Last night, I watched a movie titled FATIMA at Institut Français d'Indonesie or people would commonly known as IFI Jakarta, located at MH. Thamrin road number 20.
Fatima is a French movie directed by Phillipe Faucon on 2015. Fatima is about a single mother who is struggling to raise her two daughters, Souad (15 years old) a rebellious teenager and Nesrine (18 years old) who just started studying medicine. Fatima left her Moroccan Village to live with her husband in France when she was 20 years old. 20 years later, Fatima and her husband are separated, which left Fatima who speaks French poorly to raise her two daughters by herself. Fatima raises her daughters and pays the bills by working as a cleaner on buildings, cafetaria, and houses. She has issues with her daughters, the bigger issue is Souad, the 15 years old, she doesn't listen to her and she looks down on Fatima because her mother cannot speak French, also because she works as cleaners. Meanwhile, the other daughter is struggling in her first year of medicine school, Nesrine does not let anything put her mind off her goal which is to pass the first year, not even love. She also has some problems with other Muslim woman which lives on the same building as her mother. They want her to stop studying and start working to help her mother because she's the oldest child in the family.
The story revolved around the biggest problem which Fatima has, how she speaks French poorly which lead to other problems in work and with her kids.
For some people this movie might be boring, but I really love the story and the problems. The problems are really common in life. The problems revolved around woman, tradition, mother's love and sacrifice, discrimination, and language,
There is one scene where Souad burps in front of old French Guys because they're looking at them, she burps and said "ALHAMDULILAH" which mean praise God in Muslim. I think she tried to offense them, because she was ashamed of where she came from, she doesn't want to speak Arabic and she look down on her mother because the discrimination or racism issue to Muslim. She thinks that speaking Arabic is lower than speaking French.
The older daughter struggling in studying medicine with people surrounding her don't encourage her to, simply because it's tradition that she should work to help her mother. I don't think it's good or bad, but Fatima works hard to pay for tuition and it's for her daughter's sake, which I think wise for Nesrine to study hard so her mother's sweat are not to waste. To think that she would stop studying, would make her mother heart's break. She's also having an issue where the Muslim women thought that she's a snob just because she's studying and it's something expensive, they think that Nesrine think of herself higher than them because she's educated. That issue connected with the tradition in Muslim law, specifically in Afghanistan, that women doesn't have any right to all those things. Women only allowed to be home serving family and her husband. Women doesn't have any right to speak her mind. There are a lot of domestic violence at Afghanistan, that it's okay for men to hit, abuse, cut one part of women. There is also a tradition, that if a daughter doesn't do what the family or the father asked her to, the daughter will be punished severely. Such as one case when a daughter married a man that the family forbid her to marry. Her Father and Uncle brought her to a river to shoot her in the head because they said she brought shame to their family. She survived to tell the story to people, to media.
There was one day when women in Afghanistan were out on the street and do a demonstration for woman's right to be treated as human. I wonder what kind of punishment they would have to take at home after they do what they need to do for a better life. It can be considered as a huge sacrifice.
Despite all the issue, what we really can see throughout the movie was a mother's love and sacrifice from Fatima. She works all night and day, cleaning houses, cafetaria, and buildings. But she also has time to make food for her daughters, visit Nesrine, wash her daughters clothes. She simply did everything. She also tried to learn how to read, speak and write in French so that she can communicate with people and mainly to speak with her daughters. Fatima write her diary for her daughters in Arabic because she couldn't express herself completely in French. The main issue here is language, where language should be a bridge with other people but becomes a barrier because one couldn't speak the language and the other didn't make any effort to listen. What seems to be the problem is that Fatima couldn't speak French fluently, but the thing is, the daughter also failed to try to understand and meet her halfway. One cannot simply make an effort by themselves, the other part has to meet them halfway in order to reach a full understanding of each other. What seems to be the main problem is language, but the biggest issue is effort and a fail attempt to understand each other.
Anyway, the movie is great! And I can't wait for another Cinè-macet in July at IFI Jakarta! If you're interested to see French movies, here is the link of IFI website for you to check the schedule in July 2016.
http://www.ifi-id.com/
Au revoir! :)
Elisabet Pingkan Christantina
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