‘Dehleez’ screened at Lok Virsa

Islamabad :

Director: Javed Fazil

Producer: Tariq Masood Qureshi

Script: Syed Noor

Music: Kamal Ahmad

Cast: Nadeem, Shabnam, Afzaal, Talish, Shahida Minni.

Mandwa Film Club screened Urdu film ‘Dehleez’ from 1983 on Saturday. Director Javaid Fazil assisted S. Suleman for many years. He later made a name on his own with titles like ‘Goonj’, ‘Dehleez’, ‘Laazawal’, ‘Bazar-e-Hussan’, ‘Naraaz’ and ‘Bulandi’. He won several awards as best director. Many of his films were scripted by Syed Noor who worked wholesale in those years. Javaid Fazil holds the credit of introducing two new faces Shan and Reema with ‘Bulandi’ in 1990. Ironically, the new faces later worked in wholesale too during the nineties and beyond, and still later, opting to sell mobile telephones and cakes of soap. Stardom has its financially rewarding darker outcomes.

The plot of ‘Dehleez’, far from original (Read: Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights) has been ripped off several times on both sides of the border (‘Halchal’, ‘Dil Diya Dard Liya’).

Here the poor hero (Nadeem) faces hell in the first half of the film from vicious villain(‘Afzaal’) and his hired hands. Nadeem returns those favours with fringe benefits in the second half. In between comes songs, Shahida Mini's dances, good sets and other production effects. Composer Kamal Ahmed (one of our better but underrated composers) came in his best with two Mehdi Hassan's numbers: ‘Jeevan pyar kas pyasa’ and ‘Aaj to ghair sahi‘.

‘Dehleez’ seen today after thirty-five years of its initial release, still looks impressive if not fast-paced with today's fatigued comic acts with forcefully accompanied cut and paste plagiarised item songs of what we have to bear with in Load Wedding and Punjab Nahi Jaon Gi.