Riz Ahmed is a rapper battling illness in the surreal, slight Mogul Mowgli
The Sound Of Metal comparisons are unavoidable, but Mogul Mowgli stakes out far different territory
Film Reviews Mogul Mowgli
In Sound Of Metal, Riz Ahmed played a heavy metal drummer contending with sudden hearing loss, a role that netted him an Oscar nomination. In Ahmed’s latest film, Mogul Mowgli, he plays a British-Pakistani rapper who is diagnosed with a degenerative autoimmune disease while visiting his family in London. Comparisons of the two films are unavoidable: Along with the similar premise and shared lead actor, they’re both narrative features from directors who cut their teeth in the documentary world. Still, it’s a shame this new movie will likely reside in the shadow of Sound Of Metal, since it stakes ground far removed from Darius Marder’s dual-portrait of addiction and disability. In Mogul, director Bassam Tariq and Ahmed, who also co-wrote the script, craft a psychedelic vision of an identity crisis in which inherited diasporic trauma manifests in physical illness. It’s a movie about the way that existential distress afflicts the mind and the body alike.
Ahmed’s character, Zaheer, is a typical first-generation immigrant who found his voice in Western music, mainly hip-hop and jungle, and remains on the outside of his Pakistani family’s culture after moving to America. Though he politely participates in traditions and gatherings, it’s clear he distanced himself from his parents’ working-class life a long time ago. Despite passively severing ties to his history, he mines his cultural roots for socially conscious lyrics and proudly boasts about his heritage on stage. Neither Tariq nor Ahmed judge Zaheer too harshly for his choices, which are all too common for immigrant children. When Zaheer’s cousin lambasts him for going by “Zed” on stage and with his friends, he justifiably defends himself: It’s a nickname no different than “Bob” or “Dave,” and insisting people identify him by his given name would’t be some profound anti-Western position. The flip side is that Zaheer has actually forgotten his parents’ struggles to give him the name he’s willfully changed. His focus is entirely on his music career, which is about to blow up as he embarks on an upcoming European tour.
Yet Zaheer’s plans are cut short when he lands in the hospital after his muscles start to rapidly, mysteriously deteriorate. Following a series of tests, his doctor recommends an experimental stem cell treatment that might help him manage the disease but also render him permanently infertile. Zaheer’s father, Bashir (Alyy Khan), strongly opposes this idea and tries to sway Zaheer to alternative treatments that might preserve the family lineage. The realities of the young man’s diagnosis are difficult: While re-learning to walk in physical therapy, he learns that a rival rapper (Nabhaan Rizwan) plans to replace him on tour. And with these struggles come the ghosts of his family’s past.
Zaheer’s entire sense of self fractures at the moment when he tries to pull himself together. The hospital becomes a venue for his subconscious to run amok, leading to imagined concerts and freestyle battles, as well as flashbacks to his childhood working in his father’s scrappy restaurant that take a gradual turn for the nightmarish. Sound designer Paul Davies interrupts the action with rumbling train tracks and haunting laughter. Meanwhile, a mysterious man in a flower veil taunts Zaheer, calling himself “Toba Tek Singh,” a reference to Saadat Hasan Manto’s satire about an asylum inmate caught between India and Pakistan in the wake of Partition. Some of these hallucinatory dream sequences are more obvious than others. Take, for example, Zaheer swallowing a microphone to express his refusal to cede the spotlight.
Tariq and Ahmed characterize Zaheer’s family in specific terms, whether it’s how they communicate in a mixture of English and Urdu or the religious rituals in the home or even the tenor of their arguments; all feel ripped from lived experience. Mogul Mowgli doesn’t over-explain that Zaheer’s family lives with the trauma of Partition every day, their shared character shaped by both forced and willful emigration, their lives built upon a permanently unstable foundation that the relative safety of London cannot fix. The filmmakers deserve credit, too, for abstracting a standard coming-of-age, generations-collide immigrant story into the realm of surrealism. They recognize that experimental cinematic grammar can effectively reach the truth of an outsider’s experience, which often feels divorced from reality.
Unfortunately, Mogul Mowgli relies heavily on easy metaphors and makes little effort to disguise its subtext. A doctor tells Zaheer that his body “can’t recognize itself, so it’s attacking itself”—a line that might as well be accompanied by a flashing red light, to further cue the audience that a theme is being expressed. Elsewhere, Zaheer’s ex-girlfriend (Aiysha Hart) attacks him for using his family’s name for his music without ever visiting them, explicitly stating something that was already very clear. Beyond that, Tariq and Ahmed jam too much material into just 89 minutes. At its core, Mogul Mowgli is a story about a father who has passed on his repressed emotional trauma to his son, who has in turn channelled it into music. But this central relationship takes a back seat to Zaheer’s physical deterioration, his rap career, his dark visions. The final scene strains too hard to make up for lost ground; its catharsis is unearned.
Still, Ahmed keeps Mogul Mowgli grounded even when it veers off track. He has a physical and emotional vulnerability, but also an amiable swagger and a down-to-earth quality. He can be effortlessly comedic when Zaheer fights with his manager or heartbreakingly childlike when he interacts with his parents. He never hits the same emotional note twice, even when the script asks for just one thing from him. He remains unpredictable and approachable at almost any given moment, which lends Mogul Mowgli an edge it would otherwise lack. Ahmed can’t sand over all of the flaws through sheer charisma. But with him at center, the movie is always watchable, even in its imperfections.
25 Comments
Poor Mr. Ahmed has been typecast in the worst way.
I’m excited to see this one. I feel like there’s still some people out there who have no idea how nice Rizzy is at rapping. Big fan of Swet Shop Boys and also played The Long Goodbye album countless times.
A doctor tells Zaheer that his body “can’t recognize itself, so it’s
attacking itself”—a line that might as well be accompanied by a flashing
red light, to further cue the audience that a theme is being expressed.Hey, did you know that some of us aren’t good at picking up on subtle themes, and appreciate when artists make them clear for us?
I’ve had it up to five feet, ten inches with metaphors!
Metaphors be with you.
As someone who prefers his art to be shaded more subtly, heartily co-signed. There’s no rule saying metaphors can’t be more obvious.
Yeah. The problem I have is the insistence that obvious symbolism or metaphors are inherently bad and mean a work is somehow lesser. But it should be obvious to even a casual observer that some people are better than others at picking out subtle, vague, or ambiguous meanings from a work; but it does not follow (and is not evident) that those people are therefore smarter, more insightful about human nature, kinder, or in any way “better” than people who don’t see those things as easily.
Not to mention people talk like that and doctors have literally said that phrase in real life. I don’t get the reviewers view on this.
his doctor recommends an experimental stem cell treatment that might
help him manage the disease but also render him permanently infertile.
Zaheer’s father, Bashir (Alyy Khan), strongly opposes this idea and
tries to sway Zaheer to alternative treatments that might preserve the
family lineageI’m sure this is meant to be a (not so subtle) reference to how people value masculinity over health, but in reality, sperm can be frozen so his lineage could still be persevered even if he becomes sterile due to treatment.
Pretty insanely stupid for someone to value potential grandchildren over their son’s life
Yeah, that should not be any kind of a problem.
Some cultures don’t believe in that.
Next up, Ahmed plays a drummer in a Southern Rock band struggling with Diabetes, Neuropathy, and Blindness.
He’s gonna win that Oscar for his role as a gospel singer with gout, mark my words.
I get why diabetes is—and maybe always will be—considered inherently funny in terms of American culture as a whole. After all, it’s overwhelmingly associated with people who are old and/or fat in the popular imagination—demographics often treated as cultural punchlines in and of themselves. These same traits now bear the additional baggage of being associated with Trump voters. (I’m assuming it’s not a total accident that you have the diabetic/neuropathic/blind dude playing in a “Southern rock” band.)The same logic was recently deployed by a show no less self-conscious than The Chair—which bases a lot of its comedy on the tensions inherent to wokeness and various -isms. One of the ancient, tenured professors has a low blood sugar. It’s funny, because it reinforces how old and medically fragile he is—more proof he should have retired a long time ago, maybe.As someone who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (the more serious, autoimmune kind) when I was 5, I grew up very keenly aware of diabetes’ painfully “uncool” associations. I took a lot of pride in having various friends and acquaintances say some version of, “Oh yeah, I always forget that your diabetic.” These jokes will never not rankle—even though I know, philosophically, that I don’t (yet) fit into the demographic categories that people are making fun of. It’s not funny that people go blind or lose limbs (due to neuropathy) due to diabetes complications. It’s even less funny when you consider that lack of access to healthcare increases the odds of developing those risks—and that being lower income/a person of color significantly increases your risks of being diabetic in the first place.The price of insulin has tripled in the last 20 years. I myself had to walk away from my dream career—which I was doing relatively well in—because it was impossible to get good enough insurance. And because everyone has reclassified insulin and test strips as tier 2 drugs/switched to coinsurance, staying alive costs, at minimum, at least $100/month. Even if you have really good insurance.It’s not fucking funny, dude.
My sister got Type 1 at age 4. My father has type 2 and neuropathy. I find that very much far from funny. My sister getting it felt like a living nightmare to me for a good year or two and that was just me. I can’t fathom what was going through her head, or yours when you were diagnosed. The issues Ahmeds characters’ struggle with in Sound of Metal and this new one are not funny either.I only thought it was humorous that Ahmed has back to back films about musical artists’ facing debilitating afflictions. That’s it.
I get the underlying logic of the original joke/comment for sure. And it makes sense that diabetes would be the first thing you think of if you have personal experience with it.Sorry for taking all of my diabetes-as-punchline humor frustration out on you. Linking to Ed Gamble’s “diabetic comedy is not a thing” bit here by way of apology:
“British-Pakistani”
“after moving to America”
“relative safety of London”So are they in the US or the UK?
Perhaps they are British-Pakistanis who have settled in America in one of the numerous Londons there (London, Wisconsin, London, California, London, Arkansas, London, Pennsylvania, etc.)
I read it as his Pakistani family lives in London (post-Partition, in relative safety) and while he moved away previously to the US, he is back for a visit.
Per this other review, you are correct:https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mogul-mowgli-movie-review-2021
Don’t forget about his battle with mental illness after leaking corporate secrets from his employer and having a force monster scramble his mind in Rogue One. Pretty clear parallels.
Not to mention his role in Nightcrawler, in which he played a guy suffering from extreme stupidity.
I’ll say it, I’m not a fan of Riz Ahmed. I think he’s a token Middle-Eastern/Muslim actor. He’s the goto diversity hire. Some day he’s going to pick the right disease and the right music genre and nab that oscar. No one will really care, though, as oscars have little to no value anymore.