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I Carry You With Me – AFI Fest 2020

I Carry You With Me is an epic cross generational, border crossing love story that hops between Puebla in Mexico and New York in the USA. It’s shot across three time periods: the present in NY, the past in Puebla, and the distant past reflected in childhood memories. The majority of the film takes place in the middle where Ivan and Gerardo meet. It contains the bulk of the film’s emotion and narrative. However, the cuts to the present imbue it with nostalgia by situating it in the past. It makes it feel like a dream period for the couple that contrasts with the uncertainty of their lives in the present.

The style also contributes to the dream like qualities of the middle period. Like Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, Heidi Ewing uses a lot of color filters to imbue warmth and feeling to I Carry You With Me. Instead of warm reds and oranges, there’s greens, oranges, and blues that create a world that feels unique and special. It captures the excitement of their romance. Also like In The Mood for Love, there’s food. A plate of Chile en Nogada replaces a bowl of hot steaming noodles. Chile en Nogada being one of Puebla and Mexico’s most iconic dishes and one that is notoriously hard to make. It both situates their romance and symbolizes their love.

The portrayal of Puebla also challenges the typical American Dream narrative presented in U.S.-Mexico films. It depicts a Mexican city full of warmth, beauty, and life to contrast with the lonely, bleak, coldness of New York. In this film, the U.S. is not the land of opportunity that it is often depicted to be. Instead of leaving to escape poverty, they leave for the opportunity to start a new life.

I Carry You With Me is not without it’s own cliches. There’s the gay guy with the female best friend and another who’s best friend is a flamboyant drag queen. Then there’s the haunting memories of the first time their fiercely patriarchal families put them down. Obviously not all families in Mexico are like this, and whilst I don’t doubt these events happened to the real Ivan and Gerardo, they feel like exploitative throw in scenes designed to evoke sympathy and emotion. However, despite the cliches,I Carry You With Me is a brilliantly romantic portrayal of generation and border crossing love.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

She Paradise – AFI Fest 2020

Right from the beginning, you can tell that 17 year old Sparkle is lonely. Much like Amy, the lead in Maimouna Doucore’s Cuties, she’s stuck doing house chores for her grandparents. It doesn’t look like she has any friends at school or at work, and she doesn’t talk much. So when she meets a group of older girls dancing in the street, she finds the confidence and expressiveness in them that she wants to have. So she works her way into their clique and transforms from the children’s clothes wearing, shy 17 year old kid from the introduction into a vividly dressed, confident dancer.

Her gateway is Trini culture. In particular Soca music: a mix of calypso, reggae, dancehall unique to Trinidad which permeates She Paradise. Soca is present in the dancing and style, which combines with the music to give Sparkle a brand new modern key to her independence. Embracing the contemporary Trini culture through Soca opens up a new world that is totally unique to her world at home with her grandfather. It’s modern and fresh, instead of from the past. It allows her to forget about her childhood and home poverty, and have an opportunity to become a free independent woman.

She Paradise is a feature length version of the brilliant short film that debuted last year at a few festivals that we reviewed here. Like the short, the feature version has many of the same scenes, which are mostly included in the first part of the film. The feature also contains a few hints at Sparkle’s background, but it’s still not clear what she does before she meets the Soca crew. However, unlike the short, this feature film adds in a few male characters which take the focus away from the female friendship of the short. Instead, the focus switches more to Sparkle and how she navigates a world of patriarchy – represented by her father and Skinny, the male Soca artist. It’s a shame as the friendship between Sparkle and Mica was the highlight of the short.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

Writing With Fire – Sundance Film Festival 2021

If you’re looking for an inspirational documentary that follows a group of trailblazing women in India, consider Writing with Fire. It follows a group of Dalit women – Dalits being the lowest caste in the Indian caste system – that start a newspaper in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s largest and most politically important states. The newspaper, Khabar Lahariya, stands out from the others both because it’s written only by women and because of its emphasis to seek out the truth no matter what.

It starts with one of the paper’s lead journalists reporting on a local rape case. In it, we witness their reporting process. Meera first interviews the victim’s family for first hand info, then heads to the police station to press them further on the crime, before beginning to form a report. We see this process a few times throughout the film as they interview politicians, Dalit women without sewage systems that the government has promised, and worker’s strikes. Because of the topics they shine a light on and their determination to find answers, they face a lot of trouble.

This is clear when the reporters are out in the field. One reporter has to confront one union leader who at first refuses to talk with her because she’s a woman. Another reporter covering the upcoming elections has to banter with the male politicians just to try and get comments from them. It’s clear that being patronized is a part of their day job in the patriarchal society. However, they also have to put up with it at home from husbands that berate their independent working spirit.

It’s not just the patriarchy that is framed as dangerous to the reporters as the rising Hindu nationalism within India is posed as a threat too. One example is the young member of some kind of Hindu Youth League that patrols his neighborhood armed with a machete to fight crime. His role feels a lot like the Hitler Youth from Nazi Germany. He doesn’t appear to have much direction apart from his hatred of Muslims. The rhetoric of the local politicians are equally alarming, with the directors pointing out the new state leaders remarks that Islam is intrinsically linked with Terrorism. It feels like that the freedom of Khabar Lahariya and its female journalists are threatened by the continued rise of the male dominated BJP Hindu political party.

Lastly, it’s quite interesting to see exactly how a start-up newspaper is run. In addition to seeing how they gather a story from outside, we get to see how the newspaper is run at the office. We see their daily meetings – including one where one reporter gets disciplined for a low output – and hear about their growth strategies. Currently, they’re all embracing the switch to the growing digital reality by equipping all their reporters with camera phones and giving them lessons about YouTube. As the film runs, these YouTube clips are inserted into the narrative as milestones for their growth as their subscribers rocket to a few thousand after a few weeks work.

Whilst it’s probably a bit longer than it needs to be, Writing with Fire is well worth a watch for anyone interested in learning about inspirational women battling the patriarchy around the world. If anything, you’ll learn a bit about the current state of India and running a newspaper.

Hand of Fate – One Family Ripped Apart by Marriage Customs

Hand of Fate Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

In Hand of Fate, an underage girl is forced by her father to quit school and marry a man she doesn’t know living abroad. This greed-driven marriage splits their family unit as the patriarchy threatens to ruin another girls life.

From: The Gambia, Africa
Watch: YouTube, IMDb
Next: Mustang, Flesh Out, Dakan

Hand of Fate – Breakdown

Disclaimer: to get something out of watching Hand of Fate you’ll have to first ignore the audio quality. The volume of the dialogue and background noise chops and changes with the cuts making it hard to consistently hear what the characters are saying. Whilst this might not be too problematic for an action film like Who Killed Captain Alex? it doesn’t help this film which relies heavily on its dialogue.

If you can ignore the changes in audio quality, you’ll find a pretty entertaining family feud. At its best, the conspiring brother corrupting the once honorable father into selling his daughter’s hand in marriage is classic drama. It captures the father’s fall from respecting his wife after she gives birth to their first child, and promising a much better future for their daughter, to him reneging on his promises because of the cunning words of his money-grubbing brother. The father clearly isn’t the best bloke, but it’s fun watching him be swayed one way then the other between his brother (like the devil on his shoulder encouraging him to sell his daughter for wealth) and his wife and daughter (who he doesn’t really trust because he’s the man of the house – so what can a woman tell him). There’s enough drama to keep most viewers entertained.

That being said, there are a few conspicuous moments in which the director/producers slip in some educational messages. There’s a scene where one character gives another a mobile phone, and the gifter starts going on about how they shouldn’t drive whilst using their mobile phone. There’s another where a character suffers from a disease and a doctor arrives to berate them for not getting vaccinated when the state medics came to their town to offer it. It’s clear these kinds of messages are added to support government messaging – don’t use your mobile phone whilst driving – and – get vaccinated – and their obviousness disrupts the flow of the narrative. Hand of Fate also manages to sneak in a lot of current themes too, with European Migration, Female Circumcision, and Equal Education each playing a part in the script. These fit the script more naturally than the government messaging, but it still feels like the producers might have had a checklist for adding all these different topics to the story.

Hand of Fate is worth a watch if you’re able to overlook the audio quality and government messaging. It is a low-budget movie – clear from the quality of the production, setting, and acting – so it’s worth going into the movie not expecting much. However, once you get past all of that, you might be able to enjoy the heaps of drama and family feuding.

What to Watch Next

For more family drama featuring more forced marriages, watch Mustang from Turkey. It’s pretty upbeat for the most part, but not without a lingering melancholy that represents their fate in the hands of the patriarchy. For more films featuring forced marriages try Sand Storm, set within a Beddouin tribe in Southern Israel and Saudi Runaway, a personal documentary of one woman trying to escape hers.

For more controversial marriages, you could also try Flesh Out from Mauritania, featuring the dangerous Leblouh process where girls consume tremendous amounts of food to fatten up for their wedding.

Or if you’re looking for more family controversy set in Africa, there’s Dakan, a film about a gay relationship disrupted by homophobia in Guinea.

Jebel Nyoka – Early Marriage vs. Education in South Sudan

Jebel Nyoka Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Jebel Nyoka is a budget South Sudanese movie free to watch on YouTube that touches on the patriarchy and forced marriage. It follows a teenage girl living outside of the capital city in South Sudan. Conflict arises when her parents want her to get married instead of allowing her to finish her studies.

From: South Sudan, Africa
Watch: YouTube, IMDb
Next: The Hand of Fate, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Dhalinyaro

Jebel Nyoka – The Breakdown

Disclaimer: whilst the audio quality is more consistent than other films shot with few resources such as The Hand of Fate, it does contain a very repetitive backing track. It sounds a bit like stock filler for an 80s educational show, and unfortunately is often played over the diegetic sound and dialogue of the movie regardless of the context of the scene (playing over a rape scene as well as over family conversation). So before watching this film, be prepared to fight an urge to mute the audio from time to time.

Jebel Nyoka does have honorable intentions in the screenplay though, which touches on both the patriarchy, the lack of resources for education, and underage marriage. Kiden, our teenage female protagonist has to deal with all these issues – fighting her family and their wish for her to get married instead of supporting her education. The film sides with her and a girl’s right to education by showing her fight against her parents and marriage. However, it feels blind to the power of the patriarchy it unwittingly presents. It positions Kiden’s mother as the villain of the movie – presenting her as the driving force behind Kiden’s underage marriage even though her father holds the position of power in the family. She has to talk to crouch down to talk to him sitting in his chair, and whilst the father agrees to marry their daughter, he blames her when things go awry for pushing him to do it. Jebel Nyoka is quick to blame the female characters for problems held in place by the patriarchy.

It also features a lot of male characters that take charge of Kiden’s life without considering her perspective. Her father is one example, as is her prospective husband, but even the male characters that are presented as ‘good’ take advantage of her. The head of the orphanage is a prime example of this. Whilst he takes her in and provides her with an education, he also ships her off to another family looking for another girl to help out around the house (ironically so their own daughter can focus on her own studies). This action is never questioned, and ultimately the adopted father and the head of the orphanage become the heroes of the film. The focus on portraying benevolence in the men of Jebel Nyoka undermines the positive female story the director tries to create.

Therefore, despite honorable intentions, Jebel Nyoka’s message feels a bit empty. It highlights problems within South Sudanese society (such as underage marriage, poverty and education) without examining their root cause. Instead of looking deeper into these issues, or making a film about Kiden’s perspective, Jebel Nyoka focuses on the men around her, making them the saviors of the movie.

What to Watch Next

For a film which examines the patriarchy from a female student’s perspective, we strongly recommend watching Dhalinyaro from Djibouti. It follows a group of three high school friends facing different problems at home as the exam season starts.

If you’re looking for more low budget African films that deal with the patriarchy and forced marriage, you could watch The Hand of Fate from The Gambia.

Or if you want to watch more African films about kids using their intelligence to find a way out of poverty, try The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.