Film Festival Film #6: As If I Am Not There

[bcholmes]

As If I Am Not There is, so far, my favourite film from this year's festival. It's pretty intense and hard to watch, but amazingly powerful. It was one of those films where the audience didn't make a peep during the entire showing -- everyone was completely engrossed in what was happening on the screen.

The film takes place during the Bosnian war. Samira is a young woman who has just come from Sarajevo to a small village to teach the in the school. Within days of her arrival, though, soldiers come to town and round up all the villages to take them somewhere else ("for their protection").

The film makes a lot of use of silence: there's a creepy scene in which the newly-rounded-up villagers are taken to a building and told that they are going to be loaded on to buses. First, the men will be taken and then the women. The room is forced to separate into two halves while the armed soldiers watch on. Without a word, or even a menacing stare, we get the sense that this is all going to end badly. The women look at the men; the men look at the women. Not a word is spoken. Then the men are taken out as the focus remains on the women remaining in the building. After a moment, we hear the shots ring out as the men are killed.

The women, however, are taken to a remote compound. The minimal use of dialogue drives home the feeling of disorientation. None of the women have control over their lives; nobody knows what's going to happen next.

And then we're forced to follow their lives as prisoners. The building is practically a warehouse -- there's no furniture, no real plumbing or toilet facilities. At one point, one group of younger, more attractive women are separated from the rest and taken over the house on one side of the compound. The camera stays with Samira in the main building, and very little is said. But we get what's going on. Someone comments that one of the people taken was no more than a girl.

And then Samira gets picked out. There are no quick cuts or fade outs. Initially, she's told to wait in a room. As she waits, we're there, experiencing the same tension with her. That oppressive feeling something terrible is going to happen any moment now. There's no music welling up. Just quiet, and time.

The first rape, by three of the soldiers, is brutal and horrible to watch. As the second soldier is taking his turn, you can tell she's leaving her body. The sound becomes muted. We see Samira looking to the side; on the wall, there's a fly cleaning its wings with its rear legs. Then the violence yanks her back.

She's forced to stay at the rape house with the small group of other singled-out women. Rape isn't this singular event; it goes on for weeks.

The idea that rape goes hand-in-hand with war isn't something that gets talked about much. How many rapes do you think Canadian troops are committing in Afghanistan? Any Canadian newspaper that even asks that question is probably going to stir up considerable public backlash. How can you support our troops if you're asking how many rapes they're committing?

As I said, it's a tremendously good movie, although there's no doubt that it's extremely uncomfortable to watch. I think it's important that narrative focalization remains on Samira and the women -- we're not asked (as was the case in, say, Cape Fear, to experience the aftermath of rape through the eyes of some male protagonist who is torn about because He Wasn't Able To Stop That From Happening To Her! The overall quietness of the film, and the ongoing sense that we are never sure what's going to happen next keeps us, the audience, in that same sort of disoriented place. Sometimes we catch snippets, but have no context. At one point, Samira sees soldiers stacking bodies of prisoners and burning them. What happened? We don't know. The film doesn't tell us. It's frightening and creepy. But powerfully done.

I was describing the film to Siobhan tonight. Apparently she prefers films without rape houses. It probably sounds weird to suggest that other people see this film. But, y'know, I think it's an important film.