Daily Times

The sound of a film is as important as the image. The finest film scenes in the history of cinema owe both to visual and aural excellence, and in equal measure; indeed, they do not allow the separation of sound and image. Sound design and engineering can make or break a film.

Sound engineering has evolved greatly in the last one hundred years. A number of new techniques have been developed. New, powerful equipment keeps getting introduced year after year. Yet there remains only one right way of recording sound for films – sync sound. It requires capturing sound at the time of filming.

The art of foley is no art at all. Neither is dubbing and nor is automated dialogue replacement. The devices of foley, dubbing and ADR have limited use – in science fiction, action adventure and a few other film genres – and take away from the life, energy and spontaneity of films. They rob films of vigor and liveliness. They remove hilarity from jokes, romance from love, and passion from hatred. They really do not have a place in serious filmmaking.

The norm for European and Hollywood films is to synchronise sound and image at the time of shooting. South Asian cinema, sadly, started favoring dubbing over sync sound when the Mitchells gave way to the Arris. India stopped using sync sound in the 1960s and did not return to it until the 21st century when the makers of Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001) and Dil Chahta Hai (2001) decided to record sound live during the shoot of the films. The welcome development started a trend and evolved into a movement, led by highly-skilled sound engineers, like Manas Choudhary, Sanjay Das, Baylon Fonseca, Nakul Kamte, Anand Krishnamoorthi, Debashish Mishra, Arun Nambiar, Indrajit Neogi, Resul Pookutty, and Dileep Subrahmaniam, to introduce sync sound to Indian cinema. The movement is changing Indian cinema, surely albeit a bit slowly, and for the better.

The film, without a doubt, is the work of a devoted, determined and confident filmmaker who does not believe in cutting corners, taking short cuts and accepting mediocrity. This is the kind of filmmaker Pakistani cinema needs and not one that believes in going with the tide, making do with what is easily available, and not taking risks

Pakistani cinema, unfortunately, lags far behind others in the area of sound design and engineering. Sync sound, without a doubt, is not easy to employ. It requires confidence, talent and discipline on the part of the entire cast and crew. It also requires skill, talent and expertise. Most importantly, it requires an unflinching commitment to cinematic excellence. The benefits – life, energy, vivacity, authenticity, accuracy, emotional integrity, acting potency, savings of time and money, among many others – of recording sound live are tremendous.

It is heartening to see Asim Abbasi’s upcoming feature film, Cake, reap the many benefits of sound recording, and use splendid sound, along with exquisite visuals, to create an exceedingly polished look for the film. The artistic, novel and effective trailer of Cake, released on February 15, 2018, reignites hope for Pakistani cinema; hope that the 22 Pakistani films had all but erased in the year 2017.

The trailer of the film, establishes three artists – cinematographer Mo Azmi, production designer Aarij Hashimi and sound recordist Faiz Zaidi – as the most important behind-the-scenes stars of Cake. The three young men create a unique look and feel for the film; one that is, at once, arresting and austere; and one that has, heretofore, not been seen in Pakistani movies. Originality, ingenuity and individuality are on resplendent display in each and every frame of the film’s trailer. The lack of the three attributes in Pakistani movies has held the country’s film industry back for 71 years. This needs to change for Pakistani cinema to comes into its own. Cake may well prove to be the harbinger of this much-needed change.

Geographically, Pakistan sits between India and Iran, and is a part of a world that is heavily influenced by the United States of America. It is also a country that has a history of producing good television plays. These facts have conspired to hold Pakistani filmmakers hostage to four primary areas of influence – Bollywood, new wave Iranian cinema, Hollywood, and Pakistani television dramas. Pakistani cinema cannot and will not succeed until the corrosive, restrictive influence is eliminated.

The trailer of Cake promises a film that is not influenced by the garish excess of Bollywood, the neorealism of Iranian cinema, the intransportable capers of Hollywood, and the didactic emotionalism of Pakistani television. Cake may, or may not, turn out to be a good film but its originality will make it an important film in the annals of Pakistani cinema and, hopefully, a turning point for an industry that needs to embrace originality to evolve, grow and thrive.

Cake tells the story of a happy but deeply troubled family. Sisters Zareen (Aamina Sheikh) and Zara (Sanam Saeed) struggle to deal with their aging yet feisty parents, Habiba (Beo Raana Zafar) and Siraj (Mohammed Ahmed), while keeping dark secrets, repressed anger, sibling rivalry, and other troubling issues at bay. Romeo (Adnan Malik) is an outsider looking to get together with a girl clearly out of his league. Things come to a head when the parents decide to celebrate their wedding anniversary at their farmhouse where things unravel dramatically. Innocent laughter soon give way to ugly confrontations as the family is forced to face its demons.

The actors, as can be seen in the two-and-a-half-minute long trailer, are in top form in Cake. Beo Raana Zafar as the hearty matriarch of the family is truly lovable. She delivers some particularly charming, funny but not hilarious, lines with remarkable gusto and energy. Mohammed Ahmed embodies the persona of the aging head of the family with resigned grace and confidence. Sanam Saeed looks good and has remarkable screen presence. Her performance, as a young lady who may have abandoned her family in the past, is both nuanced and intelligent. The trailer has Mikaal Zulfiqar deliver a lackluster line of dialog that does not allow room for histrionic display. The handsome young actor, nevertheless, registers his presence in the film by doing what he has always done very well – look good. The two actors who steal the show in the trailer are, hands down, Adnan Malik and Aamina Sheikh. Cake’s hero is not the stylish, dapper young Adnan Malik but a capable, committed actor who relinquishes his chic real-life persona to take on one that is decidedly plain and nerdy; that he brings charm and likability to the role of Romeo is a testament to the histrionic skills of dedicated actor. Aamina Sheikh is energetic, earnest and powerful as a young lady who believes that she has had to carry more than her fair share of familial burdens. Sheikh is a highly resourceful actor who proves her mettle, yet another time, in Cake, does so by relying on her enormous histrionic skills and not on her considerable good looks. She shines in the trailer of Cake, and seems to the vigorously beating heart at the center of Cake.

The trailer of Cake is a veritable showcase for a lot of the film’s qualities – a remarkable colour palette, natural dialogs, remarkable cinematography, poetic storytelling, realistic style, apropos scoring, and a confident tone. The film, without a doubt, is the work of a devoted, determined and confident filmmaker who does not believe in cutting corners, taking short cuts and accepting mediocrity. This is the kind of filmmaker Pakistani cinema needs and not one that believes in going with the tide, making do with what is easily available, and not taking risks. If Cake ends up being the great film that the trailers promises it will be, it will be primarily because of the punctilious style of filmmaker Asim Abbasi. It is obvious that he wrote the film with care, attention and devotion. He chose the look and feel of the film carefully. He made his cast prepare and rehearse diligently. He was personally involved in the sound and visual design of the film. He was personally and professionally vested in the film. He tried to do everything right the first time. And he never used the most deplorable of phrases in cinema: “We will fix this in post!”

The writer lives in Dallas and writes about culture, history and the arts. He tweets @allyadnan and can be reached at allyadnan@theafterhoursgroup.com

Published in Daily Times, February 17^th 2018.