Rafiqfuad Yarahmadi sure has the talent of a documentarist. His unpretentious ‘Life on Water’ is a very simple documentary with some very nice shots here and there but simple as it may be it really reaches for your heart. Its simplicity is kneeling you the same way a sincerely humble but dignified spirit of a man does.
His story is so objective and impartial; he only ‘speaks’ to the public through the camera lens – which by the way, we think it should be the first ability of a documentarist and of a filmmaker in the first place. He does not interfere, nor does he try to express his feelings about it, but it is like he is deliberately hiding behind the camera not to contaminate the ‘truth’. What you see is what it is… and what a self-control that is!
The character (we are going to spoil it so beware!) is a priest that lives on a boat. But a priest is himself a man too after all, a man that must fight with his temptations and emotions harder than others do – here is where sacrifice comes into play, a sacrifice that also brings vigor and virtues. Being close to nature doesn’t usually mean much for others, but for him feeling close to it is a way of being. This way, even his solitude seems easier to fight with.
‘Life on Water’ is a story about simplicity and the immense happiness a man can find in uncomplicated things, a story about the virtues that come with modesty and shyness, a story that reminds us that simplicity is the vastness that should make us wary and reverent.
Rafiqfuad Yarahmadi beautifully tells us a story of unseen and untold things, leaving everything untouched for our own judgement.
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