Riz Ahmed

  • Mogul Mowgli (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) If you’re going to be typecast as something, “a musician who experiences a major medical condition that forces him to re-evaluate his life” is quite a pigeonhole. But here we are: Riz Ahmed, after playing a drummer struck with deafness with life-altering consequences in Sound of Metal, revisits some very similar material in Mogul Mowgli, in which he plays a rapper struck with degenerative immune disease with life-altering consequences. The down to-the-ground approach of the film, halfway between neon-lit bleakness and lived-in grittiness, also reinforces the links between both films. Ahmed does have the good fortune of repeating a great role with a good role – it may feel very familiar, but it’s in service of a decent story. Still, you can probably guess that most of the comparisons between Oscar-nominated Sound of Metal and Mogul Mowgli don’t work at the second film’s advantage – the first film is richer, harsher, and more distinctive due to its use of sound as an immersive device. Mogul Mowgli fares better when considered on its own, not only as a story of a musician forced to cut short his career on the cusp of mega-success (handing it over to a successor who’s not necessarily worthy of it) and also dealing with issues of Pakistani representation in the cultural sphere. The cast is very much non-Caucasian, and Ahmed gets to play with a lot of verbal material as a loquacious rapper making a mark. If you’re looking for an excuse on why Mogul Mowgli is worth seeing even if you think you’ve seen it already, it’s the plunge into British-Pakistani culture in its rich complexity – with Ahmed pouring himself in the requirements of the role. It doesn’t seem so familiar once you get to the expression of it.

  • Sound of Metal (2019)

    Sound of Metal (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) While the “musician going deaf” plot device isn’t original to Sound of Metal (It’s All Gone Pete Tong did it in a semi-comic fashion back in 2004), no other film has quite captured the experience in as much eloquent detail. Our protagonist (a great performance by Riz Ahmed) is a drummer in a heavy metal duo, living a hardscrabble life in-between constant touring and meager earnings. Alas, he hasn’t been taking care of his hearing and as Sound of Metal begins, the sonic soundscape of the film is enough to tell us something is very wrong: tinnitus is the least of his worries, as he’s on an irreversible slide to deafness — he can only prolong what remains of his hearing, not reverse the inevitable. The character-driven plotting doesn’t show him taking the news calmly, or rationally — by the middle of the film, his self-destructive behaviour means that he’s without hearing, without a girlfriend, making enemies in his new community and unable to pay for the implants that would bring back some hearing. Much of Sound of Metal is a journey through grief, complications, sudden disability and addictive behaviour, and at very last half-acceptance of new circumstances. This is bolstered by aggressive sound editing trying to give most viewers the experience of being in the protagonist’s situation, all the way to an ending that acknowledges that there’s no going back. It’s not necessarily an easy film to watch: the protagonist’s personality is not one for easy solutions and calm acceptance. Writer/director Darius Marder’s approach and cinematography are both gritty and impressionistic, removing the usual distancing mechanisms that Hollywood often uses to talk about disabilities. Sound of Metal all wraps up into an impressive audiovisual impact, amply deserving of its Best Picture Academy Award nomination. You may not want to watch it more than once, though.