Don't pre-judge
Don't be fooled by the people commenting here on how racist, hateful,
pro-Israeli, etc., this movie supposedly is. If you haven't read the book, you don't know anything about what the movie is going to be. I read the book after hearing Alicia Erian read an excerpt from it at an event in San Francisco. I look forward to the movie, and I recommend people who think it's going to promote any sort of hate or intolerance should either read the book or wait until they can talk to someone who's actually SEEN the movie, before posting silly comments about how this movie is pro-Israeli propaganda. Otherwise, your arguments begin to look like their only purpose is to just baselessly attack the film and/or the book's author.. 
Indelicate, unfocused and disappointing drama
This movie (once again I have to complain about the Italian translation
as "No veil for Jasira", alluding to some Islamic education that has nothing to do with the girl's Christian upbringing) leaves much to be desired in terms of sensitivity and delicacy. The theme is, of course, very difficult to handle and easy to be lost hold of, mainly if, and this is the case, it is not supported by a strong guide and if the director does not know where he is leading the viewer. What we see is a world full of disgusting adults, of men incapable of taking their hands to themselves and ready to abuse little girls, both physically and psychologically (Jasira's parents also cut a very poor figure). The fact that there are no explicit nude scenes is meaningless, this is not what makes a movie indelicate, the limit of morbidity has been surpassed, the overall atmosphere is pervaded by a malicious and dangerous sense of compliance with situations that needed more care and respect for an adolescent discovering sexual desire. "American beauty" portrayed a similar adult obsessed with an underage girl, but never losing a sure control of every situation, and never forgetting the unsound nature of the man's misbehaviour, a man who lives in agony and pain, and never reaching perversion: the atmosphere between reality and oneiric vision was also a safe stratagem to allow the necessary detachment when handling such a delicate theme. Here, on the contrary, we find no oneiric visions, no detachment, no agonizing man, here we just find a man, a monster who rapes a girl, just hard fact, something we can hear on TV news every day, but with no sign of condemnation. Of course each of us can make out his/her opinion, but a movie dealing with such themes must hold a point of view, must offer a possible perspective and cannot remain neutral. Toni Colette as the pregnant and sensitive neighbour, is the only positive and convincing character who brings common sense to the story and appears as a safe harbour, not much to Jasira, who probably does not understand what she is encountering or has encountered, but to the viewer, who really needs some bulwark of self-defence. The last scenes do not manage to save the overall immaturity and seems too an easy happy ending, a harmless adjusting of everything, after too much harm has been so widely exposed but not explained. In the end, a disappointing and misleading drama, a hopeless reflection of today's hopeless crude chronicle.. |
Trailers: |
