Mogul Mowgli: Riz Ahmed Goes Deep Tackling the Push-Pull of Children of Immigrants

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B-plus

There is a gorgeous performance at the center of Mogul Mowgli. Riz Ahmed - who co-wrote the screenplay with director Bassam Tariq, and is producer on this project - once again shows that he’s an actor who not only can, but wants to take his characters deep.  

On the surface, the movie is about Zed, a young British man of Pakistani heritage, on the cusp of breaking open his career as a rapper.  But, the film, a mix of straightforward drama and magic realism, is a potent metaphor for the immigrant experience and intergenerational trauma.

Zed is a second-generation Brit of Pakistani heritage, an up and coming rapper, about a week away from going on an international tour that could be the big career break he’s been working for. 

Riz Ahmed is an aspiring rapper wrestling with the pressure of his cultural heritage in Mogul Mowgli.

Then comes a visit to his parents. 

While there is affection, the reserved Zed is clearly uncomfortable with the things that link him to his parents, his heritage, and his Muslim religion. His mother worriedly grills some chillis and tells Zed  that he has the evil eye on him. Later that night at Iftar (the post-sunset meal during Ramadan fasting) his cousin lectures him about how all these small concessions to the world outside of their culture. Things, like using Zed instead of his full name, isn’t just assimilation, it’s a sign of weakness. 

None of this sits well with Zed who wants to be free of the family’s past.  He’s pulling in a different direction.

While attending prayers at the mosque, Zed notices numbness in his leg. Soon he’s in the hospital, and barely able to walk, diagnosed with an unspecified auto-immune condition. 

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

Zed is in denial about how bad his health is. And to make matters worse, at least in his mind, his deeply worried father, Bashir (Alyy Khan), who represents everything that Zed is trying to escape, is constantly by his bedside, doting on his son. 

 Zed is also plagued with visions and dreams, some about his father. There is trauma in the family tree: We discover that as a young boy, Bashir escaped during the violence-plagued Partition of India and Pakistan, an experience that both terrified him, and left him with a sense of shame.   

Another vision is a recurring figure he sees in dreams and at moments in Zed’s waking life: A pudgy man whose face is mostly covered by a sehra, a veil of flowers traditionally worn by grooms in  the Mughal Muslim culture of northern India. Among other things it’s worn to ward off the evil eye, but the image of the man freaks Zed out.   

The dreams and visions aren’t the only things chasing Zed.  If his condition doesn’t improve, he’s going to have to cede his place on the tour to a younger British-Pakistani rapper, RPG (Nabhaan Rizwan), who looks up to Zed, but whom Zed is not fond of. The idea of RPG grabbing the world tour adds considerable stress to Zed’s life.

Mogul Mowgli is a familiar story to children of immigrant parents, who often feel stuck between the traditions of the ‘Old Country’ - their parents’ world - and the culture of the country in which they were born and raised.  

But it’s also about the relationship between fathers and sons, the legacy of unspoken trauma that seems to be passed on through DNA, and how that affects the younger generation.

Zed’s a thoughtful guy who wants to change the world with his music, but has tuned out his own roots. He doesn’t want to identify with his father’s past or pain.  Bashir doesn’t really seem tuned into his son and his aspirations. At times. he seems to not understand Zed at all, but nothing deters him from being there for his son.

This is the first  feature film by documentarian Bassam Tariq, and a strong debut.  You can see the documentarian here in the camera work, that often follows the actors in a verité style.  He lets the narrative slide between reality and fantasy, creating a sense of Zed’s dislocation, dilemmas, concerns.  At the same time, he keeps the camera close, creating a sense of intimacy.  

The movie jumps between reality and fantasy, and its device, Zed’s autoimmune disease, where the body is literally rejecting itself, is perhaps a bit of an obvious metaphor for Zed rejecting his cultural roots. 

But strong, heartfelt and sincere performances, especially by Ahmed and Kahn draw us in. Ahmed - who earned a Best Actor nom for Sound of Metal - is one of the best and most versatile actors out there. He is drawn to complicated characters, and seems to be able to convey as much without dialogue, as with it.  

Zed, frightened and embarrassed by the way his body is weakening, seems to believe that he needs to be free of his family with all its restrictions and Old World behavior, in order to heal. 

His hope for a solution is in new treatments and technology.  He wants his father to go away, but unwavering love, proves to be potent medicine.

CLICK HERE to watch Bonnie Laufer’s video interview with Riz Ahmed and director Bassam Tariq.

Mogul Mowgli, Directed by Bassam Tariq, written by Bassam Tariq and Riz Ahmed, Starring Riz Ahmed, Alyy Khan, Sudha Buchar,  Anjana Vasan, Nabhaan Rizwan,  In theatres, September 3, 2021