By Firdaus Ali
As stardust settles over Toronto with the likes of Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Lopez, Matt Damon, Jennifer Coolidge and many Hollywood celebrities gracing the red carpet to showcase their stellar films – it’s also a time to recognize the South Asian gems that feature in this year’s Toronto Film Festival lineup.
The South Asian gems include films like Superboys of Malegaon, Shook, Little Jaffna, Santosh, All we Imagine as Light, Boong and reruns of the classic 1951 Raj Kapoor film Awara and Shrinivas Krishna’s Masala.
Undoubtedly, among the select films being shown this year – a film that stands out is Saba, a film from Bangladesh, playing in TIFF’s Discovery program. The film is an intense drama revolving around an emotionally fraught mother-daughter relationship.
Saba received its world premiere at TIFF and in attendance were the film’s director Maksud Hossain and actors Mehazabien Chowdhury Mostafa Monwar. Hossain is a writer-director based in Bangladesh and has directed several short films, including Three Beauties (2006), and as well as many commercials. Saba is his debut feature, and he is currently working on the script for his second feature, Babymoon.
The incredibly nuanced, multi-layered film is shot mainly in a tight, constricted space, showing the intensity of the life of Saba, who the sole caregiver for her mother.
“For me, Saba is a very personal film. The film is an empathetic drama and deals with the many conflicts that we face everyday. Conflicts between self-desire and responsibility, conflict between good and bad, conflict between what we have and what we dream of. The character of Saba is not black and white. She is not very likeable and that’s what I liked about her,” quips director Hossain about his film.
With Saba, Hossain compassionately observes his characters struggling through tragic events and quotidian challenges in a country where “We are breathing to barely survive here,” as one of the characters says of their daily reality.
At its core, Saba is about those faced with the choice to stay and build a life or leave all their hardships behind — whether that means emigrating to another country or, in an extreme sense, moving to another world.
The film is a humane story from Saba’s perspective and was shot using a 50mm camera. “Many a times, we would leave the camera in the room where the film is shot and let the actors emote and improvise their shots,” adds Hossain.
Chowdhury who makes her film debut with Saba, is a popular actress from Bangladesh who has conquered the hearts of global audiences with her versatile performances in television dramas and web films. Hossain says his doubts of casting Chowdhury in the protagonist’s role were dispelled only after a few rehearsals.
Attending the world premiere of the film at TIFF, Chowdhury who wowed audiences with her debut performance, looked absolutely stunning in a shimmering peach sari. “I was crying while watching the film,” admitted Chowdhury. “It is such a powerful depiction of human struggles. With its story, characters, direction, talented co-stars, and skilled crew, Saba will always hold a special place in my heart. After hearing the script, I knew I just had to do the film,” she added.
For the film’s story — when her father goes missing, Saba becomes the sole caregiver to Shirin, her paraplegic mother who suffers from acute heart disease, played in a restrained yet noticeable performance by actress Rokeya Prachy.
Although Shirin’s condition binds them together, her frustration with their situation often manifests as bitterness and anger towards her daughter, Saba, forcing them many a times to live in their own separate worlds.
When Shirin has a heart attack, Saba races against time to sell their home, lowering the price, and even risking her burgeoning romance with her senior co-worker Ankur played brilliantly by Mostafa Monwar — who dreams of starting a new life abroad — to pay for her mom’s heart surgery.
The astonishing performances of Chowdhury, Prachy, and Monwar are boosted by the dynamic cinematography and vivid colour palette, which illustrates how Ankur, Saba, and Shirin deal with their potentially bleak future.
These characters find joy and reasons to live in small pleasures and rich experiences — savouring good food, enjoying fresh air, music and occasional furtive sips of alcohol, which is restricted both by law and by societal mores.
The film, mainly shot in the room of an old, dilapidated house in Dhaka also manages to show the city’s urban landscape filled with traffic congestion, rickshaws, winding, dense streets. “I want people to smell Dhaka when they see the film,” added Hossain.
While audiences did definitely smell Dhaka, they also got a raw taste of human struggles and emotions — which will probably live with them for a very long time!
In his deeply emotional directorial debut, Bangladeshi filmmaker Maksud Hossain refracts end-of-life care through two completely opposite views held within a fraught mother–daughter relationship.