Tale of a Survivor
A girl who survived to tell her tale, A Girl In The River, Oscar winner for documentary (Short Subject) is the one has the opportunity to change a life.
Saba’s powerful story is told in Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s film ‘A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness’ presented by HBO Documentary Films & SOC Films release, tells the story of a young Pakistani woman, who has survived her attempted honor killing by her own family.
Honor killing is a tradition — often falsely linked with the tenets of Islam, in which usually-male relatives of a woman will murder her for a perceived transgression against the reputation of the family.
While exploring the complex issues facing women in Pakistan today, as well as clashing interpretations of women’s rights and family honor, and the pressures to forgive relatives for their crimes, the film chronicles, the dramatic journey of a courageous young woman as she fights for her life, for her dignity and for justice.
some stories will differ based on cultural adaption and specific cultural differences (as cited in Poe,2010)
Obaid-Chinoy notes at the start of her film that the number of honor killing victims in Pakistan alone is more than 1,000 a year. Documentary begins with the scene of an operation theater, where a girl getting treated and doctors showed her wounded photographs, explaining how serious they are, is the ‘Hook’ (Sheila Curran Bernard,2011) reveals the bit of information then the essence of the story and its character, encapsulating the drama that about to unfold. This can be a great technique to keep the audience guessing.
This documentary follows the Martini glass structure, in which story is told in nonlinear narrative by putting the “end” of the story first and then go back in time to explain what happened leading up to that event. In the next shot, the police showed the site reveals the actual setting of the story where the victim was shot & left to death, raised the complication in the story but she managed to rescue is the evaluation and survived, shows the result.
She then shared herself the real story from the start in a chronological sequence, is the stem of the glass.
In the Punjab region of Pakistan, a young man and woman fall in love and decide to marry. Saba, 18, and Qaiser, 21, have known each other for four years, and Saba’s father is helping plan their wedding.
But Saba’s uncle protests the union, saying that Qaiser and his family are of lowly status, and the family ultimately forbids the marriage. Determined to be together, they are married at a local courthouse.
Just hours after the wedding, her father and uncle collect Saba at the home of her new in-laws. Driving her to the riverside, they beat and shoot her, leaving Saba for dead for bringing “dishonor” upon the family.
Told through the lens of a love story, documentary examines the tensions (movement) between modernism and tradition in Pakistan.
There is no narrator or interviewer has seen in the documentary. The story is pieced together using only clips of interviews, footage, on-screen text and graphics, while a few lines were heard of the producer, during her interview with Saba’s father and uncle, in their jail cell, is deeply chilling: Both are unrepentant, professing pride in their actions. When he talks about telling Saba’s mother what he did, her father says, “She cried. What else could she do? I am her husband. She is just my wife.” Saba’s mother, meanwhile, supports her husband’s actions.
Then comes the kicker, when Saba filed case against them where her wish for her attackers to spend the rest of their lives in jail. She showed saying several times out of rage, I’ll never forgive them, that creates the chaos in her community. She is pressured by them to bring peace back to the neighborhood — and release the sole breadwinner of her large family from prison. Now here is the jeopardy in the story, now viewers want to know what will be her final decision?
Facing intense pressure from the male elders in her community, She was forced to forgive her father and uncle, and abandon her hope for justice. As mentioned in the second half of the title ‘The Price of Forgiveness’ is the coda.
One of the most encouraging outcome was that the prime minister of Pakistan made a statement after the [Academy Award] nomination. He said that he would look into this matter and he would work on “honour” killings.
Reference
Sheila Curran Bernard, 2011, Documentary storytelling, Elsevier inc.
http://www.desktop-documentaries.com/storytelling-techniques.html
