Horrors of a dagger, a wolf, and health insurance problems
This review is my opinion and contains spoilers.
“The world is a jungle where survival is your only instinct.”
“Gumm” (“Lost”) is a Pakistani thriller about a goon turned sharif for Shaadi who pulls off a bank robbery to pay for his daughter’s cancer treatment, only to be tricked by a gang leader who helped him set up the operation. “Gumm” was released in Pakistan in 2019 but came to streaming platforms in 2021. Considering its budget, it was lauded for its efforts, but some found the low-budget restrictions a bit obvious. It was directed by Kanza Zia and Ammar Lasani. It stars Sami Khan, a well-known actor whose performance was well-received. The ensemble also includes Shameen Khan, Shamoon Abbasi, and Anjum Habib.
The film has a captivating beginning, where Asad (Sami Khan) finds himself stuck in a vast woods where he’s been in a car crash. He finds a stack of money in his bag but can’t recall who he is. The driver, who is part of the deceit, is dead, but because Asad put his seatbelt on, he managed to get out alive despite having a knee injury. Soon, the gang leader, Haider (Shamoon Abbasi), emerges to take the bag, able to leave quickly because, well, he’s ten times larger than the bruised Asad and, having learned of the memory loss, can claim the funds are for his child’s operation. Asad knows he’s part of the crime scheme after turning the radio on and learning that “the biggest robbery” has just happened, with clues of a man in a mask and a mask in a car catching him up. And even if he can’t remember who he is, he can tell he risked his life to get the money. Asad’s backstory is presented in flashbacks as he remembers who he is in his quest to retrieve the funds from Haider. Seeing his daughter in the woods, Asad grows angrier and gains several lives as multiple attempts are made on him through perhaps diseased daggers. He manages to escape, pay for the operation, stay alive, and get away with the robbery.
The film can drag on at times and feel uneven. The contrast sometimes works to show how different his real-life trauma was compared to the unusual trauma he’s living through now. But the songs in the backstory and the long silence in the present can make this hour-and-a-half film seem longer than it is. Though the film sometimes feels like a stretched-out short, it has moments of cinematic excellence in its frame composition and editing, which make it worth exploring. In some ways, the film resembles “Momento,” with Gumm being Asad remembering his past. Flashbacks in Memento are most apparent for the audience to piece together the story’s truth, while the main character is looped into his revenge mission as soon as he completes an instance where he’s “taken care” of the past. The films are similar in their rugged styles in moments of suspense, but Gumm aims to provide some emotional relief for audiences by showing how his life was beautiful before this moment.
Insurance or dependability is one aspect of the film that highlights a significant issue in Pakistan. It needs to be clarified as to the universality of Pakistan’s universal healthcare plan, that some provinces offer it, and others only provide it for low-income families. All public hospitals in Pakistan offer free medical services, but these hospitals may be flooded and need help getting appointments. Asad’s daughter has to undergo a reversible treatment for leukemia, and the payment is around 5 million rupees. Asad is shown to work in an office where he’s unable to get a loan or, supposedly, a raise from his employer. In the United States, it’s generally assumed that office jobs come with insurance, especially family insurance, which, again is an assumption, would cover a child’s insurance. Employees can waive the health insurance benefit, but insurance won’t cover the total cost of some treatments. In the United States, there are several private and public programs to support childhood cancer treatments, and the lack of mention of any such programs in Pakistan at all shows how complex it is to get healthcare.
When Asad robs the bank, it appears like a Robin Hood effort. For someone who might not understand the healthcare system in Pakistan, the government doesn’t provide the service it ought to, and he’s taking matters into his own hands. It is a moral quandary for an audience to accept and is not made explicit in the film. It’s only toward the end, where the doctor says that the child will have to be moved to a government hospital to complete the treatment, that it’s known to a foreign audience that government resources are available. However, it is joked that many people of a higher economic background do not pay taxes and thus do not contribute to the universal healthcare system, adding strain to the services and efficiency of its delivery that public hospitals can provide. Considering that the family did not approach a government hospital initially, it tells of the attention one would receive at a public hospital. Perhaps the hospital was closest during the emergency when the child had a seizure. However, knowing that there were other options, the parents still preferred to consider treatment at the private hospital as they agreed to the costly treatment. The extent to which facing this experience is daunting; the experience of being lost in the woods in Asad’s condition makes Gumm an apt metaphor.