A Muslim family of three living under one roof in Dhaka. Homebound, pandemic or otherwise. The daughter in her early 40s, is a filmmaker in a relationship with a Hindu Indian. The mother has had a sudden religious awakening, an old age staple in Bangladesh. The father is more tolerant towards their daughter’s liberal views, but does little to intervene with the mother’s tantrums. Will she ever be able to accept her daughter as she is? Can the daughter even tell her about this seemingly doomed love-affair?
Director Humaira Bilkis invites us into a private space that is achingly relatable in her feature length documentary "Things I Could Never Tell My Mother". Her protagonist is none other than her refreshingly candid self. This documentary that premiered at the prestigious Visions du Reel film festival exemplifies how portraying your truth needs nothing more than courage. Mega budgets, fancy equipment or knowledge of every arthouse film and director- is vanity in the realm of honest storytelling.
At the centre of the film is the relationship of Humaira with her mother Khaleda Bilkis. We follow these characters as they struggle to strike a balance between pleasing God and society, and leading an authentic life.
Khaleda and her cohorts in burkas with their suffocating air of moral superiority ceaselessly lecture Humaira about how her choices may invite the wrath of the almighty not only unto herself, but to her parents, who failed to sow the fear of God in her. The erstwhile poet now wishes Humaira to join her during hajj, so as to cleanse her soul through pilgrimage, which is forfeited after the onset of covid. As the story progresses, religion stealthily intrudes any personal space left in this South Asian household where privacy is a concept more alien than actual aliens.
Why doesn’t Humaira try harder to make her mother understand or try to move out- escapes the scope of the film. Judging by her father’s opinion on keeping the family albums against Khaleda’s wish to burn all on religious grounds, one might wonder if she could confide in her father what she couldn’t tell her mother. But as if to reiterate the film’s heart-rending title, communication in the Bilkis household, like many others in this region, is a cripplingly patrolled one-way street.
We don’t often see film-makers in Bangladesh documenting their own lives, owning their experiences regarding something as taboo as this. Visually there’s little variation except for a few handheld shots in Japan. The house and the Airbnbs of the couple’s secret rendezvous look indistinguishable. But the visual monotony supplements both the theme and the tone of the film without inflicting boredom. The director sometimes appears in front of the camera; at other times, her reflection on mirrors can be seen holding the camera. The house isn’t always tidied up, as Bengalis would do before inviting guests in, and the protagonists’ clothes are casually mismatched, adding to the feeling of peering into a family’s intimate moments.
Some of the correspondences between Humaira and partner Sudipto feels tailored to complement the scenes, brushing briefly with fiction. As the director opines, every documentary is a work of fiction in a way because we bend the truth to fit our narrative, not because we’re not truthful, but for it’s the only way we can make sense of the reality around us.
Foreign audiences may find it hard to fathom how taxing such parenting is and why an independent, middle-aged person is stomaching such treatment. Here’s where the native audiences and critics come in handy to decipher the cultural nuances and fill in the blanks in some of our understanding. Unfortunately, locals often don’t get to see the films when they’re circling the festival circuit and thus our observations seldom inhabit a prominent place in the global conversations surrounding these films.
It would be fascinating to see, if and when “Things I Could Never Tell My Mother” releases in Bangladesh, whether youngsters take their parents to watch it in theatres. Chances are that the pacing of the film may tug at their patience; the tone may appear to be outlandish and the message may fall on deaf ears. The film does mention that Humaira’s father was eager to see it once finished, but can she show it to her mother? Will the local audience sympathise with the mother’s impositions and shame the daughter for her vocational and romantic choices upon viewing? The conversation could morph either way.
Few can fully fathom the protagonist’s intricate struggles in this participatory documentary. But those who can, will find solace in knowing they’re not alone in their seemingly solitary journeys and they don’t have to hide their truth fearing reproach, as there is strength in numbers. In the Bangladeshi perspective, this film could be revolutionary, if only we dared to be half as brave as Humaira, instead of forever trying to tell the stories of “the other,” always observing from a distance, barely scratching the surface, never profound enough to solicit a genuine reaction from anyone, at times, the film-maker included.
Visions du Reel 2022 took place from April 7-17 and VdR Film Market concluded on May 1.
