Silent Waters (Human Rights Watch series)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B
First Run Features continuing series of key films in their
great new Human Rights Watch series brings us Sabiha Sumar’s Silent Waters
(2003), a pretty good fictional summation of what happens when happiness,
progress and a potential positive future in a Middle Eastern country (Pakistan
in this case) is just too good for extremists tastes. The resulting is the highjacking of religion, government and the
ages old story of destroying women’s lives by striping them of their liberties
and much worse, like kidnapping, rape, murder/”honor killings” and elimination
of visibility and civil rights.
Like Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978,
reviewed elsewhere on this site) and Heaven’s Gate (1980), the film
beings with extended happiness and joy that makes one think the future is
bright. Then, things change for the
worse and those who deserve happiness have their lives ruined permanently, i.e.
a small steel town is ruined and its community ravaged by Vietnam Syndrome, The
Johnson City Massacre, a Radical Islamic reclamation of women by force and
misogyny. Though this film is not as
complex as those classics, it is blunt, thorough and shows the young men
seduced by the extremism as three-dimensional.
Any charges that this is shallow propaganda will be obvious charges by
extremists afraid of this fine film.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1/16 X 9 image is not
bad, with decent color, if not always consistent. As well, details and depth are somewhat limited, but the transfer
is decent, though not what it could have been.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is from a Dolby Digital theatrical release,
but that does not mean it was a 5.1 film.
Here however, there is not even any serious surround information and a
slight harshness to the sound. Both
suggest this might be one generation down.
Extras include human rights expert Smita Narula (in letterboxed 1.78 X
1/16 X 9, which has a word censored (!!!) about what kind of state India needs
to be) at about 11 minutes, Human Rights Watch text notes, text on them and
titles they have selected so far as part of their series, text statement by and
biography on the director, and trailers for four other key First Run DVD titles
in the same school of thought. Don’t miss Silent Waters if you want to
see the roots of the problem with Islamo-Fascism.
- Nicholas Sheffo
