THE GLASSWORKER - Mark Reviews Movies

The Glassworker, Watermelon Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 14, 2025

Animation in Pakistan is a relatively new artistic field, especially when it comes to feature-length movies. As evidence, The Glassworker, from director Usman Riaz and the animation studio he started from scratch, is the first hand-drawn animated feature from that country. That makes the film noteworthy as a piece of history and quite the accomplishment in the realm of independent cinema. Beyond that context, though, it is a lovely, imaginative, and deeply felt film, which is the primary thing that matters.

Riaz and his team have clearly taken inspiration from the world of Japanese animation, particularly the style of Hayao Miyazaki (The character design alone is a dead giveaway). In terms of storytelling, one could offer similar sentiments about Moya O'Shea's screenplay, except that Miyazaki's interests have been so broad over his decades of filmmaking that anyone making an animated film in any kind of fantasy world will likely stumble upon some point of reference to that master's work. The tale here, though, is almost entirely grounded in a reality where the only fantastical thing is how two warring factions of people devise weapons to kill each other.

War is at the core of this story, which spans decades in a quaint coastal town that is close to territory of much interest to both fighting nations. That land is called the Great Ravine, and the little we see of it, in a late battle sequence, isn't particularly special. There are painted rocks and pockets of crystals that must be the main resources these two parties find so valuable as to wage war over them. The imagery that sticks, however, is of bombs, fire, enveloping rockslides, and the visages of disbelief on the young men just before they're killed in the battle for this grand canyon. Even in its most impressive sights, the film never loses sight of its humanity, in other words.

That's embodied by a strong collection of characters, too, who are caught up in their own divisive but mostly peaceful conflict. On one side, there's Tomas Oliver (voice of Art Malik), a maker of glass products and art in the little town of Waterfront. His adult son Vincent (voice of Sacha Dhawan) has become even more skilled and renowned than his father or even his mother, who died when Vincent was very young. While preparing for an upcoming exhibition of his work, Vincent discovers a box with a letter, as well as a glass and gold hairclip in the form of a butterfly.

This takes the story back in time to Vincent's childhood (in which the character is voiced by Teresa Gallagher). Fighting over the ravine has brought more military into town, with a battalion being led by Col. Amano (voice of Tony Jayawardena). Tomas worries what the military's presence will mean for the population and himself, because he's an avowed pacifist who find war and militarism more generally to be intolerable. Meanwhile, Vincent is only interested in the soldiers' arrival, because it means the colonel's daughter Alliz (voice of Anjil Mohindra) now lives in town, too. The boy is instantly smitten with the red-haired violinist.

For a while, the film stays grounded in these day-to-day interests, with the only hint of some fantasy or otherworldly element to the storytelling being Vincent's belief that the beach below the glass shop is protected by a djinn. Eventually, O'Shea's script brings in improbable engines, working off some unknown energy, that power grand airships reminiscent of Howard Hughes' infamously barely-flyable Spruce Goose.

These ships do fly, however, as do massive zeppelins with royal-blue balloons on the other side of the conflict. These vessels are imposing in terms of design and technology, suggesting some alternate history or world where such things would be possible, but they exist in the story as a constant, sometimes immediate reminder that they only exist to drop bombs, devastate towns and cities, and to indiscriminately kill soldiers and civilians alike.

How Tomas and Vincent are brought into the manufacturing of the airships engines is purely a matter of plot, but the story is more about how the boy and Alliz grow closer over the years, despite their distinct interests, social standings, and parents' opinions of war. Neither kid, of course, really cares one way or another, except that Alliz has only known her father as a well-respected military leader and Vincent only hears words against war from his own father. For the children, who become teenagers in a montage of the seasons and years passing as they walk through town, their bond is more about creating or interpreting art.

It's little wonder that the filmmakers, who have taken the intricate steps to bring this world to life in a medium that has become rare in recent years and by paying homage to a specific style of animation that so clearly inspired them, would connect with these characters so intensely. Based on the older Vincent's reaction to the letter, we know this story will end in tragedy in some way, but the screenplay allows these characters to exist outside of that plot, as well. There is, after all, the smaller but no-less-melancholy tragedy of the colonel, who admires and encourages art, because his life as a soldier was not necessarily of his choosing.

The film's message, then, is as clear-eyed and terribly relevant as its means of telling the story conveying that message are striking. There are details in the animation that feel quite refined for what is essentially or actually a first effort from everyone involved—from the way the camera pushes through a field of snowflakes toward the town, to how light in a recital hall creates a rainbow halo on the lens, to those scenes of Tomas and Vincent working with malleable glass in and outside the furnace. Learning that everyone involved in making of this film, without any support or influence from an industry that does not exist in their country (until now), had to discover how to accomplish these techniques on their own only makes The Glassworker all the more notable an achievement.

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