judicious And Extensive Cutting. The Plus Points Are A Restrained Performance By Ghulam Mohiuddin Which Won Him The Best Actor Nigar Award And Some Effective Camerawork And Lighting Both Of Which Also Won Awards. The Low Point Of The Film Is An Abysmal Disco Number Picturized On Babra Sharif That Features A Particularly Loathsome Ninja Turtle And His Equally Nauseating Friends Bopping Along With The Dwarf-Like Ms. Sharif To A Song That Is Beyond Unlistenable. The Special Effects Which Needed To Be Very Impressive In Order To Give The Film Any Credibility Are Spectacularly And Laughably Bad For The Most Part Though There Are Moments When They Just Scrape Bye. The Film Was Awarded The Best Film Of The Year Nigar Award For 1994 A Total Of 8 Nigar s Won Perhaps Due To Its Sensitive Thoughtful And Positive Portrayal Of The Creature And His Quest To Rid The Nation Of Nasty Anti-State Elements A Sober Noble Effort From The Rizvi Clan But A Word Of Warning For Lusting Horror Fans - This Aint No Zinda Laash

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