In Flames: ambitious Pakistani horror
Pervasive patriarchal threat tips into paranormal activity in the life of a young Pakistani medical student, resulting in a slightly predictable tale of haunting rooted in dark family secrets.
Many horror stories begin with a journey: from a safe home to a bad place when Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania or from a realm of dark magic to a world of complacent normality which is about to be disrupted when Dracula comes to Britain. Writer-director Zarrar Kahn takes a different approach – his beleaguered heroine Mariam (Ramesha Nawal) doesn’t need to go to a bad place because apparently, she already lives there. As it unfolds into a slightly predictable tale of haunting rooted in a suppressed family history, In Flames provides countless examples of the pervasive abuse of women in Pakistan. Apparitions – threatening or terrifying – torment Mariam but here no ghost is as dangerous as any given man. In the sense of a recent internet buzz story, she’s alone in the woods (the crowded city of Karachi) but doesn’t get a choice between a strange man and a bear since she is constantly assailed by many incarnations of both, regular male threats and unpredictable paranormal activity.
Twenty-five-year-old Mariam, who is studying to be a doctor, is still traumatised by the nasty way her father died (and lived) when she was little and is further shaken by the recent death of her cop grandfather. Her mother Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar) is at the mercy of a smooth, ruthless uncle (Adnan Shah) who wants her to sign the apartment over to him. A relationship with a nice fellow student involves a rom-com sweet stretch punctuated by stern truncheon-raps from religious police who intervene if the couple sit too close together on a park bench. Theoretically on a career path to independence and frustrated by her mother’s refusal to stand up for herself (which turns out to be much more complicated), Mariam is still prone to having her car window (and nerves) shattered by a flung brick, courtesy of a fanatic who hangs around the library, incensed by the notion that a woman might drive.
After a tragic road accident – which might be seen as punishment for taking a day off to go to the beach – a shaken Mariam is haunted by glimpses of a ghost she can’t identify. More physical persecution comes from a literal wanker who leers up at her balcony and another random psychopath. Ambitious Mariam becomes a haunted doormat while traditionalist Fariha – a teacher – comes into her own as an active heroine, precipitating a fiery climax back at the beach (a significant location in the backstory) as mother and daughter bond and unleash psychic energies to get rid of a bad man and a worse ghost.
► In Flames is in UK cinemas now.