This third and final dispatch from True/False is one of those where the theme among the three chosen titles is quite explicit. These deeply personal works are all defined by the dogged, hopeful pursuit of dreams: sports, education, and aspirations—that feel especially heartening right now.
Luge is a winter sport. So it’s sort of odd to see it warm your heart. But Ryan Sidhoo’s “The Track,” which follows three hungry Luge athletes from Bosnia-Herzegovina with Olympic hopes, is a rousing crowd pleaser.
It’s a film devised on a cruel reality: while these teenagers train to reach their dreams, they’re surrounded by the crumbling remnants of their country’s former optimism. Because the track they train on is a winding, disintegrating, graffiti-stained concrete edifice dating back to the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, back when the country was known as Yugoslavia. In the nearly four decades since the communal sports gathering, their country has witnessed much destruction, from a civil war to ineffectual governments. The extreme decline in fortune, therefore, has led many of the nation’s young people to leave a country still marked by the scars and bruises of war toward other parts of Europe where hopes of a better life run higher.
The team of young men: Hamza, Zlatan, and Mirza—and their dedicated coach Omanović Senad open the film in 2018, four years prior to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Sidhoo follows them toward the Olympics, noting their many obstacles: maintaining the derelict track, finding funding, competing against other countries who are armed with better equipment, and surviving COVID. Each teenager comes from a family still living with the memory of war, which ultimately colors the path each athlete ultimately pursues. As a documentarian, Sidhoo is adept at depicting the uniqueness of each athlete. We know fairly early on, for instance, that Mirza is going to make it. But the tenderness he extends to Hamza and Zlatan is equally as affecting and engrossing too.
Because “The Track” is such a crowd-pleaser it takes the turns you expect, riding a rise and fall, rise and triumph arc. Sometimes the film’s grandiose score can overwhelm the inherent emotion at play, pushing viewers to feel what is already apparent in the images. That lever pulling, thankfully, doesn’t stop one from becoming swept up in this against-the-odds journey. You end up cheering because there is hard work by these subjects worth cheering for, and you cry because there’s plenty in the film to cry about.
For the first time in her life, director Najiba Noori’s 52-year-old mother Hawa sees the possibility for personal independence. With Hawa’s husband battling dementia, Hawa decides to learn to read and write and possibly start her own business. Her designs however are tested when the Taliban, through an agreement with America, assumes control of Afghanistan—thereby rolling back years of feminist progress. In Noori’s intimate personal essay “Writing Hawa” these hurdles and more invites defiance in what can be a meandering film.
See, it takes “Writing Hawa” quite a bit to find its stride. We mostly remain in Hawa’s apartment, where she lives with her husband and most of her six children (four boys and two girls). Progressively, Hawa begins to venture further away from her home, buying up children reading and writing books to practice and visiting an old friend who also wonder what her life might’ve been if her family didn’t push her into a forced marriage with a significantly older man (Hawa and her husband have a 30-year age gap). Hawa’s granddaughter, fleeing from her father’s family, also comes to stay with her for a time. While filming her family, Noori sometimes tries to prompt discussion through questions but mostly takes an observational approach. So we spend the first third of the film grasping at these unbraided threads until the totalitarian re-emergence of the Taliban in 2021 brings a sharp focus to the film’s themes and subjects.
“Writing Hawa” is powered by an inspiring sense of perseverance, first by Noori, who entrusts her brother to continue filming when political headwinds make it impossible for her to do so, and then by Hawa. Despite her freedom collapsing around her, Hawa never gives up on her dreams. She continues pursuing her self-made, mostly self-taught curriculum, and keeps her rebellious sense of humor. The result is a harrowing tribute to the resiliency of female independence.
In a tiny studio in Pakistan, among many other tiny shops is Mohamed Sakhi, a man capable of fulfilling fantasies. In his modest shop, decorated by his many photographic templates, Sakhi takes pictures of customers and uses rudimentary photoshop to apply exotic sceneries to their visages. Often the customers come in to ask for backgrounds filled with guns, women, men, cars and more.
Director Danial Shah’s tightly wound, creatively fun “Make It Look Real” takes us within Sakhi’s world. Part of the charm of this lovely film is Shah and Sakhi’s open relationship, director and subject often interview each other about the costs of image making, the difficult road toward immigration, and Sakhi’s own dreams: the photo editor desperately wants to leave from his surroundings, beset by persistent bombing and power outages, to Belgium.
Apart from listening to the subject and director talk, the other draw is watching Sakhi work. Because Sakhi’s photos aren’t all that passable; it’s clear these are photoshopped pictures (particularly Sakhi’s penchant for lightening the skin of his customers). But believability isn’t really the point. No matter the quality of his work, Sakhi is a true artist. He fully dedicates himself to fulfilling the dreams of his subjects, has a system for putting the best package together and is nonjudgmental of what they desire. Shah doesn’t judge either. He often asks Sakhi’s customers why they chose their scenery and what they plan to do with them. The common answer? They’re going to frame it and put it in their house. No matter the believability, these subjects get to live out their dreams—and there’s no price on that.
“Make It Look Real” runs at an efficient 68 minutes, but isn’t fluffy or too cute. It’s an honest, open and resonating feature debut from Shah, telling a unique story that has to be seen to be believed.
