When I saw this film, I expected much less than I experienced. I was at a Film Festival, and the fare is always a very mixed bag.
Further, humans rights films tend to make someone out to be the bad guy, by implication if not outright accusation. There is none of that in this film, and that not only sets it apart from the tawdry finger-pointing of secular groups who cling to their alienation like a shield, but made it very clear from the outset that we were watching an astonishing woman living an extraordinary life.
The cinematography was beyond excellent. The coordination of visuals and music was intense.
The film implies something that is subtly revolutionary-- that the fault lies with an established way of thinking rather than a people, a way of thinking that is simply and terribly outmoded and inhumane. There is a delicate touch in showing the fault of a way of thinking that does not judge those that participate in it, and seeks to illuminate rather than accuse.
I have great respect for such an approach to social criticism. Changing people's minds is difficult enough without making them feel stupid or backwards.
By the end of the film, we had no choice but to be cheering Doctor Shabaan on, and to be genuinely excited that such people actually live and breathe. More than being a brilliant woman in a a misogynist culture, Doctor Shabaan is an Ambassador of Compassion in our human family. The film illustrated her beauty as a human being, and never crossed the easy lines into into the tempting areas of the geographic moral high moral ground or sensationalism.
In my opinion, this winner at the Beverly Hills Film Festival was most deserving of applause, bar none.
It is greatly unfortunate that the very people who should see this film are the same ones who would never watch it--and that will always be a matter of overwhelming tragedy to me.
I must admit, as an aside, that I am not a huge fan of documentaries. Two doses of Michael Moore and I had to have my stomach pumped. Not that Mr. Moore does not make good points--my problem is that his work is a set of money-makers packaged as awareness-raisers.
Contrapuntally, Mr. Hamzeh is making quality--with an economy of style and level of emotional evocation that is rare in any genre.
I HIGHLY recommend this film.