There’s a wealth of philosophical exegesis on why blurring the borders between documentary and fiction is the more honest approach, since absolute truth is an impossible goal and fiction can reveal a more essential reality. It’s a highly debatable line of argument, especially for a film like Mighty Afrin: in the Time of Floods which keeps dodging easy categorization. Shot over five years along the Brahmaputra River and the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, the film has a striking contemplative beauty and a protagonist whose off-the-charts charisma could easily overshadow any number of trained actresses. Not unwarranted accusations of poverty porn will dog director Angelos Rallis, and most viewers will question how much has been written and staged, but Mighty Afrin remains an impressive achievement that could see substantial festival play.
Rallis’ previous works were also conceived with an observational eye highly attuned to theatrical display and narrative construction; in A Place for Everyone he looked at a Rwandan village in the aftermath of the genocide, and with Shingal, Where are You? he inserted himself in a Yazidi community devastated by that equally shocking genocide. With Mighty Afrin he’s significantly reduced his focus while continuing to draw attention to disenfranchised communities, though here he stays with one person, Afrin Khanom, who he first met in 2017 when she was a 12-year-old eking out a precarious existence in the flooded Brahmaputra basin.
We’re introduced to her in spectacular fashion, struggling with palm fronds during a violent gale. In subsequent scenes Afrin is barely ever out of water, resembling some amphibious adolescent goddess unfazed by the flooded plains. Rallis is director and cinematographer (among other duties) so he too must have grown accustomed to this semi-aqueous state, his superb sense of composition delivering astonishing images, such as Afrin walking alongside collapsing mud banks while towing a long pole: light, color saturation and clarity all combine to make every frame memorable, like a National Geographic portfolio come to life.
We’re informed in titles after the credits that climate change is wreaking havoc in the lands around the River, displacing tens of thousands; Afrin’s mother died long ago and her father left her in their shack on a constantly flooded sandbank, vaguely watched over by an unsympathetic aunt (Feroza Begum) who’s now telling her she either has to find her father in Dhaka or get married. We don’t know for how many seasons she’s been battling the elements, sleeping in the rafters above the submerged shack floor, but at some point she decides to locate her father, ignoring the advice of an old man (Badal Sholid) who wants her to stay with him.
The train ride through forests ends in the cesspool of Dhaka’s riverside and a filthy collection of ferryboats housing untold masses. Rallis films Afrin as she picks her way barefoot through the fetid expanse, then out onto the side of a highway where her face, artfully smudged with dirt, unfortunately calls to mind Scarlet O’Hara’s begrimed mug just before declaring “As God is my witness!…” It all feels so staged, so artfully constructed as this fine-looking girl ends up as a ragamuffin rubbish collector, her beauty contrasted against the muck such as in an overhead shot where she’s lying side-by-side with her new friend (Bonna Akter) surrounded by trash: a diamond among the ash.
There are other scenes that feel equally contrived, such as when Afrin stands on the back of a bike peddled by a friend at night, her arms reaching up towards blue lights strung across the road like a carpet of stars in the sky. It’s instantly uplifting (if derivative) until one starts to think about the conflicting messages we’re being fed: joy and dire poverty, a pure soul in one of the world’s most polluted cities. Wait, isn’t this being marketed as a documentary? So when she and her chum Jobai (Abdul Al Jobayed) are being chased down the street by a man he tries to steal from, and Rallis’ camera is right behind, are we really meant to imagine this isn’t staged? Also, what meaning does the director want to impart when Afrin joins four trans women on the street singing and dancing, followed by a cobra woman in the glare of a nighttime fire? They’re shot as something semi-nightmarish, freakish yet fascinating for First World consumption.
At the film’s end we learn that Afrin’s now an outreach worker with street orphans, and appears to also be getting theatre experience (it’s also worth noting that two psychologists are listed in the end credits). That’s great news, allowing us to feel that her future is more secure than we imagined, especially given that we’re told at the film’s start that Afrin’s story is meant to be an allegory of all those people displaced by climate change. The problem here isn’t that moments of happiness and friendship are incompatible with poverty – they’re not, of course – but Rallis is so enchanted with Afrin’s beauty that he raises it above her environment, so that the Brahmaputra’s catastrophic flooding and Dhaka’s unimaginable putrescence become little more than settings for her jewel-like presence.
From a cinematic standpoint however, Mighty Afrin is an unquestionably impressive, immersive accomplishment, full of astonishing images so exquisitely composed, so astonishingly crisp, that one could happily contemplate each frame for minutes at a time. It boggles the mind to imagine how Rallis captured it all, immersing himself in the discomforts of the watery plains so that the viewer wonders, as we do with Afrin, whether he ever has a chance to get dry. It’s unfortunate that Alexis Rault’s unnecessary New Agey music gives the impression of being in a meditation room.
Director: Angelos Rallis
Written by: Angelos Rallis
With: Afrin Khanom, Bona Akter, Feroza Begum, Badal Sholid, Shorna Akter Asha, Abdul Al Jobayed, Golam Hasib, Rabiul Hasan, Shohan Hossen, Taufik Emon, Kotha Ridhy, Toma Mirzha, Hasna, Moushumi, Jamiron, Ratan Das, Sheikh Rashida Rakhi
Producers: Maria Del Mar Rodriguez, Angelos Rallis
Co-producers: Birgit Kemner, Philippe Gompel
Executive producer: Giorgos Rallis
Cinematography: Angelos Rallis
Editing: Nadia Ben Rachid, Angelos Rallis
Music: Alexis Rault.
Sound: Angelos Rallis, Teemu Takatalo, Hafiz Uddin Munna, Masrur Rahman Masud
Production companies: AR Productions (Greece), Manny Films (France), ZDF/ARTE (Germany), ERT TV (Greece)
World sales: Cargo Film & Releasing
Venue: Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (International Competition)
In Bengali
92 minutes
