When Isra’a discovers she is expecting another baby amid the civil war in Yemen, she and her husband decide she should have an abortion. But this creates enormous difficulties – in their relationship and elsewhere. A moving story from an all-too-often forgotten crisis region.
腹荷, 家庭负担, Al Murhaqoon, Um Fardo, Les Lueurs d'Aden, 育兒又止
Germany
India
Jio MAMI Film Festival
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
Indonesia
Jakarta World Cinema Week
Taiwan
France
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Taiwan
I've been wanting to watch this so badly that I watched it with portuguese subtitles because it was the only option I had along with chinese. I don't even speak portuguese, but I do speak spanish, so I made do. it's quite dialogue-heavy and I spent the whole film translating said dialogue in my mind from a language I don't technically speak, so I'm not rating it, but for what it's worth I really liked it.
Berlinale #13
In Arabic, the word "abortion" has a much broader meaning. Abortion as destruction, abortion as being torn from a dream. War destroys many dreams and sets its own rules. It turns a "God's gift" into an unbearable burden.
The plot wasn't as focused as it should be, but I love the relationship between our two main characters and their family.
This does a pretty good job of expressing the complex confluence of factors squeezing the average family in Yemen, addressing foreign, domestic, religious, social and financial contributors which interact to push people into untenable positions. Anchoring that story in the micro rather than trying to address it in the macro is an empathetic approach, but risks simplifying the complex into purely how it is perceived at the sharp end. But the observationalism of the cinematography reinforces this approach, never letting us escape the catch-22 of this family's situation. It's a kitchen sink approach to a problem of global scope: effective, emotional, but somewhat lacking in depth as a result.
There’s an Italian neorealist feel in Gamal’s observational touch, always keen to stress the reality on the ground beyond his characters. More than once, the camera bids adieu to its protagonists and lingers on the people in the background; showing families, shop workers and others going about their day to make ends meet. The widescreen camera feels compassionate and encompassing, highlighting how this is just one story in an ocean of many, the plight of the Yemeni people constantly made worse by war.
《The Burdened》5.0/10
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我覺得伊朗電影看多了再回過頭看其他中東國家處理得比較保守的電影會覺得自己的胃口好像被養大了，《The Burdened》在議題闡述跟處理的方式其實還滿有趣的，整部作品基本上也沒有犯什麼大錯，但就是被拍得太無聊且沒有什麼張力，說不上好還是不好但總覺得看過去也沒有什麼特別的感受，只能說好可惜。不過我覺得這部作品還是有滿不錯的地方，很多剎那間的劇本爆發算是一個小看點，對於女性墮胎權與新生兒的權利的探討結合到伊瑪目的言論也比《開羅謀殺案》有趣多了。
《The Burdened》在創作形式上有一個稍微吸引我的點在於它懂的使用「聽者」的角度將整部作品闡述而出，儘管墮胎過程的緊張感不如《正發生》，它還是在一眾議題之作裡選擇了自己的敘事方式，從女主的身上去聽到、感受到這個社會對於女性應有權利的匱乏，好比所有人將新生兒視為上帝「贈與」的禮物而不在乎女主一家的處境；抑或是在女醫師奉告女主生女兒更好卻對同樣身為女性的女主出言不遜等，無不藉由當事者的視角與第四道牆外的視角去探究當代葉門社會對於女性的鄙視。
不過我想選擇以這種方式來進行呈現的作品其缺點還是過於明顯且難以忽略，缺乏爭執或具張力的場面終究注定了這部作品的平鋪直述，許多可以藉由家庭以小見大反應到社會動盪問題的方式都沒有被發揮得很好，真的蠻可惜的，然而我依舊讚許其在嘗試融合葉門現狀與對軍政府的批判意識，也因此儘管覺得整部作品並沒有被處理得太好，我仍舊認為它具有其可看之處。
Ez tök érdekes volt, szerintem még sosem láttam jemeni filmet. Egy abortusztörténet, ahol nem abból fakad a feszültség, hogy kifutnak az időből, hanem abból, hogy annyira szigorúan van tiltva az abortusz az első perctől, hogy gyakorlatilag gondolni is tilos rá. Egyébként semmi váratlan nem történik benne, de az ország állapotát látni elborzasztó.
“We’d like to ask you for a favour you refused 5 years ago.”
The Burdened is the International Feature submission from Yemen. The film takes place in Aden, in October 2019, and it’s about a family of five: Ahmed and Isra’a, and their three children. The country is still embroiled in a war that’s been going on since 2014. Salaries aren’t getting paid, including for Ahmed who hasn’t been paid in over two months. Schools are shut down. The economic struggles are affecting everyone. And to add to the burden, Isra’a has just found out that she’s pregnant with a fourth child. A child that they can’t afford.
Due to the civil war, prices have tripled in the last…
