Salman Alam Khan’s short film captures the emotions that lie behind homosexual men leading a superficially normative life.
No Beloved review: A sensitive film about denying one's own identity
Cinestaan Rating
Release Date: 2021 / 8min
Sukhpreet Kahlon | New Delhi, 28 Aug 2021 0:56 IST
Directed by Salman Alam Khan, the Urdu-language short film No Beloved takes an incisive look at the life of an ordinary tea seller, exposing his long-suppressed desires and thoughts. The film stars Ahsen Murad, Waleed Sajid and Aliyan Ali.
Ehsaan (Murad) is a middle-aged man who runs a tea stall in Lahore. A quiet, sombre person, he goes about his daily routine without much interaction with either the customers who visit his shop or his family at home. He notices that a male couple visit his shop regularly and when they behave affectionately towards one another, Ehsaan is enraged.
In a regular, everyday setting, No Beloved evokes the feelings of abject despair and loneliness of a tea seller, whose life seems to have passed him by. As he goes through the motions of routine life, the incident of the two men disturbs him, creating ripples on an otherwise placid surface.
The film is subtle and largely relies on the performance of Murad to bring to the surface the emotions welling up within him. Facets of his life are gestured towards, making us understand his state of mind. Ehsaan finds solace in solitude and we are not shown his wife’s face as she is almost inconsequential to him. Similarly, the rush of emotions at the end is followed by a moment of guilt, even regret as we better understand his situation.
Murad ably conveys the conflicting emotions of Ehsaan, while making us empathize with the character's predicament. No Beloved sensitively captures the swell of emotions that lie behind homosexual men leading a superficially normative life.
The film was screened at the International Film Festival of South Asia Toronto.