‘Borders of Heaven’ Review by Dr Khalid Ali – Safar Film Festival 2016

06 September '16

Screening on Saturday 17 September 2016, at 4 pm at ICA, London as part of Safar Film Festival. You can buy your tickets HERE

Borders of Heaven, Tunisia, France, United Arab Emirates, 2015, directed by Fares Naanaa. 

Reviewed by Dr Khalid Ali, Screening Room editor, Medical Humanities. Originally published on Medical Humanities BMJ Blogs.

Borders of heaven Safar Film Festival

Recently, Tunisian cinema has become an artistic force to be reckoned with, As I open my eyes winning best director for Leyla Bouzid in Dubai International Film Festival 2015, and Hedi opening Berlin Film Festival in 2016. Borders of Heaven is another compelling story from Tunisia written and directed by Fares Naanaa.

Samy (Lotfi Abdelli) and Sara (Anisaa Daoud) are a happily married couple with their little daughter Yasmine (Sophie Ghodhbane). Their blissful existence is shattered when Yasmine dies in a drowning accident. Samy is consumed with guilt as he blames himself for Yasmine’s death. Losing the will to live, he wanders aimlessly seeking solace in illicit affairs with random women he meets in the streets.

On the other hand, Sara is determined to fight for survival and a meaningful life in spite of her inconsolable grief. She continues to work daytime and rehearses singing every night with a music group. Sadly, Samy and Sara have become strangers in their household; she wants to re-build their married life, while he is entrapped in his world of anger and hopelessness.

Josephine Jacobsen described the devastating effect of a child’s death in one of her poems: ‘’It is a fearful thing to love, what death can touch’’. Borders of Heaven revisits the universal themes of isolation, grief and bereavement after losing a child; themes that were explored in Don’t Look Now, UK, Italy, 1973, directed by Nicolas Roeg, (), and Rabbit Hole, USA, 2010, directed by John Cameron Mitchell (). In Don’t Look Now the bereaved couple indulge in an intense sexual relationship to distract their minds from grief, while Samy indulges in alcohol and one-night stands. The estrangement and bitterness that Samy and Sara experience are reminiscent of another bereaved couple’s ordeal (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole).

Fares Naanaa reminds us of the Kübler-Ross model of the ‘Five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance’ (1, 2). While Samy is stuck in depression, Sara has accepted the reality of losing her daughter using music and singing as a means to restore her well-being; a form of ‘personalized music therapy’. Echoing themes of Song for Marion, (UK, Germany, 2012, directed by Paul Andrew Williams,), where salvation for a widowed husband came from his engagement in a community music group, Borders of Heaven emphasises the role of music in healing after loss (3, 4).  Sara demonstrates what mental health professionals call ‘psychological resilience’ (5, 6); she channels emotions and words into a creative outlet. Her identity is one of ‘normalizers’; individuals who focus on connecting with friends and community to re-create meaning in their lives after bereavement, while Samy belongs to the ‘nomads; people who are stuck in anger, depression, and loneliness’ (7). Coping with grief after losing a child calls for desperate measures, which can take the form of ‘disinvestment’ in traumatic memories, and moving on with life, which Samy cannot muster.

Both lead actors, Lotfi Abdelli and Anisaa Daoud, give heartfelt performances displaying raw intense emotions that are rewarded by the viewers fully empathising with their tragedy. It is no wonder that Lotfi Abdelli won best actor award in Dubai International Film Festival, 2015. Borders of Heaven is a universal story of loss, hope and survival.

References:

  1. Kübler-Ross, E. (1969) On Death and Dying, Routledge
  2. Kübler-Ross, E. (2005) On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, Simon & Schuster Ltd
  3. Khan W U, et al 2016. Perceptions of music therapy among healthcare professionals. Med Humanit 42: 52-6. http://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2015/12/11/medhum-2015-010778
  4. Moss H, Donnellan C, O’Neill D, 2012. A review of qualitative methodologies used to explore patient perceptions of arts and healthcare. Med Humanit 38: 106-9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22893595
  5. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10803548.2015.1126142
  6. Bonanno, George A. Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after externally aversive events? American Psychologist 2004; 59 (1): 20-8.
  7. http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/11/13/the-5-ways-we-grieve/

About Dr Khalid Ali:

Khalid AliDr Khalid Ali, senior lecturer in Geriatrics and Stroke Medicine- Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), UK, is also the editor for ‘The screening room’, the film reviews section in ‘Medical Humanities Journal’. His exposure to film in early childhood sparked a passion for world cinema. Since 2002, he reviewed films exploring healthcare issues. Starting at the London Film Festival (LFF), his quest for ‘story telling in film and its link to physical and mental well-being’ has led him to participating in many more film festivals in Cannes, Dubai, Edinburgh, Egypt and Sudan. His interactions with inspirational film makers, humanitarians, philosophers, poets, and artists have been widely published in printed and online reviews and recorded interviews (podcasts) in European, American and African outlets.

Read more on Khalid Ali’s story with film here

Address for correspondence: Khalid.ali@bsuh.nhs.uk