Mogul Mowgli

Mogul Mowgli

 

Director - Bassam Tariq

Writers - Riz Ahmed & Bassam Tariq

Stars - Riz Ahmed, Anjana Vasan, Aiysha Hart

2020, UK-USA

 

Bassam Tariq’s debut – about a rap artist on the verge of some success when he’s stricken by a crippling illness – juggles neo-realisms with dreamy surrealist interludes to avoid being totally kitchen sink.

 

Tariq And Ahmed’s greatest achievement is in portraying how ordinary lives are steeped in conflict of family, culture, expression, generation and of the self. Even down to a rap battle where the conflict is between Pakistani and Black experience (aside from dropping to “your mum/dad” insults). The picture it paints of familiar bonds and the lived experience of this particular generation and culture feels authentic. Every scene is infused with the struggle for identity, chaffing against the strictures and expectations of class, gender, culture, creed, all that. We are constantly told to Live The Dream and Be Yourself and The World Is Yours because advertising has found that’s the way to make a lot of money, but reality has a way of showing that to be the con job it is. Zed wants to say something about this, about his community, but sometimes you get ill and it doesn’t happen.

 

Characters are gruff rather than sentimental in a rough-and-tumble way that is perhaps a feature of class. Love is expressed messily but sincerely just by loyalty and being there. And Zed’s talent is real, and ultimately his plight and struggle for relevance and dignity are moving (the phone call to an ex and the final bathroom scenes are heart-breaking). If the film sometimes feels messy and confused about what it’s doing, that’s thoroughly in line with Zed’s mindset. It is about identity, after all.

 

‘Mogul Mowgli’ is also a film where the bathroom is the regular theatre of humiliation, overcoming of odds and family battles and bonding: these are the arguably the best scenes. A character study that takes it time building a heady and relatable emotional charge. Riz Ahmed’s performance of an artist’s sophistication existing beneath the blunt edges and demands of his character, culture and ambition, trying to be profound and truthful, is exceptional. He makes Zed’s frustration with everything a tangible, hugely relatable thing. And any young angry artist can knows his spikey passion, surely. The rap artform may not be to your taste, but rarely has there been such a down-to-earth portrayal of being a working class artist and never hitting the mark you’ve been so impassioned for. Life gets in the way.