Sabah (2005)

Sabah, a Syrian Muslim girl living with her family in Canada. Her father is dead, she is taking care of her mother, while her brother, a dominating Muslim male type, takes care of the whole family. She's about 40 years old, single. One day, she meets Stephen, a non-Muslim Canadian, and they start to like each other.Sabah, wears a Hijab. She met Stephen at a swimming pool, the only way where she can escape from her brother and his restriction. As she struggles with her self to take off her hijab, and get into her swimming suite, and enjoy some freedom away from her family's eyes. Stephen was like a bless, to have someone, specially a 'foreigner', to actually like her.Obviously, the clash of civilizations begin.Nobody can deny that this is a complicated issue, and reality is harsh for a big part of Muslim women. Bad use and interpretation of religion, ignorant cultural traditions has it's impact on Muslim and Arabic women till today.In order for a filmmaker to approach and explore such a difficult subject cinematically, the film with all it's components should be hired in an 'artistic' way to be able to convince people of it's case. If the artistic quality is low, it will affect the plot, the judgment, and it will turn into bad propaganda. Roba Nadda clearly had a message to deliver, but it failed miserably, this is bad propaganda.Even for a non-practicing Muslim like me, I find this very. Infusing ridiculous events and scenes to get the viewer's attention is really a cheap way to handle such topic. The prayer and cleavage scene, the over-used oriental dancing scenes, the Muslims don't do this and that (although it is real), and the mother's ridiculous character with her cheap B-movie acting, and not to forget using music to stir up emotions, really (Spoiler coming up) There is a problem, but the film doesn't provide a 'real' solution, they don't approach it from a religious point of view, or even cultural. Through the film's length, all problems are shown, Sabah tells Stephen why she can't do this and that, until the development of the story to a dramatic acceptance, and a cheap ' Happily Ever After' ending. Just to be fair, Arsinée Khanjian acting was good, other than that, this is worthless.

I saw this film at films de femmes International women's film festival at Créteil,a suburb of Paris in France in 2006 where it was the opening film. It pleased most of the viewers especially the French audiences were most impressed.For them it offered a nice opportunity to watch all the melodrama, songs and dances. However there are some serious, glaring defects in this film. First of all the portrayal of the lead character Sabah is so distant,aloof, cold and hardly convincing. Somehow one gets a feeling that she is not able to connect to others around her. This is also true of the actor who played her brother.In real life this chap is Canadian and he was asked to play the role of a Jordanian guy !! This is a gross casting error. How unusual. In "Sabah" the fun elements might please casual viewers but more serious viewers might feel that it is a kind of ruse adopted by the filmmaker in order to hide the scenario's drawbacks. If you have seen films by the master of modern English language Canadian cinema Atom Egoyan, you might be tempted to watch this film. The reason : he is the executive producer of this film.

I have a hard time judging this movie. I must admit that it's a nice, light-hearted comedy that tries to break down nasty stereo types and humanizes our Muslim brothers. But on the other hand the movie is full off strange contradictions. Take the character Sabah, for example. She chooses to wear a hi jab but does things that are completely in opposite with that choice, like drinking wine, having pre marital sex, kissing on the street with a man, etc. That just didn't feel right. It's as if the Islam is just a small layer that has to be conquered to live a free life, and that it is a good thing to drop your own religious morals and values.I know some young, independent and intellectual women that made the choice to wear a hi jab while still respecting it's meaning. They aren't forced by evil brothers ( the cliché used in Sabah... ), they chose for expressing some virtues by wearing a strong religious symbol. Other women that I know dropped the hi jab and live a life like western women would. That's just as good as wearing it, but they're not pretending anything either...What Sabah is doing is pretending virtues for the outside world by wearing that specific religious symbol, but while living a life that's contradicting that. It's fairly safe to say that having pre marital sex and drinking alcohol is against the Quaran. It's like a pacifist joining the army, or a socialist with a Ferrari. Sabah is a woman that can't choose, not the heroine that the movie wants to make out of her. She'd have my respect if she either chose to drop the hi jab and have the western ''freedom'', or if she chose to keep it on and accept its responsibilities. Now she's just someone that doesn't choose, but keeps pretending something she's not. (--- I say this knowing that she's a fictional character, of course my opinion would be less strong if she was a human of flesh and blood. It's the message that the movie gives with her heroine that doesn't suit me, not that some Muslim women have sex before marriage or drink beer or anything.

A beautiful, funny and entertaining story which brings back memories of another indie Canadian film a few years ago called DOUBLE HAPPINESS by Mina Shum. Sabah is the name and film title about a 40 year old single Muslim woman who meets and dates a non-Muslim man and tries to hide it from her domineering brother who's in charge of running the family. Sounds serious but it's a light hearted comedy which has some serious moments. Story is about family loyalty, romance and friendship. Great performances by the beautiful and one of Canada's most outstanding actresses, Arsinee Khanjian as Sabah and Shawn Doyle as her non-Muslim boyfriend, well-known series lead from the Canadian TV series "The Eleventh Hour". Overall, a wonderful film. Thumbs up and hope it's a Genie contender this year.