The Girls review – poignant coming-of-age romance is an understated gem of Sri Lankan cinema

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Sumitra Peries’ 1978 film about teenage sisters and thwarted romance is laden with passions that can’t be spoken aloud Here is a gem of South Asian cinema from 1978, by the Sri Lankan director and editor Sumitra Peries. With its lucid monochrome cinematography and calm, natural, unselfconscious performances, there is a freshness and warmth to this film. It is often on the brink of melodrama or soap opera, many shots having a tendency to slow zoom into the actors’ faces, and yet The Girls is in fact rather understated. A great deal of its poignancy resides in this very suppression of emotion. We are in a world of passions that can’t be spoken aloud. It is a story through whose entire running time I wistfully hoped for a happy ending, but that is what Peries ruthlessly withholds from her audience. Kusum (Vasanthi Chathurani) is a studious, serious teen from a poor family with a scholarship to a very good school. Her father is seriously ill and her mother works hard to make ends meet. She...
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A Way Home review – Alzheimer’s and immigration in portrait of a disappearing past

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Karima Saïdi’s documentary movingly tries to shore up memories from her mother’s life, but the ethics of the process are uneasy

While caring for her mother Aïcha who has Alzheimer’s, film-maker Karima Saïdi often asks her the simple yet loaded question: “Where do you live?” At one point, her mother replies: “In a handkerchief”; a strangely poetic answer that encapsulates the mental haze of her condition. At other times she speaks of her childhood in Tangier, or the family home in Brussels where she saw her children grow up. As Aïcha’s mind wanders, Saïdi’s documentary transforms into a haven for her memories, which are fading fast.

This cinematic nest is built from old home videos and photographs, which tell of a turbulent immigrant life in Belgium. Saïdi’s older sister Amina was forced into marriage at the age of 15, and her brothers Jamal and Mohamed both died relatively young. Told through Saïdi’s sombre voiceover, these tragic events also incur questions for Aïcha, who is urged for confirmation as well as further details.

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