Jafar Khanzada is 76, has outlived two wives and is all set to take a third. She is 16. She was the first – and the only – woman he ever truly loved. She is a ghost.
Such occult ambition is unsurprising in the mountainous region known as “Land of Nowhere”. Here, characters have names out of One Thousand and One Nights, the undead walk among the living, and a woman declares, “Only the things that die are real.”
Asim Abbasi’s Barzakh has every intention to enchant. Barzakh (Limboland) has an unusual premise inspired by folklore, eye-watering locations in Hunza Valley in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, and attractive actors, including Sanam Saeed and Fawad A Khan. (There’s a second Fawad Khan too in the cast).
Abbasi and cinematographer Mo Azmi thrown in psychedelic imagery as well as seamless transitions between the waking state and the dream world. Land of Nowhere is a holding place for emotionally stunted men, women and children. Everywhere they turn, there is a spirit or two from their troubled past, reminding them of crushed dreams or lingering regrets.
Episodes of new show from the Pakistani director of the wonderful film Cake (2018) and the gripping series Churails will be out from July 19 on ZEE5 and Zee Zindagi’s YouTube channel at 8 pm every Friday and Tuesday.
The series kicks off with a flashback, the first of many, which reveals Jafar’s relationship with Mahtab and their parting. In the present, Jafar’s sons Saifullah (Fawad M Khan) and Shehryar (Fawad A Khan) reluctantly turn up for Jafar’s proposed union with the undead Mahtab. While Saifullah is single, Shehryar is a widower who has brought along his nine-year-old son Haaris (Syed Arham).
At Jafar’s Mahtab Mahal hotel, the siblings meet his gnomic secretary Scheherazade (Sanam Saeed). Scheherazade is a willing conspirator in the nuptials, unlike the leery locals, which includes Jafar’s truculent brother Lumberdaar.
Aarij Hashimi’s excellent production design imagines Jafar’s hotel as a living organism that rests on a foundation of uncomfortable secrets, unresolved trauma and generational violence. The fable-like narrative’s foreshadowing extends to the props – there are decorations created out of dead branches and portal-shaped passages. Rather than a tourist destination, the picturesque Hunza Valley emerges as a midway zone between life and the afterlife.
The series is ambitious, flourish-filled and always visually striking. However, tremendous patience is needed to follow a needlessly tortuous and repetitive plot. Barzakh oversells its premise, overdoes the cosmic chatter and stretches out a fairly straightforward story.
On-the-nose, ponderous dialogue and awkward staging characterise the early beats of a show that is bold but equally worried about how abstract it can actually get. The better scenes are the quieter moments between characters, with Shehryar’s track emerging as the most emotionally resonant.
For all the metaphysical references or allusions to the region’s feudal past, Barzakh is driven by simplistic, almost banal, ideas drawn from contemporary practices of therapy. The series is big on self-healing, with conversations having the ring of counselling sessions. The heavily aestheticised treatment further blunts the exploration of inherited trauma.
The insistent obliqueness is best embodied by Sanam Saeed’s Scheherazade. Saeed is also the most noteworthy performer in Barzakh, making her mark early and subtly developing the enigma of Scheherazade’s origins over the roughly hour-long episodes.
Both the Fawads are impressive in different registers. Fawad M Khan movingly portrays Saifullah’s emotional repression. Fawad A Khan does just fine in his scenes with his precocious son, but loses his balance when tussling with Jafar.
The show’s tendency towards bloat is aptly captured by Salman Shahid’s Jafar. Shahid (whose Indian credits include the 2010 film Ishqiya) has a distinctive rasping voice and a fondness for over-reacting. Jafar tends to get on his family’s nerves. With his harrumphing histrionics, Shahid does so too.
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