Saving Face

I doubt anything shown on TV in the month of March will be as haunting or as oppressing as Saving Face, which took home the award for Best Documentary Short at The 84th Academy Awards - the first award given to a film from Pakistan. The film's subject matter is touchy, but its delivery is more than commendable. It tells the depressing stories of women who have been victim to acid attacks in Pakistan, yet offers optimism and hope that justice will be served at one point in time.

We're taken to Islamabad, where we are informed that hundreds of women are victim to acid attacks each year, and many are left unreported. One of the women, named Zakia, must resort to walking around town with her face wrapped in a sheet, with her eyes behind sunglasses. She states that her husband was a drug addict and an alcoholic who would suck up all her money. When there was no more money, she'd be abused and deemed lazy. It wasn't long until her husband dowsed her in acid leaving almost half of her face in unprecedented condition.

Another woman, this one pregnant, by the name of Rukhsana, stated that her husband threw acid on her face, followed by being soaked with gasoline by her sister-in-law, before being lit on fire by her mother-in-law. The husband, now in prison, states that she lit herself aflame, and that half the women in the Islamabad burn unit have done such an act to themselves. It's more than unforgivable to commit a crime of this magnitude, and then to say that the victim committed an act of self-harm.

The film not only follows the lives of these women, letting them tell their stories the way they want them to be told, but also focuses on Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a plastic surgeon working in London who travels back to his homeland to operate on victims of acid attacks. Jawad is an admirable figure, one who speaks softly and is clearly proud of his contribution to the women of Islamabad.

So many Academy Award winning shorts are left unseen, and thanks to HBO, which will be airing this short all through the month of March, that will not be the case with Saving Face. This is a remarkable documentary, one that could've easily been of feature film status, depicting inequalities between men and women in separate countries. One of the most painful lines to hear in the film is when Rukhsana states that she hopes she gives birth to a boy so that his adult life won't be as ominous and as consumed with fear as one a woman must endure.

Saving Face is inconceivable and brilliant in its efforts to document a crime largely unknown to Americans. Sadly, the attacks are starting to take place around the globe. I remember seeing a TV special talking about an English model named Katie Piper, whose acid attack left her face very rigid, rough, and irreversible. The thought of people resorting to the level of permanent facial damage to a woman is depressing to imagine, most likely immensely disheartening to experience, and impossible to justify. Thankfully, we have documentaries like this one to inform and enlighten us.

Starring: Zakia, Rukhsana, and Dr. Mohammad Jawad. Directed by: Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, and Daniel Junge.

Every once in a while I'd hear about a case in India or Pakistan of a man dousing a woman or girl with acid. What I didn't know, that "Saving Face" has taught me, is that husbands even do that to their wives!! I can understand, if I were to climb into the mind of a maniac, why a scorned man with his shattered ego would douse a woman who just rejected him, but why would a man permanently mar the face of his wife--the wife he plans to remain married to?!?

"Saving Face" is about the acid-assaulting in Pakistan. At the time of this documentary there were 100 cases of acid assaults per year in Pakistan. They had a free clinic dedicated specifically to women who'd been doused with acid and at the time of the film an advocacy group was trying to get stiff penalties on the country's books for such attackers. At the same time a Pakistani plastic surgeon named Mohammad Jawad had returned home to help some of these disfigured and ostracized women.

The whole thing is enough to make you angry and befuddled. How is it, in this country full of prideful men, could so many men get away with attacking women and girls in this fashion? Part of being a prideful man is being proud of being able to protect your family. Have none of the fathers, brothers, uncles, or even sons of these women sought some righteous revenge? I would think that dousing a girl with acid would be of the utmost riskiness because there would be a tribe to deal with after that. Shows how much I know.

Really every high school student around the world should be required to watch this movie. It is an incredibly touching lesson in human triumph to not only continue to live after unspeakable cruelty but to excel at life. The women in this story demonstrate that the incredible journey they undertake to gain their lives back is nothing short of miraculous. It is unfortunate that often documentaries are overlooked when one is considering going to the movies. I would urge you to spend 40 minutes and watch this with your family and then engage in a discussion. The merits of this documentary go without saying. This documentary is well deserving of the 2012 Documentary Short Academy Award.

Saving Face (2012)

**** (out of 4)

Shocking and depressing documentary taking a look at the acid attacks in Pakistan, which usually happen to women and by the hands of those closest to them. SAVING FACE is a terrific documentary and certainly one of the most shocking I've seen but at the same time it's hard to really recommend it because of how depressing it actually is. It's just so shocking to see a place where this type of thing happens on a regular basis but I'm sure the counter argument would be that certain places, ala America, have much more domestic murders than the acid attacks in Pakistan. Either way, seeing the aftermath of these attacks are pretty hard to watch and the documentary centers on a surgeon who tries to help some of the women by working on their faces. It's even more shocking to see that these type of attacks happen so much that there was a special hospital built just for these cases. We hear the stories of several women who were attacked by men, mainly their husbands for a wide range of reasons including the women wanting a divorce or the women simply not doing something the husband wanted. Hearing these stories are just downright scary and seeing how much pain the women must deal with by simply looking the way they do have having people constantly looking at them. SAVING FACE certainly tells a story that you won't forget and we even get to hear by a couple of the men accused of the crime and it's almost as shocking trying to hear their side of the story.

The winner of Best Documentary Short Subject at the 84th Academy Awards, "Saving Face" looks at a doctor who helps reconstruct the faces of Pakistani women attacked with acid. These women's husbands sound like the textbook definition of toxic masculinity (a term that's come to the fore in the past year or two). Worse still, the women's families often defend the husbands. The doctor does what he has to in order to help repair the women's faces.

It just goes to show that when it comes to the Oscars, the documentaries are the most important nominees. The movies might be the famous ones, but various documentaries (An Inconvenient Truth, Inside Job, The Invisible War) have cast a light on some of the most important overlooked issues. This is one of them. Definitely see it.