A Girl in the River: Der Preis der Vergebung

This film is set in Pakistan and is about so-called 'honor killings'--when families murder their own daughters in order to save face with their neighbors. The particular subject of this film is a young lady named Saba. Saba married a man despite her family not giving her permission and her father and uncle dealt with it by shooting her and dumping her into the river. However, Saba's case is unusual because she actually survived the gunshot to her face and the film follows the case through the Pakistani court and to its ultimate resolution...or lack of resolution. The film is hellaciously depressing but fortunately the gunshot wound isn't as horrible to see post-surgically as you might imagine and Saba is rather inspiring because of her inner strength. It's also an amazing film because everyone talks so openly about what occurred and the father seems incredibly proud of his actions and by the end of the film he is elated that he maintained his sense of honor by trying to murder his daughter.

By the way, if you are curious, the filmmakers and folks they interviewed were careful to reiterate that these honor killings are not in any way approved of in the Koran but are more cultural than religious in nature.

UPDATE: This film did take the Oscar for Best Documentary Short.

We follow a lovely, and at the same time incredible tough, 18 year old girl (Saba) who survives a murder attempt carried out by her father and uncle.

Her crime is to have fallen in love with the boy that her family wanted as her husband. A new decision about marriage is taken but Saba follows her heart instead of her fathers rules and runs off and gets married.

This act of independence is so hideous and dangerous that the only thing that can restore the family's honor is to kill her. She survives and through interviews with her, the police, a lawyer and family we start to get a picture of how women are looked at in a society that are governed by feudal laws.

Especially the interview with her father and uncle in prison makes us understand that daughters should be considered being in eternal debt to their father who has worked so hard to sustain their lives. If she gets "meal three times a day" then she shouldn't ask for more.

Womens rights are so neglected that if an honor killing is committed and the killer afterward are forgiven by his nearest family - then he walks free. So if Saba forgives her father then he will walk free and so the suspense starts. Will she do this or not? I will not spoil the last part of the story for you but just recommend the movie for being more than politic correct.

When you see Saba together with her newly wedded husband you simply cannot understand that this marriage is looked upon as a crime.

The happy end is that the movie has gotten so much attention that a fund raising has gotten the couple enough money to buy their own land.

/Simon

Ps. When you read reviews that gives max score check to see if the user has made more than one review. If not consider the possibility of a lobbyist. If you agree consider putting this post scriptum at the bottom at your own reviews.

A country that is so strict with religion has such a loose and imperfect legal system. Such a comparison is to make people understand that the system, religion, is nothing more than a pretext for maintaining their reasonable and unequal treatment of others.

If you like true stories told very well, but briefly, and you'd like to get a leg up in an Oscar pool, then this review is for you! In my continuing effort to see as many Oscar nominees as possible, I took advantage of the opportunity to see the shorts.TV theatrical presentation "Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016: Documentary" (NR, 3:00 – with 10 min. intermission). Here's a brief, spoiler-free summary and evaluation of one of those five films...

"A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" (40 min.) – Saba was an 18-year-old Pakistani girl who fell in love with and married a young man of whom her family did not approve. For this "crime", her father and uncle kidnapped her from the home of her new husband's family, drove her to a riverbank, shot her in the head, placed her in a sack and threw her in the river. Saba was one of over 1,000 women targeted for "honor killings" every year in Pakistan, but unlike most of those nameless victims, Saba survived. We see her in the hospital being treated for her wounds, then we follow her as she returns to live with her husband and his family and is pressured to drop the charges against her uncle and father and publicly "forgive" them. All the key players in this real-life drama give interviews in which they tell us about their roles in this story and openly discuss their points of view. We even get to sit in on a meeting between local tribal elders and Saba's lawyer, trying to find a resolution to the case. With remarkable access, a flare for story-telling and the ability to present all points of view without judgment, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has directed an important and outstanding film which rises above the label of "documentary short" and demands to be seen by everyone who cares about our common humanity. "A+"

The other four films in the shorts.TV theatrical presentation "Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016: Documentary" are… "Body Team 12" "Chau, beyond the Lines" "Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah" "Last Day of Freedom"

"A Girl In the River: The Price of Forgiveness" (2015 release; 40 min.) is a short documentary about Saba, a 19 yr. old lady from Gujranwala, Pakistan. As the documentary opens, Saba is on an operating table and attended to by a doctor. The doctor shares some graphic/stomach-turning pictures as to Saba's original wounds to her face. It's not long before we learn that she was shot by her father and uncle, who actually tried to kill her for something Saba did that (allegedly) dishonors her family. What did Saba do? What will become of her father and uncle? To tell you more of the facts would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is another documentary by acclaimed director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. She previously won an Oscar for Best Short Documentary for 2012's "Saving Face", a feat she would eventually repeat with this film. She is known for her activism to showcase the inequality of women in Pakistani society. Here she tackles a particular egregious topic: the so-called 'honor-killings' (of which more than 1,000 take place each year, we are reminded at the beginning of the movie). We get to know Saba, as well as her immediate family and the family of her husband, all of which speak on record and fully convinced that their personal opinion is the one and only correct (if not righteous) one. The suffocating "mores" of Pakistani society (never mind what the law actually says) is hard for anyone in the US to fully grasp and understand. But it makes for a jaw-dropping viewing experience. If I have one criticism of this documentary, it is that there is so much material to cover, that the documentary frankly feels rushed at a running time of just 40 min. I don't think it would've been all that hard to stretch this out to a feature-length documentary.

I recently stumbled onto this film while browsing the documentary section of HBO on Demand. So glad I found this. No, this does not make for "fun" viewing but it is all the more ESSENTIAL viewing. last and certainly not least, major kudos to Saba for her bravery to speak out. "A Girl in the River" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.