Karakoram road movie

By Daniel Nelson

Dukhtar

Image by Dukhtar

The Karakoram Highway and the rest of the scenery alone is worth the price of admission, and their escape bid will keep your gripped.

The mother’s motivation stems from her own marriage to an older tribal leader, which she doesn’t want her daughter to be forced to repeat, especially as her husband has not allowed her to see her mother for years. As a single woman on the road she is highly visible and vulnerable – she might as well be wearing a huge label saying “Free to abuse” – so even a glimpse in public could end in disaster.

It switches freely between genres, so you are never sure what’s coming next. Arranged marriage preparations for a girl so innocent she thinks babies come from a boy and a girl exchanging looks; a brutal assassination; a dewy, soft focus scene of unstated mutual attraction; a warm meeting with an old friend at a tea shop followed by a murder that is never referred to again; the reality of a young girl peeing uncontrollably on the front seat; a rural idyll when mother and child can finally relax – for a while.

Director Afia Nathaniel was brought up in mainly Pashtun Quetta, and told the Express Tribune that she had wanted to put new life into the image of Pashtun culture: “You will get to see a strong Pashtun woman in the lead role in a film that doesn’t require her to do an item song. How often do you get to see that depiction in Pakistani cinema?”

It’s occasionally simplistic, as when the good-looking and kind-hearted and initially unwilling truck driver switches into war vet and deadly killer. But for most of the time it maintains a cracking pace and sense of excitement, and the entire premise is built on opposition to child marriage (in this case, to end a blood feud) and respect for a mother’s determination: the film is dedicated to the director’s mother and motherland.