All good things come in small packages. And the same is true for short films. In a limited time, they tell you a gripping story. If brevity is the soul of wit, storytelling is the soul of short films. Recently, a short film called Burqa City by Fabrice Bracq was in the limelight. Have you seen it? If not, then we’ll tell all about it and the recent scoop that’s grabbing eyeballs.
It is a satirical film that explores the condition of women in a Middle Eastern city governed by the Sharia laws. These restrictive laws are deaf to the freedom and plights of women. The film’s narrative revolves around a newly wedded couple’s life in the Sharia regime.
Souleyman and Leila go to purchase groceries. Leila wears a burqa like every other woman on the street. Her identity and voice as Leila fade to only Souleyman’s wife.
Their shopping experience is where the drama builds, and we see, through a series of events, albeit light-hearted, how women are ignored and mistreated. The filmmaker uses various elements to keep the film’s tone funny even as he shows us sad realities. He uses melodramatic characters like the shopkeeper. These characters, in one way or the other, look down upon, dehumanise, or simply ignore women.
Then there’s a cunning and theatrical police inspector. He talks about microchipping women, picking up any burqa-clad woman from prison, and whatnot. You cannot really differentiate between two burqa-clad women of similar stature. Can you?
Such events and characters in the film highlight misuse of the Sharia laws: women discarded and rotting in prison in burqas and a man swapping his old wives with someone else’s young wife. The film is funny and heartbreaking at the same time. The Arabic music and exaggerated characters make the storyline powerful. The film, we think, is more of an observational account of what happens in reality. Despite the complexity of the topic, it is a light watch.
The film opens with the line, “Woman is the future of man. Though ever since the time of Eve, he has not been aware of it”—a fitting prelude and perhaps even a subtle apology for what follows.
People on social media recently called out the makers of Laapataa Ladies for similarity in the plot. Deepak and Souleyma’s characters, Jaya and the woman in the burqa who deliberately escaped from their husbands, etc., are almost the same. Even Fabrice Bracq shares similar sentiments. Ghoonghats replaced the burqas.
However, the writer of Laapataa Ladies, Biplab Goswami, has refuted these claims. According to him, Laapaats Ladies’s original screenplay, “Two Brides”, was registered at the Screen Writer’s Association in 2014. There are, as aforementioned, many plot points where both the stories converge.
Even the scene where Deepak goes to search for Phool with her ghoonghat-clad photo is similar to a scene in Burqa City. But there are points of divergence as well. For instance, the women do not wear ghoonghat throughout the film. It was just an incident that built the narrative, and then the ghoonghat disappeared after the first 10-15 minutes. The character arcs of Jaya and Phool are very different from Leila’s. Towards the end, Phool is a bit of a worldly-wise housewife, and Jaya escapes her cunning husband to find her wings.
Burqa City is a short but good cinema in the age of content. And we think if you watch it, you’ll love it. The film is freely available for you to watch on YouTube. If you loved the short film Burqa City and would like to explore other works of the filmmaker, you can check them out on his website, here.
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