Mukhra: Old fashioned romance

Islamabad : Lok Virsa Film Club Mandwa has selected Punjabi film ‘Mukhra’ for screening on Saturday August 11 at 5 p.m.

Directed by, Jaffar Malik, and produced by superstar of yesteryear, Santosh Kumar, ‘Mukhra’ did extremely well at the box office on its release in June 1958.

With a dazzling cast of Santosh himself with Sabiha and supported by Allaudin, Yasmin, Nazar and Asha Posley, one of the major highlights of ‘Mukhra’ was its popular score by Rasheed Attrey.

Most of the Punjabi films then (1958) dealt with urban educated hero who comes to the village for a bit of romantic adventure with the charming village heroine. ‘Mukhra’ was no exception to this age-old formula.

Fifties was a decade, when after independence, film making was beginning to pick up from the ashes of partition riots. Studios were either being refurbished (Shahnoor) or new ones coming up (Evernew). With Indian films imported regularly, the local films stood strong against the imports. Mukhra was one of those films which became pride of the film trade. As we take a break from post-election intrigues and number games of the elect parliamentarians, Mukhra takes us on down-the-memory lane trip with commendable direction-acting, crisp camerawork and magic of musical hits by Zubaida Khanum and Munir Hussain: ‘Dilla tehar ja yaar da nazara laen dey’(rendered separately by Munir Hussain and Zubaida Khanum) and ‘Mera dil channa kuch da khidona’. So relax for a couple of hours and go back to the calm and charm of the late-fifties with ‘Mukhra’.

-- aijazzgul@gmail.com