‘Will You Bury Me‘ is an excellent example of a short film that, although it doesn’t approach a popular subject from an innovative perspective, surprises with its naturalness and sincerity. Likewise, although Noor Eldine Aboud doesn’t “premeditate” a direct connection with the current situation in Afghanistan, his “domestic” perspective on the status of women in Muslim countries gains weight in the spectator’s perception. The short film – a kind of harmonious combination between neorealist aesthetics and films signed by Fatih Akin – does not propose a broad story through a necessarily high psychological stake or visceral visuals that shock at any cost. And yet, despite the apparent calmness that governs this brief foray into the life of a couple facing a precarious financial situation, violence, fear, and repressed desire are felt in the substrates of every moment that reveals the features of the female character. In this equation, therefore, the mother-wife represents the central pivot of the cinematic narrative through whose soul a fragment of the society she lives in is filtered. More precisely, the short depicts 24 hours in the life of this character who is forced to act to save her family, defying the conventions established by the gender hierarchy, so that, at the end of this journey, she might discover a painful truth.
Even if this society’s retrograde perception of women’s inferiority is an important issue, Noor Eldine Aboud doesn’t tackle the convention of a social critique focused on misogyny. On the contrary, the film excels in a certain “neutrality”, avoiding the trap of the conventional pattern that reduces men to some monsters, and women to some victims or martyrs. Through this attitude, the director manages to surprise a generous palette of distinct typologies in which the good and the evil, the depth and the superficiality, the innocence and the ugliness intertwine, highlighting the differences between individuals that coexist in a society. Beyond this typological, humane stake, the project has the fluidity, coherence and concreteness of an artistic approach that expresses the professionalism of the entire creative team that could at any time develop the core of ‘Will You Bury Me’ in an extremely promising feature film.
For the naturalness with which it illustrates a fragment from the life of a woman, devoid of clichés or ostentation, ‘Will You Bury Me’ was awarded the 2nd Film of the Month distinction in the August 2021 edition of TMFF.
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