Ahmed and Isra’a are a typical couple living in Yemen’s second largest city, Aden. Largely forgotten by the rest of the world, its citizens struggle to survive under a daily existence governed by low paying jobs, substandard housing, power that goes off and on at a whim, and overpriced goods and produce at the markets.
Director Amr Gamal is an independent filmmaker who is a native of Aden, Yemen, where he still lives and works. His sensitively drawn film reflects a grim reality that can only be drawn from personal experience and the experiences of those around him. For his effort, he has been awarded the Gold Hugo in the 59th Chicago International Film Festival’s New Director Competition.
Life in Aden is anything but ideal. Ahmed and Isra’a live in an overcrowded apartment with three school-aged children. Ahmed has a job driving a dilapidated jitney van for a company that hasn’t paid him in months.
To make matters worse, the private school their kids go to has tripled the tuition. Adding insult to injury, Ahmed’s van gets rammed by a military jeep while he’s on his route and the damage repair has to come out of his own pocket. To say he is stressed is an understatement.
Now comes the unwelcome news that Isra’a (Abeer Mohammed) is six weeks into having a fourth baby. Ahmed (Khaled Hamden) is enraged; to the point that he has been beating his wife and demanding that she get an abortion.
Yemen is a Muslim country where laws governing abortion are strict. Law dictates that the procedure must be done within 120 days. The clock is already ticking for Isra’a.
As you can imagine, the availability of medical care in Yemen is nothing like walking into your local neighborhood Urgent Care. Even the most basic care is difficult to obtain and mired in bureaucratic red tape.
Isra’a has a long-time friend, Muna, who is a doctor. Deeply religious, Muna has refused to perform the procedure for Isra’a in the past and the two haven’t spoken in five years. Asking her again would only deepen the fissure between the two.
“”Why would you call this blessing a mistake?” Muna asks the couple. “When a blessing is too much to handle, it becomes a misfortune,” Ahmed shoots back.
The Burdened takes the viewer directly behind the dilapidated walls of the crumbling apartment buildings that line Yemen’s crowded streets. Director Gamal’s probing camera under the direction of Mrinal Desai (who shot the wildly successful 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, which swept the Oscars), editing by Heba Othman and Art Direction by Asim Abdulaziz, is presented without any musical score. All you see and hear throughout the film are the unvarnished sights and sounds of a rather bleak existence.
Stark in its portrayals, The Burden still has beneath its surface a beating human heart. There is a resiliency that comes from adversity. Ahmed and Isra’a wage a quiet struggle that, in spite of it all, binds them closer together and makes them stronger. Visit chicagofilmfestival.com for more.