{"id":3170,"date":"2021-09-10T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3170"},"modified":"2021-09-10T09:58:15","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T08:58:15","slug":"lets-talk-and-be-honest-marianne-khoury-egyptian-film-maker-tackles-arab-women-taboos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2021\/09\/10\/lets-talk-and-be-honest-marianne-khoury-egyptian-film-maker-tackles-arab-women-taboos\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk and Be Honest: Marianne Khoury, Egyptian film maker, Tackles Arab Women Taboos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Film Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media Correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Let\u2019s talk\u2019<\/em> (Documentary film, directed by Marianne Khoury, Egypt, 2019, winner of best documentary film in Cairo International Film Festival 2019)<\/p>\n

Showing at \u2018The Time is New: Selections from Contemporary Arab Cinema\u2019 at BFI Southbank and on BFI Player from 27 August\u20135 October. Tickets on sale now at https:\/\/whatson.bfi.org.uk\/Online\/<\/a><\/p>\n

George Orwell famously said: \u201cAutobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats\u201d. In \u2018Let\u2019s Talk\u2019<\/em>, Marianne Khoury, delivers a no-holds-barred narrative of four generations of her family riddled with traumas and disappointments. In a series of soul-searching conversations with Sara, her daughter, Khoury revisits the history of women who made an impression on her life, namely her mother Iris and her grandmother, Marika (Nona). As a child, Marianne grew in a family heavily involved with the film industry, her father, John Khoury was the director of Universal Film and later Fox offices in the MENA region, and her uncle was the legendary film maker, Youssef Chahine. Simulating Chahine\u2019s autobiographical focus in his Alexandria feature films trilogy<\/a> but going a lot further, Khoury uses an investigative documentary approach through interviews with her brothers, Elie and Gaby, her aunt Marcelle, and uncle Youssef Chahine as well as footage from home videos and family audio recordings. Her journey down memory lane turns into a probing exercise into the reasons why her mother was a deeply unhappy married woman, why was she profoundly depressed especially during her later years, and what triggered the compulsive drinking habit. In Iris\u2019s world, depression was a stigma; any vocal expression of its existence would have been misinterpreted as a sign of weakness or un-gratefulness. How could a woman who has everything, a rich husband and an extended loving protective family be unhappy! More traumatic truths emerge when Marianne comes to find out from her aunt that Iris wanted to abort her as an unborn baby.<\/p>\n

Adverse childhood experiences defined Khoury and her daughter Sara\u2019s lives; both suffered maternal neglect, both had an identity crisis being born into mixed cultural and social heritage, and being dominated by varying degrees of patriarchal and matriarchal influences. Marianne married at the age of 22 to please her parents and avoid the social stigma of being \u2018single\u2019.<\/p>\n