Usman Riaz has many talents in many areas of the arts. First in a series, he took a leap and created ‘The Glassworker’, which has now been documented as Pakistan’s first ever hand-drawn and two-dimensional animated film. Co-director of its production, the animated film was created at Mano Animation Studios, and appeared at the Cannes Film Festival as well as Annecy, one of the biggest animation film festivals in the world.
The Glassworker takes its roots from the filmmaker’s personal history during post 9/11 Pakistan, during which the country was considered to be too much in chaos. Riaz and his associates decided to tell a story in which themes of war, creativity, and struggle are present despite it not being a ‘real life’ place that inspired the setting.
The essence of the story is the life of Thomas, a glass-blower whose family consists of him and his son Vincent, who, along with other kids his age, would be learning the craft from their parents (this time around, it is Thomas and Vincent). A significant change to their lives comes when the protagonist (or Thomas) meets Colonel Mace and his daughter Alliz, the second leading character.
The Colonel and his daughter cause ripples in the arteries of life, which go further and affect Thomas, a widow because of war. Occupying a modest glass home, he also owns a glassblowing business. The child Vincent is introduced as his determined apprentice. Adult Vincent narrates the tale while gearing himself for a first solo exhibition. Told also backwards in time due to Vincent being alive during major conflicts, the young boy had to face the implications of war without a mother, followed by repression with disengagement from the family.
The love story behind The Glassworker’s plotline is a Cross Romeo and Juliet type love with an underlying theme of father-son relationships as Vincent and Alliz’s fathers are on opposing sides of the war and ideology. However, the youth have a common art to unite them: Vincent’s glass and Alliz’s violin. But both generations have their predicaments to deal with.
Despite his hatred of wars, Vincent’s father is being blackmailed and recruited to the army while Alliz is reproached by Vincent for not being a true artist as she is just a performer of what is already written. Vincent has to wrestle with himself over devotion to his father and principles, and attraction to beautiful Alliz, discrimination for being of a different social class or for his anti-war stand. These are dilemmas that most lovers face, Vincent is restrained with a loving, beautiful redhead.
Both Alliz and Vincent have a difficult confrontation with their fathers and become pompous individual artists breaking laws, whether artistic or social, and claiming their freedom and travelling through their lifetimes.
Riaz and Moya O’Shea penned the screenplay together, devoid of a contextual geopolitical setting, which makes it feel ageless, but the allusions to British-Indian History are hard to escape. The story of The Glassworker is mainly narrated by the character of Vincent, an adult looking back to his youth and struggling with youthful qualms against the backdrop of ever-present violence in the country. The war itself is mainly portrayed as a distant reality for the Waterfront Town setting, except in instances where the town is directly attacked.
To be fair, the narrative contains the heavier magic realism of a djinn which seems to be a hallucination of Vincent. This scenario, however while intensifying the pathos of his story, is not central to the story.
The story is loosely inspired by light steampunk showing a magical realist perspective, most probably a tribute to the hand-drawn animation styles employed in Studio Ghibli, including those from Hayao Miyazaki. The wistful portrayals throughout the anime fit the storytelling while the bird’s-eye isometric frames remind you of the earlier Final Fantasy video games.
It would seem that the Glassworker is the film of the hour for its presentation on the broad screen today. Though in saying that, it is also seen as a family drama, but more of a tale aimed towards the youth as it depicts the struggle and uncertainty that comes along during times of war.
Vision instead of mindless and passive ethics is placed on the young generation, who focus on their creative selves, make art an outlet for traumatic events of their adolescence, and create for the sake of existence. The film puts forth the notion that the spirit and love remain to shine through, which is the true essence of the film as it is about determination and positivity and how these two are the forces of change that drive creation.
To Watch More Movies Like The Glassworker (2024) Visit Soap2day.
