FATHER FIGURES LARGELY
Abu is a deeply personal yet relatable documentary
ABU: FATHER ★★★ 1/2outof5 Cast: Arshad Khan, family and friends Director: Arshad Khan Duration: 1h20m
“There’s nothing but shame when you fall in love in Pakistan.”
So says Arshad Khan, the writer, director and star of this very personal documentary. That may be true, but it’s doubly so if you’re homosexual, as Khan discovered he was.
Khan was born in Pakistan in 1975 and came to Canada with his family as a teenager. In this brief (80 minutes) and lively doc, he cuts between grainy home videos and classic Hollywood and Bollywood movies to tell his life story.
Much of that is bound up with his dad: the film’s title, Abu, is Urdu for father.
The elder Khan headed up a free-spirited family, but later in life became a devout Muslim and, says the filmmaker, “one of those vertical photographers” who never turns his iPhone camera sideways for better results. No wonder father and son drifted apart!
The movie is a touching portrait of a life, and to his credit Khan doesn’t shy away from including images of himself in the worst fashion the 1980s had to offer.
(He knew he was truly out of the closet when he threw away all his acrylic sweaters.)
It’s a slim story, but with its flashes of melancholia and wit, it remains eminently relatable.