TREATMENT

The working title: WHO I AM!

“Having no clue of where his life is heading, Arham a young adventurous boy being trapped in shrine for 6 long endless years is taking a step towards a new life with the help his loving yet dominating mother – but will it be that easy”

Arham is a boy who recently turned eighteen and is mentally ill. He has been kept under house arrest for the past 6 years of his life as his treatment program. However, now the doctors have suggested that he should go out and explore the world and slowly try to build a new life for himself. His mother out of excitement takes him along with her for grocery shopping to a highly crowded place in Karachi that is the empress market not realizing his mental state. The incidents that will take place over there will leave an important mark on Arham and will come as a challenge in the process of rejuvenating himself. It will teach him about the harsh world and its reality.

Arham is the protagonist of the film and his mom Saira is the supporting actor. The story is set in modern times but due to a financial constraint Saira still goes to empress market to shop for groceries as fruits and vegetables and other house hold items are available at a cheaper price there. The film will start with the voice of a woman singing a lullaby with a black background and then the first scene begins with the image of an old house.

It will start with a voice over that would be Arham telling his story. Then with an establishing shot I would show a house that Arham will describe as it is his house. The description of the house is divided into two phases, one 6 years back and the other would be the current feelings Arham has towards the house. In the first phase he will describe it as a place where happiness was and that it was his personal peaceful place. The house would be very ancient as they have been living in the same house for years and his mom does not have enough money to renovate the old 250 yards house. It will be covered with a lot of big over grown trees that have leaves which have dried out as no one takes care of them. The car porch will be filled with such dried leaves scattered here and there because Saira does not have a maid and is the only one that takes care of the house as well as her son. The wide shot of the house would zoom out and then slowly fade out with the same lullaby playing in the background.

No artificial lighting will be used as it will be shot in day light with the natural shadows coming from trees and crows. During the entire process when Arham is speaking there will be two diegetic sounds apart from his voice, one would be the screaming of crows and the other would be the voice of the movement of leaves. However this will not be shown but just heard. The crows and the dried leaves in this scene would symbolize how devastated the house and the people living inside are. 

The next scene would jump cut and start again with the voice over along with a pan movement. It will show empress market from left to right and will stop at the front gate where Arham and Saira will be standing. Saira will be shown busy fighting and negotiating with the vegetable man and Arham on the other hand would start feeling suffocated in the heavily crowded market. The constant argument his mom is having with the seller will irritate him and he would move away from his mom trying to explore the place himself. There will be an eye line match to where ever he would look as all this would be new to him just like it is for an outsider who has never seen such a scenario.  Confused and agitated from the horrifying view Arham will get lost and lose track of where his mother was. Then start the series of events that will be a turning point for his reaction.  

The scenes would jump cut from one to another and again to Arham, the events will start with the fisher man who is a fat man with extremely dirty clothes eating a pan and brutally chopping fish and peeling off its skin. This entire scene will be shown with an extreme close up of the fisherman’s knife and the fish he is cutting. 

The next shot would be of a clothes dyer who would be dying a duppatta in red color and then drying it, with two men holding it and swinging it hard making a thudding noise which will startle Arham. This will further aggravate the fear in Arham and he would panic and start running. Every time he would look to his left or right something would frighten him. He will have an encounter with the old women, who would be begging for some money despite his ignorance she will still follow him until she finally losses track of him. Her dark color and thick wrinkles that make her look like a witch will make him run faster not realizing in which position he is running.

And then finally Arham will stop running, still heavily panting, he would glance here and there but will fail to recognize the overcrowded ancient building. His feeling would be as if the whole world collapsed on him and he is fighting with all his will to stand straight.

The sun shining with all its power like it was sipping in all the energy from people, making them dizzy and irritated by the heat, will finally get to Arham. He will get pushed and squeezed by the anonymous people who instead of helping him will walk past by minding their own business.  And then suddenly he will faint as his brain could not register these incidents so quickly and failed to help him.

This will be a low shot just showing Arham’s face expression in relation to the shining sun. Voices in the background will be of the crowd talking and car horns. And the scene will end as a mid shot showing Arham fallen on the floor and a crowd of people gathering around. Then comes the title of the film.

Both the characters will be in ordinary clothes, Saira in a normal lawn shalwar kameez and Arham in a thin t-shirt with a pair of jeans.  Along with this he would have messy hair which hasn’t been cut properly neither have been brushed for a long time. 

The day to day chores of the people who have set up their businesses in Empress Market will be enlarged and shown with the prospect of a mentally ill child.