This Canadian-Pakistani co-production, which has been garnering a great deal of praise on the festival circuit, is as much a work of social commentary as it is a ghost-themed horror. In Flames explores the efforts of a mother and daughter to challenge the restricted life choices available to them as working-class women (albeit from different generations) living in modern-day Karachi.
Young medical student Miriam finds her home life turned upside down following the death of her grandfather – the paternal head of the family. Her mother, the widowed Fariha, is soon facing eviction from their flat after her uncle-in-law tricks her into signing over her inheritance. A frustrated Miriam finds comfort in the attention of Asad, a young man attracted to the strength and independence that she radiates. But when the pair’s secret motorcycle trip to the coast ends in calamity, Miriam is once again confronted by the ugly realities of her marginalised social status.
Writer-director Zarrar Kahn evokes the hectic, crowded life of the city and the emptiness of the countryside and coast with an unromantic sense of realism. The idea that Mariam is being haunted by threatening spectres from her past becomes more prominent only once the real-world predicament of the two women has been fully established. Some of the film’s domestic and familial scenes might feel inconsequential when viewed in isolation. But the absence of freedom of choice revealed in these moments cumulatively ratchets up the tension that’s eventually released in the film’s cathartic finale. The true horrors glimpsed in In Flames are not the vengeful spirits of the dead but the obstacles these women face in struggling to secure agency over their own lives.
IN FLAMES is on limited theatrical release in the UK
