A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness

CinemaSerf

There is something really quite harrowing about the beginning of this short documentary as we are introduced to Saba. She has married a man to whom she had once been engaged and with whom she is in love - but to the horror of her father who together with her uncle took her to the side of the river, shot her in the head and then left her to the mercy of the waters. Fortunately for her, her dad wasn't much of a shot and she survived - but only to find that her attempts to obtain justice for this crime aroused starkly different views from a community that was by no means unanimous in it's condemnation of her treatment. It's possibly her male family members who have most impact here - they feel no sense of regret (beyond the fact that she is still alive) on any level and some of their quotes made proudly to camera about the the role of women in their society and their obligations to patriarchal obedience would test the humanity of anyone in general terms, let alone when being aimed at a close member of their own family whom they had nurtured all her life. There's no narration, it's more a collection of quite effective scenes that show how she, now pregnant, is trying to get on with her life whilst facing the toughest of all decisions: will she forgive her father in the eyes of the law, or will she insist on a proper legal trial for attempted murder?