‘Mirza Jatt’ to be screened on Saturday

Islamabad

Director: Masood Pervaiz

Screenplay, Dialogue, Lyrics: Ahmad Rahi

Music: Rashid Attrey

Cast: Firdaus, Ijaz,Meena Shorey, Ilyas Kashmiri, Munawar Zareef

Lok Virsa Film Club Mandwa in sync with its ‘Mother Language Literature Festival’ celebrations has selected Punjabi film ‘Mirza Jatt’ for screening on Saturday (February 18), at 3 p.m.

‘Mirza Jatt’ came in 1967. Colour film ‘Sangam’ (from Dhaaka) and ‘Naila’ from Lahore had made it big and good old Black and White was still strong. Director Masood Pervaiz had by now established himself as master of musicals with composer, Khursheed Anwar, in films like ‘Intezaar’, ‘Zeher-e-Ishaq’ and ‘Jhoomar’. Later Masood Pervaiz and Khursheed Anwar parted for a while and that is when ‘Mirza Jatt’ came. This time, Masood Pervaiz joined composer Rashid Attrey, Noorjehan and lyricist, Ahmad Rahi to create the musical spell.

Firdaus and Ijaz played the leads with Meena Shorey and Ilyas Kashmiri as parents and Munawar Zareef as the village clown.

The highlight of ‘Mirza Jatt’ is its songs and Black and White camerawork by relatively obscure cameraman, M R Ahmad.

We don't see much romance between leading pairs. More of it is shown in the first twenty minutes as we see them growing  up in the village and then parting. So many films have been made on Punjab folk romance and this is just one more folk tale.

Rashid Attrey's compositions, Ahmad Rahi's poetry (Lyrics) and Noorjehan's exceptionally good voice are the highlights here:

‘Dil waley boovey ajay mei nai’ and ‘Ario pyar na karna’ are the very best from the sixties.

aijazzgul"gmail.com