Mogul Mowgli
BBC FilmsBefore venturing out to see Mogul Mowgli, some basic preparation is likely required, so as to enable the viewer to appreciate where this film is coming from, what it is attempting to convey and – most importantly – why it looks the way it looks. This is because, despite carrying a deeply personal story, it is not actually rooted in hard facts but rather a collective cultural experience shared by many.
Therefore, it is best to see this film not as a straightforward narrative but a collection of moments strung together to make a hybrid between an experimental collage and a prototypical parable. In it, a young musician on the precipice of his big break (Riz Ahmed) finds out he is suffering from a terribly debilitating illness and is forced to abandon his career and move back to London into the care of his parents. There, he is confronted with his past struggle as an artist, a generational trauma inherited from his family, and the complexity of his own cultural identity.
Admittedly, this is quite a lot for any film to execute with any degree of artistic credibility, let alone a seemingly unassuming indie effort driven by a tandem of young storytellers. However, the reason why Mogul Mowgli succeeds instead of succumbing to the siren song of narrative conveniences a story like this quite openly asks for, is found in the raw and unhindered approach of its creators. It is abundantly clear that Bassam Tariq and Riz Ahmed weren’t primarily driven by the idea of conforming to well-established templates, because the story proper was merely a crutch for them. For all intents and purposes, this movie is not about Zed’s journey as an artist or his ordeal trying to regain control over his ailing body. Instead, the story presented within the film with all its dense nuance is a touchstone to relay Tariq and Ahmed’s immensely personal experiences to the audiences, which is why the film might come across as a tonally jarring experiment to some viewers or a caustic dramedy to others. However, to a specific subsection of the audience pre-attuned to its thematic frequency, Mogul Mowgli will be a profound reflection of their own struggle of internalizing the immigrant experience.
The most compelling aspect of this film is the way the filmmakers handle the innately contrived nature of growing up in an immigrant household. To circumvent the language of schmaltzy clichés, they employ the aforementioned methodology of using moments as their primary language. Hence, every frame of the film is pivotal to its message. Every rhyme uttered by Zed has a meaning. Every dream sequence has a purpose, every seemingly disposable moment is working towards building a mesmerisingly authentic image familiar to anyone who grew up in a foreign country. The image of cultural homelessness.
That’s what Mogul Mowgli truly is underneath its aggressive imagery: a portrait of a man who struggles to fit in because the culture of his parents alienates him, while the culture of his peers tacitly rejects him. This isn’t easy to portray with necessary honesty yet, despite occasionally indulging in highly metaphorical imagery, the filmmakers do this concept justice. They somehow manage to convey the paradoxical nature of this predicament without jarring the viewer or veering into the territory of tone-deaf cliché. Even though they fill the gaps between the ‘workhorse’ character moments – Zed pretending to pray, arguing with his relatives over religion or listening to his old rhymes recorded over traditional Pakistani music of his parents – with highly symbolic and abstract sequences, the film remains grounded. Consequently, its message reverberates even more profoundly.
All in all, Tariq and Ahmed’s film can be understood as a quasi-documentary. Although it is technically manufactured on a narrative level, its thematic honestly is translated verbatim from the real lives of its creators. Mogul Mowgli is an intricately bittersweet character odyssey reflecting the nuance of the immigrant experience, lived and organic. It delineates the crucial process some viewers will definitely find familiar which leads Zed from cultural homelessness, through aggressive self-appropriation, towards a climactic self-actualization as a synthesis of both cultures – not their reject. Thanks to the artistic audacity of Bassam Tariq and the unrestrained on-screen energy Riz Ahmed brings to the table, Mogul Mowgli is uniquely lifelike, harrowing and, most importantly, uplifting.
