THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS (SXSW2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale
It’s quite a feat to bring joy to a storyline that grows out of grief, but that’s one of the delights of writer/director Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen of My Dreams. Her film centers on a disconnected mother and daughter, Mariam and Azra, who might seem diametrically opposed in many ways, but find common ground through a shared journey of loss. It is a technicolor character study full of music and emotion, and it’s as fun as it is poignant.
Queen of My Dreams starts in Toronto in 1992, where 22-year-old Pakistani Azra and her girlfriend live happily enough. Azra’s queerness is something her distant and disapproving mother doesn’t accept, but she feels seen and understood by her dad Hassan (Hamza Haq). On a trip her parents take to Pakistan, her dad dies suddenly of a heart attack. Azra has to fly to Karachi for the burial, where she faces old world misogyny and learns about her mother Mariam’s own struggles as a 22-year-old in 1969 Karachi.
The film unfolds through a balance of flashbacks and current experiences. Mariam’s life as a young woman in Pakistan shows her straining against her relationship with her own mother as she falls for Hassan, who plans to move across the ocean. Azra is navigating her journey of grief, while working with her mom to understand her and be understood, which requires empathy from both. Actor Amrit Kaur plays both Azra and Mariam at 22, and she captures the essence of the eras perfectly, as she shifts back and forth in character and in time. It would have been tricky in a less skilled thespian’s hands. Of course, having iconic, award-winning actor Nimra Bucha in the role of the elder Mariam is a huge plus. She brings added emotional weight to every scene she’s in, to say nothing of that gorgeous, incomparable speaking voice of hers.
In The Queen of My Dreams, Mirza has found a creative, immersive way to examine intergenerational connection, and the need to break the cycle of misunderstanding so often handed down as an inheritance from parent to child.
The way she represents both women as multidimensional people searching to be good daughters and good citizens of the world elicits empathy from the audience. It also demands we look at our own lives and our own familial relationships.
Oh, but the joy! Between the brightly colored costumes and cinematography, and the way Azra and Mariam fearlessly seek their own happiness, something not always supported in a conservative Muslim atmosphere, The Queen of My Dreams is a cathartic and joyful experience. Although the loss of one woman’s love and another woman’s father is the focal story point, the character growth makes every scene a warm, comforting cinematic experience.
The film’s name is based on a song in the 1969 Sharmila Tagore film Aradhana, Mere Sapnon Ki Rani (The Queen of My Dreams). It is a movie that connects mother and daughter, because both grew up watching it, a romance in which a lead male character sings of finding ‘the queen of his dreams’. The title also speaks to the importance of women in all societies, whether coming from a heteronormative or queer perspective, to make themselves the queen of their dreams, rather than looking for acceptance and approval from outside sources. That self-acceptance makes us all better mothers, daughters, and world citizens.
