Film Review: Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) Silent Waters is the only film in this year's London Film Festival to come from a Pakistani director. And it's superb. This point is not to be underestimated, as anyone from anywhere within South Asia knows that Pakistani films, unlike Indian Bollywood, are not usually worth bothering about.
This film has a definite Punjabi feel, set on the borders of Pakistan in 1979 - the year that president Zia Ul-Haq introduced Islamic laws into what was meant to be a secular country.
Saleem (Aamir Malik) and Zubeidaa, young lovers are the story's prime targets affected by the country's political shifts. Two characters arrive from the city of Lahore advocating Zia's 'revolutionary' Islamic values and Saleem is sucked into a feverish world of Islamic supremacy and rebellion. Saleem's mother Ayesha (Kiron Kher) looks on uncontrollably distraught.
Life gets even more complex when Sikh pilgrims from India visit a local shrine. Ayesha's brother (one of the pilgrms) pays her a visit to inform her that their dying father in India longs to see her. Saleem finds out his mother was born Veero a Sikh, and tensions escalate.
