Barakat!

I went to see a film called Barakat!on Thursday (10 Oct). It was a French-Algerian submission to the Middle East Film Festival that was being held in Beirut last week. The movie was typically French artistic cinema style; slow-moving, languid, full of rich, silent scenes that seem to go on so long, you're amazed to check your watch and find that the woman has only been peeling her lime (in close up) for five minutes. However, for as endless and elephantine as it seemed to move, it was, aside from “Flicka” (which I saw against my will on the plane back from Egypt, held prisoner by my seat which was located right in front of the screen), perhaps the most horrifying movie I've seen this year.

The setting is mid-1990s Algeria, certainly post liberation from French colonization and, in the void that was left by strong (if not unjust) leadership, Islamic fundamentalists found a foothold. The story begins with a young doctor, Amel, who is setting the table for dinner when her neighbor calls out to her. The neighbor (who is Muslim) has a son who, after assessment, is determined to have appendicitis. There is a short discussion as to who should travel with the doctor to the hospital -- the husband or wife (without marriage papers, the husband with Amel is bad, but two women driving alone at night isn't all that attractive either). It is determined that the wife would go with Amel with little problem. Amel returns to find the table set as she left it and her husband nowhere to be found. This is where the story takes off. Amel's husband, a truth-telling journalist, has been kidnapped by the local Islamic extremists who found him uncomfortably close. She and a colleague set out to find him, at a tip provided by an acquaintance -- also Muslim -- who bids her to be careful in her search. What follows is Amel and her colleague's arrival at an abandoned village where they are captured, forced to provide medical aid to injured extremists, locked up to an unknown fate for the night, then set free, shoe-less and husband-less, to walk back. In their walk down the mountain, they run into a rural, friendly widower who takes them by horse and cart to Amel's father's home, where they stock up on provisions. They return to Amel's home and, after some piecing together, find Amel's husband in her neighbor's garage, presumably alive, but it is not confirmed for the viewer.

The film is rich with fear. As a woman, Amel is a product of progression; she is an E.R. doctor, self-assured and strong-willed. However, nothing around her confirms these traits and it makes one wonder what happened in that window between liberation and the mid-90s. At one point, it was acceptable for her education to take her through medical school. But, now, society has violently regressed at a rapid pace. At one point, Amel walks into a restaurant in her hometown. The viewer is or, at least, I as a woman am, highly aware that the restaurant is full of men and the only females are Amel and her companion. The tension grows thicker as Amel is cat-called and whistled at. One man, in particular, is very verbal and she finally challenges to come “take a look at the goods” if he's so interested. As he draws near, she pulls a revolver on him and everyone in the restaurant jumps back about two feet, stunned. They walk out of the restaurant and one can't help but get the feeling that those men won't forget such an incident for some time. The question is: would such an event make them think twice or only increase their violence toward women? Sadly, I suspect the latter. One also intuits that a person like Amel is not the kind of person easily brought to such a place of violence but, the filmmaker does an excellent job of making the viewer feel just as cornered and desperate for survival as Amel, herself, is.

While I wouldn't rate this film a must-see (most of my companions thought it was dreadfully long and slow), but I have to say it scared the pancreas out of me. Not because the film itself was scary, but because such a universe is a reality for numerous people in this world. The ignorance and violence implemented as “God's will” is enough to turn anyone atheist. Wouldn't it just be easier if the world didn't have religion? Perhaps John Lennon was onto something. Of course, such a question is rather ironic, coming from a seminary student, isn't it? Ha ha.

I guess it's just the perversion of hope twisted into oppression that can seem overwhelmingly defeating. What's worse: religious oppression or the soullessness of capitalistic materialism? Depends on the day, I suppose. To be honest, there are two things that keep me tied in: experience of hope fulfilled and that slightly irrational concept that love can overcome. I guess, as a Christian living in this world, these are the only options I have. It's not enough to believe because “God said so” and it's not enough to drop out because I'm disgusted with the game. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wasn't too keen on his Nazi Germany but he stayed because this is where he belonged: with his people, on his soil. He watched them destroy themselves so that he could have the right to be there to rebuild. I know that the analogy doesn't fit as neatly as it could in other contexts but there is something so deeply necessary about stressing commitment to the family while confronting the disgusting perversion of God's hope for the world that all who claim that one and only God as their own (whether it was 1000 years ago or yesterday).