In right this moment’s society, judging folks we don’t know appears to have been normalized. What’s worse is that this has resulted in generalizing with regard to faith, race, gender, and no matter different label you’ll be able to consider. The categorization of “peers” appears to have been misplaced within the age of a lot wanted (and far requested for) tolerance.
How did we get to this? How can we be so naive and ignorant? How are we so targeted in empowering this horrific observe that solely works for additional division? As I wish to say, we have to begin a dialog as soon as once more, solely this one is rather more necessary than the others.
Perhaps, at first Dina Amer’s work You Resemble Me doesn’t really feel like the correct place to begin. Fiction seldom is. But by means of a really mysterious execution of idea, Amer accomplishes greater than we are able to think about to start with. Yes, You Resemble Me begins as a compelling drama about trauma in the midst of a social disaster that’s very actual right this moment. Then it slowly turns into one thing else, rather more common and insightful. There is a purpose for this, revealed within the final minutes of You Resemble Me, the place all the things we’ve got seen is justified by means of a montage of proof that carries the message all through to the top.
To name Amer a courageous filmmaker is to fall in need of what she have to be referred to as. Not due to her movie’s theme, however as a result of this could’t be straightforward for any girl making an attempt to inform this story.
In You Resemble Me, two sisters are separated once they’re simply kids. Hasna and Marian dwell with their mom and different siblings. Hasna protects Marian even from their mom. Their connection is powerful sufficient to be a robust protect in danger-riddled Paris.
But someday, they’re separated. Hasna’s trauma begins from this level on, going to foster care and extricating herself from the one actuality she’s conscious of. As she grows and leaves the system that allowed her to outlive she faces a disaster that has to do along with her id, origins, and even her look. As she will get nearer to Islam, Hasna dips her toes within the horrific world of radicalism.
Amer decidedly portrays Hasna’s journey from the angle of a misplaced id. Hasna truly “changes” her face throughout this horrible fall into the darkish (I gained’t clarify how she does it, as a result of it’s considerably of a really cinematic useful resource that totally works). As her relationship with faith (and the id it contains) grows and turns into stronger, Hasna’s separation from actuality turns into harmful. Yet it additionally feels inevitable.
Adapted from an amazing script, You Resemble Me ends with an insightful handle of Hasna’s destiny. This is when Amer reveals it’s all primarily based on true occasions and the story goes full circle with regard to logic and Amer’s insistence with Hasna’s disaster. This doesn’t imply the “fictional” a part of the movie turns into secondary. On the opposite, it turns into rather more related within the face of a personality so mysterious, but so human, it’s unattainable to overlook the connection.
Yes, You Resemble Me is an efficient method to begin a dialog. One that might be uncomfortable for some however extremely truthful for others. Maybe these “others” are beside you and so they’re your friends.
Founder of Screentology. Member of the OFCS. RT Certified Critic
Dog dad.