‘Sari’s Mother’ painful to watch
A young Iraqi boy screams in anguish as his mother injects
into him what little drugs she’s been able to find, and the
audience cringes. The boy is 10-year old-Sari, who contracted
AIDS from a blood transfusion four years earlier.
This was just one of the harrowing scenes in documentary
“Sari’s Mother,” screened Saturday afternoon
at the Grace Street Theater.
Sari’s mother, who is forced to say things to doctors
like, “I know he doesn’t look sick, but he is,” attempts
to get care for her son, who is growing ever weaker.
When a doctor offers Sari’s mother a drug Sari is
allergic to, the doctor tells the mother to give Sari the
prescription anyway.
It seems the pair is traipsing in circles as they trek
from building to building, from doctor to government
official, in search of medication and financial help.
One can’t help but think how different the situation
would be in the U.S. The hospital that gave him the
transfusion would have been sued so fast it would
make your head spin.
Much of the film is shot from Sari’s point of view.
He is much smaller than other children his age, and
he is much more docile. He says sometimes his heart
aches and he has to lie down. He dreams of being able
to join his siblings at school, but his mother says he
cannot walk that far.
Sari and his family live in a mud hut in the countryside
and tend cattle. The film’s shots of the Iraq
landscape are peaceful and beautiful. Surprisingly,
the family’s hut has electricity – a lone light bulb and
tiny antiquated TV illuminate their living space as
they eat dinner.
The children in the family work with clay to make
their own toys. When a fight for clay breaks out, Sari
calmly mediates the disagreement. The boys play army
with the little clay cars they’ve made.
“Sari’s Mother” is a short film, but it says all it
needs to say about Iraqi health care and one family’s
struggle. This is a family that would be happy in their
radically simple lifestyle, but as Sari’s mother says, they
are just waiting for Sari to die, trying to make him as
comfortable as possible and “holding nothing back.”
‘The Road to Kerbala’ is paved with radical
Muslims
“The Road to Kerbala” is another Iraqi documentary.
With gritty, sometimes shaky film direction that verges
on home-movie quality, filmmaker Katia Jarjoura, a
Lebanese woman who was raised in Canada, joins Shiite
Muslims on their annual 100-kilometer pilgrimage
from Baghdad to Kerbala.
Ashura is the most important holy day of the Islamic
calendar. Shiites make this trek to commemorate the
martyrdom of Imam Hussein, which caused the split
of Islam into Shiite and Sunni sects. Kerbala is Iraq’s
holy city, containing the tombs of Imam Hussein and
Imam Abbas, heirs to Muhammad, who died as religious
martyrs in 680 CE. This is the 2004 pilgrimage – the
first one in 30 years – since Saddam Hussein’s regime
– that is legal.
In the documentary, Jarjoura finds a traveling
companion in Hamid el Mokhtar, a poet and novelist.
He is a Shiite Muslim, but he is also an intellectual.
Mokhtar says most intellectuals in his circle are quite
secular. His views are not nearly as extreme as many
others on the pilgrimage; he says he is politically
moderate and open-minded.
During Saddam’s regime, Mokhtar was imprisoned
for his newspaper writings railing against the dictator. In
prison, Mokhtar says, he prepared himself for a bizarre
and painful death, like a “vat of acid.” In the days of the
regime, he says, he felt more passionate about making
the Ashura pilgrimage, since it was forbidden.
During the three-day trip, pilgrims encounter U.S.
troops. This is a high-tension situation because Shiites
think the U.S. is preventing an Islamic government
from taking control. Thankfully, the two groups have
called a temporary truce during the walk. A roadside
bomb delays the walk a few hours, but U.S. troops
manage to safely detonate the bomb.
Jarjoura asks many of the walkers where they
are going and why. For many, the trek is purely for
religious reasons, while others are walking for political
reasons, as well.
Villages along the road feed, water and house the
travelers. It is during these rests that Jarjoura and Mokhtar
discuss politics with their fellow travelers, as well as
listen to denunciations of Saddam’s regime, expressions
of religious fervor, angry protests of U.S. occupation and
support of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
To express religious fervor, travelers pound their
chests while chanting, slap their faces while singing
and stomping and, in a particularly violent and bloody
show, perform self-flagellation in honor of Imam
Hussein’s martyrdom.
When the group finally reaches Kerbala, the
atmosphere is frenetic. Mokhtar, on the other hand, is
solemn. He says the religious passion this trip inspires
in him is private and quiet. He is obviously moved
when he makes his way through the mass of people
to touch the tomb of Hussein.
Mokhtar thinks the people who are running around
chanting and hurting themselves might have the
wrong idea. He doesn’t think Hussein would have
wanted them to hurt themselves for him, and he is
not sure they should celebrate such a morbid part of
their history.
Mokhtar is an interesting person in the film, providing
a calm juxtaposition to the more radical Shiites. In
the sea of sandals and robes making the trip to Kerbala,
Mokhtar sticks out like a sore thumb in a suit, dress
shoes, sunglasses and flat cap. Because of his dress
and the woman following him with a camera, other
travelers accuse him of being a journalist. Mokhtar
assures them he is merely a writer, not a journalist.
This journey shows the struggles Iraq continues
to face in the midst of unwanted U.S. occupation
following the fall of Saddam’s regime. The travelers’
religious passion might appear extreme, but for this
celebration, the violence is not directed outward.
Jarjoura does a fantastic job of presenting the
pilgrims in this film without bias. Their trip is at times
moving, such as when the filmmaker finds a man on
crutches walking the 100 kilometer; it is shocking
when travelers use chains to whip themselves and
wear white to accentuate the blood. The film is a
provocative insight into the thoughts and dedication
of Shiite Muslims.