{"id":10478,"date":"2019-01-23T14:58:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T12:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10478"},"modified":"2019-01-23T15:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T13:00:23","slug":"on-her-shoulders-review-a-documentary-about-yazidi-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2019\/01\/on-her-shoulders-review-a-documentary-about-yazidi-activist\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018On Her Shoulders\u2019 Review: A Documentary About Yazidi Activist"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIE WIRE<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

By\u00a0David Ehrlich<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n

Not just a clear-eyed look at the ongoing Yazidi genocide, this doc also illustrates the hard work involved to earn the world’s attention.<\/h4>\n
\n

\u2018On Her Shoulders\u2019 Review: A Documentary About Yazidi Activist Nadia Murad Becomes an Essential Portrait of the Strength Required to Speak Up \u2014 Sundance 2018<\/p>\n

Nadia Murad, 23, only had three minutes to address the United Nations General Assembly and tell the gathered delegates her life story, an unspeakably horrific tale that includes being imprisoned and raped by the ISIS militants who murdered her relatives. She then escaped the ongoing genocide of the Yazidi people en route to join forces with Amal Clooney, who helped her take legal action against the terrorists responsible for these crimes against humanity. Most of us would probably need more than three minutes just to tell someone about the trials and tribulations of their commute to work that morning.<\/p>\n

Of course, by 2016 Murad was quite good at distilling her biography, having spent the previous year practicing on countless journalists (either in English or in her native Kurdish), receiving one of Glamour Magazine\u2019s 2016 \u201cWomen of the Year\u201d awards, and becoming the first person to ever brief the UN Security Council on the subject of human trafficking.<\/p>\n

Murad is a remarkable person, but she\u2019s only the subject of a remarkable documentary because filmmaker Alexandria Bombach recognizes how little that matters. Make no mistake, \u201cOn Her Shoulders\u201d offers a profound testament to Murad\u2019s suffering, courage and unfathomable tenacity, but this deceptively standard-issue portrait also recognizes that compassion has never been so competitive, or in such short supply.<\/p>\n

During the Festival\u00a0Murad is a singularly powerful example, but \u2014 right or wrong \u2014 her story must earn our attention at a time when new tragedy seems to unfold every day. She still has to shoulder the burden of telling it, and telling it well. It\u2019s not enough for her to be a survivor; she also has to be a compelling and concise emblem for a non-Muslim ethno-religious minority who are being wiped off the face of the Earth without making the evening news. It\u2019s not enough that she lived through atrocities that even the most empathetic of us can\u2019t fully understand, but she also has to sell us on the threat they still pose to the people she left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Her Shoulders\u201d does a dutiful job of informing viewers about the Yazidi genocide, but Bombach knows that most viewers are more interested in the sordid details of a horror story than in what they can do to help. Human nature isn\u2019t always very nice. And so, Bombach pointedly denies us the information that we\u2019re craning to hear. You can learn more about Murad \u2014 more about the raw data of her misfortunes, anyway \u2014 by reading her Wikipedia page than you can by watching this documentary. \u201cI didn\u2019t want people to know me as a victim,\u201d she says. And she\u2019s not; at least, she\u2019s not only that. She\u2019s also a vessel, and a voice; and by showing her to be those things and more, Bombach\u2019s film also positions her as a symbol of voicelessness.<\/p>\n

In this context, one of the most important things about Nadia Murad isshe\u2019s a compelling screen presence. \u201cOn Her Shoulders\u201d never breaks the mold \u2014 the film is a formally staid hodgepodge of talking head interviews and v\u00e9rit\u00e9 footage of Murad traveling the world with representatives from the human rights non-profit, Yazda \u2014 but its heroine holds our attention, no matter the mode. She\u2019s so limpid and self-possessed that you often understand the essence of what she\u2019s saying before it\u2019s been filtered through her translator.<\/p>\n

Of course, no words (of any language) would be necessary to convey how surreal it must be to go from being enslaved by ISIS to doing the American talk show circuit and being hounded for selfies in the span of two years. Bombach has the good sense to probe these areas, to show that Murad isn\u2019t unflappable, to explore how much hard work it is to be heard. The people who profile Malala make it look so easy! The best scenes in the film are the ones where Murad is sitting with her Yazda allies in an apartment in Greece or a Starbucks in Manhattan and practicing her testimony, reciting the lines that might be responsible for saving an entire tribe of people like an actor preparing for an audition. Murad can\u2019t possibly be healed while thousands continue to suffer, but she never could have anticipated what reconciling those realities might entail.<\/p>\n

In a film that often loses narrative thrust as it acquires emotional intensity, these moments have a way of restoring some kind of balance to Bombach\u2019s doc, which \u2014 likes its star \u2014 is uncomfortably wedged between freedom and despair, sincerity, and performance. That isn\u2019t to say that Murad\u2019s testimony is inauthentic. On the contrary, it\u2019s so wrenching because she feels the weight of her loss so intensely each and every time she\u2019s asked to recount it.<\/p>\n

Her journey builds to that U.N. address, where Murad\u2019s remarks are cut down and buried under layers of emotionally explicit music. In the moment, it\u2019s intensely frustrating that Bombach doesn\u2019t let us experience what her subject has been working toward (after all, the speech is pretty short), but the fact is her specific words are far less important than the United Nations\u2019 decision (and ours) to take their spirit to heart. If \u201cOn Her Shoulders\u201d struggles for an ending, perhaps that\u2019s because we have to supply our own. People like Nadia can\u2019t fix the world, but this vital documentary is proof that it\u2019s heroic enough just to be heard.<\/p>\n

And for the record, Nadia Murad ultimately spoke at the U.N. for four minutes and 28 seconds. Nobody seemed to mind.
\n\u201cOn Her Shoulders\u201d premiered in the Documentary Competition at Sundance 2018. It is currently seeking distribution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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