Anaïs Nin, one of the world’s most prolific diarists, once ruminated on the elusive nature of joy in 1939. “Will I ever reach joy?” she asks in Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. “It hides behind the turning merry-go-round of the travelling circus. As soon as I approach it, it is no longer joy. Joy is a foam, an illumination.”
In the Pakistani feature film Joyland, the country’s official entry for best international feature film at the Oscars next year, the “merry-go-round of the travelling circus” always offers that moment of deliverance. For sisters-in-law, Nucchi and Mumtaz, the Joyland amusement park (from where the film derives its name) with its wild, fairground rides is an escape from the burden of duties and expectations in a patriarchal household. Despite the Oscar buzz and the global applause, Joyland is banned in parts of Pakistan for promoting a “gay agenda”, as alleged by political parties and religious hardliners there. But the film is bravely marching on to find more and more audiences.
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