The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2020

Mogul Mowgli

Berlin Film Festival 2020: Mogul Mowgli | Review
22 February 2020
Joseph Owen
Avatar
Joseph Owen
22 February 2020

Movie and show review

Joseph Owen

Mogul Mowgli

★★★★★

Special event

This intriguing drama stars Riz Ahmed as Zed, a fledgling British-Pakistani rapper with autoimmune disease. Debilitating and degenerative, the illness manifests itself in gradual muscle weakness. Zed struggles to lift his arms and legs, to move from one point to the next. It’s a complex, sometimes understated performance from Ahmed, who carefully handles the transitions between his character’s lived experience and his recurrent hallucinations, which are brought on by thwarted career ambitions and the apparently terminal diagnosis.

The film interrogates several key tensions. It picks at the spiritual concerns of the Pakistani diaspora in British society, in a way reminiscent of Hanif Kureishi’s Thatcher-era narrative My Beautiful Laundrette. In tales such as these, minority groups often acquire agency through ambivalence. They retain signifiers of difference during their cultural assimilation and, in doing so, articulate a fresh identity. These conflicts and anxieties, illustrated by Zed’s adoption of his new name – one he reclaims from childhood bullies – are bound up with his mixed heritage.  

This is further complicated and wrought by the physical repercussions of his sudden affliction. His relentless desire to succeed is set against the clear-eyed, clinical reality of his deteriorating condition. His father Bashir (Alyy Khan) is a worthy counterpoint – more rooted in tradition and unsentimental. There’s broad humour found in Zed’s crude and senseless rap rival RPG (Nabhaan Rizwan), and in a curious, disjointed alleyway encounter, which starts as a misunderstanding before descending into violence. Claustrophobic visual flourishes gesture at Zed’s periodic delusions. These snippets, however, don’t constitute a persuasive dramatic arc.

Highly rated director Bassam Tariq brings a potent audiokinesis to Mogul Mowgli, his first fiction feature, which he complements with Paul Corley’s stressful, unsettling score. Ahmed co-wrote and produced the project, which makes capital of his skills as an MC on London’s hip hop circuit. Likewise, he unveils the customs, tropes and dialects of British-Pakistani communities. The rising chant of “Toba Tek Singh” functions as a curtain call. Zed stares into a mirror. He may as well be reckoning with his birth name, the climbing refrain of “Zaheer.” 

★★★★★

Joseph Owen

Mogul Mowgli does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2020 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Berlinale

A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces: An interview with filmmaker Shengze Zhu

Selina Sondermann
Read More

The Girl and the Spider: An interview with Ramon & Silvan Zürcher

Samuel Nicholls
Read More

Taste (Vị)

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Jesus Egon Christ (Jesus Egon Christus)

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Jesus Egon Christ: An interview with directors David and Saša Vajda

Ezelle Alblas
Read More

“There really hasn’t been a film that deals with a platonic male-female relationship in this way”: Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass discuss Language Lessons

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Berlinale 2021 winners: The full list

Naomi Schanen
Read More

A Cop Movie (Una película de policías)

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Human Factors (Der menschliche Faktor)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Joseph Owen

Mogul Mowgli

★★★★★

Special event

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • London’s best pizzas for takeaway and delivery
    Food & Drinks
  • The Year Earth Changed
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Cruise – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Syml – Dim EP
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Birdy at Wilton’s Music Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • London’s Michelin-starred restaurants open al fresco right now – and all those re-opening in May
    Food & Drinks
  • Ride or Die
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • Live from the Barbican: Moses Boyd
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Weezer with the LA Philharmonic and YOLA at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • London’s Michelin-starred restaurants open al fresco right now – and all those re-opening in May
    Food & Drinks
  • Live from the Barbican: Moses Boyd
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Secret Connection – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Cruise – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Birdy at Wilton’s Music Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

The Intruder (El Prófugo) press conference: “It was an extremely rewarding experience”
Berlin Film Festival 2020: Los conductos | Review