You can imagine the scriptwriting sessions for Mogul Mowgli. Co-writers Riz Ahmed and Bassam Tariq are excitedly going through one idea after another, realizing their film needs as many references to hip-hop, Islam and history as possible. They are ambitious to the point of being overeager because they really need to say something important about the way things are. Their film, with Tariq directing and Ahmed starring, is a moderately complex portrait of a flawed English-Muslim rapper who is pulled in many directions at once. If it falls short of its ambition, it is only because their kitchen sink approach means there is no argument or specific point of view.
When we meet Zed (Ahmed), he is rapping on stage. The film is completely subtitled, even for dialogue that is in English, which is helpful since we can read what he raps about. It is all about identity, defiance and inner turmoil. His lyrics express fear, anxiety and ultimately defiance, so it is unsurprising he just finished a successful club tour in the United States. The big break finally comes: Zed agrees to open for a famous rapper on his upcoming tour, but not before he returns home to London for a few days. He hasn’t been home for years, and he find himself alienated by the community he has been rapping about. But that is not his worst problem: Zed develops a mysterious chronic illness, one that weakens his muscle movement.
This is Tariq’s first narrative feature after years of documentary filmmaking, and his background adds verisimilitude to the material. All the interiors, particular Zed’s family home, have lived-in details that say more about his life than any dialogue. His handheld style also leads to dramatic intensity, like a bizarre scene where Zed’s fan – arguably a more devout Muslim – confronts him. The push/pull between fandom and resentment is one of the few recognizable scenes of human eccentricity.
The 4:3 aspect ratio further heightens this intimacy, since the frame gives Zed and the other actors scarce room to breathe. This is never clearer than the frequent dream sequences, where Tariq and Ahmed conflate Zed’s interest into a hallucinatory cocktail of angst and doubt. With an added dose of hallucinatory imagery, Mogul Mowgli is at its best when it leaves an impression and does not say anything specific.
Aside from the dream sequences, the more traditional drama is where the film starts to stumble. Zed’s story as a first-generation immigrant is not a unique one, nor is his frayed relationship with his parents, and this familiar territory does not have the sting that Ahmed and Tariq intended. It is does not help that the premise invites easy comparisons to Sound of Metal, another film where Ahmed plays an intense musician who reels from an unexpected illness. That film has the patience and curiosity to delve into the deaf community, whereas this film provides us a shallower context. Maybe Tariq and Ahmed’s screenplay could have been longer, which would give their screenplay more oxygen (there are references, for example, to 20th century India/Pakstian relations that could have used more hand-holding). Instead of detail and deeper character background, we see several plots and subplots resolve before we can full understand the stakes.
Zed is a character with a lot to prove. The hip-hop and Muslim communities could not be more different, except practitioners in both believe in a specific kind of purity that can lead to one-upmanship. There are multiple scenes where Zed, as both a rapper and a Muslim, thinks about how his beliefs are more sincere than those of his contemporaries. That two-pronged desire for something to prove must take its toll, so Zed’s illness resonates more as a metaphor than a physical ailment. By the time Zed confronts his demons and finds some piece of mind, it is not because we have seen his journey reach its character-driven conclusion. Unfortunately, this is a film where the protagonist does not earn his wisdom, and he finds it only because, well, it has to end somewhere.
Photo courtesy of BBC Films
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