Forbidden Lie$

A best-selling book about honour killings in Jordan is withdrawn by its publishers after allegations surface that the story has been fabricated; associated with other allegations of its author's past as a con-woman. A few years later, she resurfaces, conceding that she took a certain amount of dramatic licence but willing to cooperate with a film-maker to prove the substance of her allegations. What follows is a fascinating insight into a pathological personality, someone who's behaviour on one had makes no sense unless what she is saying is true, yet who is seemingly incapable of saying anything that is not astonishingly dramatic but unproven at best and most often, verifiably false. It's almost impossible to imagine what Ms. Khouri hoped to gain by appearing in this film: vindication? celebrity? - all she does achieve is to project a certain image of herself as a deeply damaged individual, and even that cannot be taken at face value. Director Anna Broinowski appears increasingly on camera as her film progresses, and increasingly exasperated to boot; but she is finally rewarded with a remarkable, although scary and disturbing, tale to tell - and one of those films that reminds us what a thoroughly weird world it is we live in.

You sit there for a half an hour and watch a story, believing it all, then watch another half an hour of the same story utterly unraveling... and then put back together again. Brilliant.

One of the most exciting feature films at the San Francisco International Film Festival is a documentary. I don't know if - other than Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans" - there has ever been anything like Anna Broinowski's "Forbidden Lie$." It features, exposes, defends, reveals, and questions everything about Norma Khouri, author of "Honor Lost," the acclaimed and lambasted 2001 bestseller about honor killings in Jordan.

What is quite incredible and what makes the film so exceptional is that this "exposure" of Khouri is made with Khouri's full participation.

For the initial portion of the film, Khouri presents her story about the supposed honor killing of a friend of hers in Amman, the story of the book. She sounds completely believable, convincing.

Then her story is taken apart, exposed, by eminently believable and convincing people, such as women's rights activists in Jordan, investigative reporters there and in Australia, where Khouri lived for a while.

Khouri comes back and denies the accusations, taking a successful lie-detector test in the process. There comes another segment of devastating exposures - not to be specified here because that would lessen the shock value... and then Khouri comes back and faces the accusations (not all, but the essential ones in the matter of the book).

And the Houdini act continues, with round after round in this heavy-weight, seesaw prize fight, surprise after surprise - and there is no "happy ending" in the sense of resolution. Brilliant.

I saw this film at the Adelaide Film Festival '07 and was thoroughly intrigued for all 106 minutes. I like documentaries, but often find them dragging with about 25 minutes to go. Forbidden Lie$ powered on though, never losing my interest.

The film's subject is Norma Khoury, a Jordanian woman who found fame and fortune in 2001 with the publication of her book Forbidden Love, a biographical story of sorts concerning a Muslim friend of hers who was murdered by her family for having a relationship with a Christian man. A few years later though, a few journalists started poking holes in the story, leading the public to believe it was fraud. The film covers this quickly but thoroughly in the beginning, and from there we spend most of our time in the company of Norma as she tries to convince us that her novel is more than fiction.

Director Anna Broinowski has found a truly fascinating woman to study, and she conducts endless interviews with Khoury as she seeks the truth. As always in life, the truth is not so easy to find. Norma fears for her life, worried about violent backlash over the unsavoury portrait her novel paints of Jordanian Muslims. She refuses to return to Jordan and show us the facts. Broinowski is not deterred however, and slowly puts the pieces together in front of us.

The result is an incredible look inside the mind of a con artist. Naturally, what we find there makes little sense and is extremely difficult to follow, and ultimately we don't know whether to believe Norma or not. She's either a rather unfairly put-upon woman trying to survive, or a fantastic spinster. The web of lies, truths and half-truths she turns through the film is brilliant.

The film uses much interview footage, as well as dramatisations to tell it's story, and Broinowski uses these dramatisations to show us why people like Norma are able to exist: we want to be conned. We go to the cinema every day and allow ourselves to believe what's happening on the screen is real. That might just be me reading into things a bit too much, it didn't come up in the Q&A with Brionowski after the film, but that's what I took away from it.

This is a great Australian film, and must receive an international release, and a swag of awards if you ask me. Certainly the best film I saw at AFF07.

Go see it, if you get the chance.

What a fascinating film. Even if it wasn't based on real life, Forbidden Lies was a fascinating portrait of a con artist in her element. And it is the kind of film psychology students could study to learn about compulsive liars.

The author of Forbidden Love, Norma, was revealed as a fraud in the media but this move really does give her ample opportunity to clear her name.

But the twists and turns she takes the documentary maker through are amazing. What a patient woman! I loved this movie. I have not read the book but simply heard good reviews and went to see it on boring rainy afternoon. The journey this film takes you on is clever, interesting and totally engrossing.

In the early to mid 1970's, Clifford Irving proposed to write the ultimate biography of Howard Hughes,claiming to have spent months preparing for the book,engaged in interviews with the reclusive millionaire. When all of this turned out to be false,Irving was accused of perjury & spent several years behind bars (although always admitting his findings were accurate). Flash forward to 20001,several months prior to September 11th, a book,entitled 'Forbidden Love' (published in the U.S. as 'Honor Lost:Love And Death In Modern Day Jordan') by a previously unknown author by the name of Norma Khouri,a woman from Jordan,who reported on the death by mercy killing of her best friend Dalia,due to the fact that Dalia,being from a devout Muslim background,was dating a Christian man. It,like Irving's biography on Hughes was revealed as a potential hoax. Australian film maker,Anna Broinowski attempts to delve into the quagmire that was Khouri's attempts to clear herself of the lie(s). Over the time frame of 104 minutes,the film attempts to reveal is Norma Khouri telling the truth,or is she just a compulsive liar,with an agenda/vendetta of her own?. Interview footage with those who know/knew her (including an ex husband,her publisher,and others) tell their side of the story. This is a toothsome,well produced documentary that manages to point many fingers at just as many potential guilty parties. Not rated,but contains pervasive bad language & a re-enactment of the grisly murder scene,played over a few times (but nothing nearly as graphic & disturbing as what one would see in the latest torture porn epic,such as Saw:Part 84). Not a good choice for the little ones.