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Oct 27, 2016 Sonita review: Afghan teen escapes arranged marriage to become a rapper Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami’s delightful documentary also has plenty to say. Mar 05, 2016 Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami’s absorbing portrait of a refugee in Iran is endlessly surprising and calls into question the role of a film-maker.
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami’s delightful documentary about a determined, resourceful Afghan girl who dreams of being a rapper tells us plenty about the trials of being a woman in the most aggressively patriarchal societies.Living as an undocumented exile in Tehran, 16-year-old Sonita Alizadeh is at risk of being sold (that word is used frequently) to a potential husband back in the home country. She may fantasise about having Rihanna and Michael Jackson as parents, but her rhymes are drawn from her desperate everyday realities. No bling.Sonita put together Brides for Sale, now a YouTube hit, as her mother was negotiating for a $9,000 dowry from the family of an older man.
Sonita and her friends walk around with virtual price tags on their head. The teenager proves to be an ideal subject for a film-maker. Articulate and stubborn, she has the courage to press older women on the injustice of the arranged marriage. “It’s our way” they reply vacantly.It is also their way to prohibit women from singing for anybody apart from their husbands.
Early tension derives from concerns that Sonita may never make her escape.About halfway through, the picture takes a swerve that pushes us into tricky, self-conscious territory. The boom operator imposes himself in a conversation Ghaemmaghami is having about paying Sonita’s mum to delay any potential marriage. The director then points the young rapper towards a scholarship at a college in the United States. The narrative gets tenser still as the heroine travels home to secure a passport and arrange a travel visa.Documentary purists may balk at the way the film-maker allows herself to become part of the conversation. In fact, she does more than that. Ghaemmaghami’s intervention makes a conventional story arc – remote possibilities leading to remarkable triumph – considerably more likely than it would otherwise have been.
I saw this film tonight at the Docedge Film Festival. It was pitch perfect despite a few tricky moments where we wonder if there is a con going down and we are all being manipulated. Director Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami has managed to find just the right distance to reveal the story without changing the dynamic (too much) by being there.
Although there are a few anxious and tricky moments when we think the film will have to be abandoned as Sonita comes under pressure to return to Afghanistan to get married against her will. Documentary film makers can change the story just by having the cameras out and recording but all of the narrative seems to flow with just the right balance of tension and resolve and no undue influence. Although clearly the director was able to help Sonita tell her story and to make connections which brought her to the attention of others. The film maker Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami was able to fit into the background as a supporter and also able to help Sonita help herself by helping her make a music video. I was a bit wary of going to see Sonita because I thought it might be a bit like the stark realism of Omar but it is more like Wadjda or Lamb (or even A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) in tone.
The film makers manage to get up close and personal but they never intrude.
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