Dir. Eyad Zahra, USA, 2010, 83 mins
Cast: Bobby Naderi, Dominic Rains, Nav Mann, Noureen Dewulf, Volkan Eryman
Review by Eva Moravetz
When Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores first appeared, it was in the form of Xerox copies handed out free in parking lots in the US. Few people knew then that it would create such an impression in the minds of young, Western Muslims that it would soon become a cult classic and its imaginary Muslim punk scene a reality. The book has been published in several countries and it contributed to the formation of punk bands such as The Kominas. One of those people, who were deeply touched by the message of the book, was the movie’s director, Eyad Zahra. Zahra, an American of Syrian-Muslim descent, felt transformed and moved to take a totally new direction. In Zahra’s words, “spirituality is not an all or nothing game – it’s yours to make your own”. Gathering all his resources and any support he could find, he shot The Taqwacores in Cleveland, Ohio on a mega-low budget and with a group of creative and hard working crew members that even included the author Michael Muhammad Knight himself. The result is a fresh, high-energy, independent film about the rift between punk and Islam.
The story’s main protagonist is Yusef (Bobby Naderi), a shy, first-generation Pakistani engineering student who moves into a house shared by a group of Muslim punks in Buffalo, New York. Among them is Jehangir (Dominic Rains), a charismatic guitar player sporting a mulberry Mohican hairdo, who slowly introduces him to The Taqwacore, the hardcore Muslim punk scene that exists nowhere else. Yusef realises early on that his housemates are no ordinary bunch: Amazing Ayyub (Volkan Eryaman) a half-naked junkie always high on something; Rabeya (Noureen Dewulf) a Burqa-wearing feminist who preaches against wife beating; the gay musician Muzzamil (Tony Yalda); the chain-smoking skateboarder Fasiq (Ian Tran) and the frustrated Umar (Nav Mann) who, feeling morally superior to all the others, tries to exert some kind of religious control over the people of the house. Slowly, Yusef falls under the influence of the group and starts to question his own identity and spirituality.
Although the film faithfully follows the book in terms of dealing with topics such as gender equality, homosexuality and freedom of expression, it seems to only scratch the surface of the underlying reasons for the collision between Islam and punk rock or what it feels like being a Muslim in America. The characters express their opinions on certain issues and we hear the voices of the prejudiced side of America as well in the form of snippets of conversation heard from the television, as if intruding into the world of the house’s inhabitants, but these merely observe the status quo rather than to help move it forward towards suggesting any kind of solution. The characters are individualistic and vibrant enough but sometimes they border on pretentious or even cardboard. Amazing Ayyub, for example is tirelessly obnoxious to the point of being tiresome.
Bobby Naderi is convincing as the naïve Yusef but his performance does not have enough strength to persuade us to believe in his transformation. One feels he becomes a punk through going with the flow rather than out of true conviction. The character that is far the most interesting is Jahengir. He has the most striking appearance and the most idealistic views. He is a prophet-like character, seemingly wild but wiser than the rest, who holds the whole group together; a group that is described as ‘all the fuck-ups and rejects in a community come together.’ Jahengir takes Yusef under his wings and Yusef looks up to him as a mentor, a type of modern day punk preacher. ‘Worrying is a sin’ and ‘Islam is surrender’ he tells the Yusef.
Despite its shortcomings, The Taqwacores is a good film and it has some beautiful, symbolic moments, like when Jahengir says his morning prayer with an electric guitar on the roof, sending his solo to the sky, or downright controversial ones like when Rabeya, clad in a burqa, performs fellatio on a group member at a punk concert, then spits the semen in the face of a reluctantly attending radical, who is frowning upon the whole gathering. It is an important movie and its only flaw is that it is not daring enough to delve deeper than it does. As Eyad Zahra observes, The Taqwacores simply tells an old tale in a modern way, for tomorrow’s generation. Let us hope there will be more films like this for tomorrow’s generation but perhaps bolder and more probing.
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