Sand Storm – movie review

Sand Storm is a family drama that takes place in a Bedouin Village in the desert in southern Israel. Two women, mother and daughter, are dealing with life changing events at the same time.

Jalila is a 42-year-old with four children. Her eldest child is an 18-year-old university student, Layla (Lamis Ammar). Jalila is coping – as best she can – with the marriage of her husband to a second, much younger wife. Preparations are being made for the wedding and after they are wed, she will live literally next door to wife number two. As you can imagine, she is far from happy, but as this is Bedouin tradition she can do nothing about it. Layla is preoccupied elsewhere. She has just revealed a secret, strictly forbidden love affair with Anuar, who is from another tribe.

In Bedouin tradition women are strongly encouraged to marry within their own clan. If they do not, they have to leave the village. A father’s desire is inevitably to keep his daughters close, to have them live nearby and have them and their children as part of the extended family. They are not supposed to have any type of contact with “strange men”. This is essential for a woman’s good name and reputation. If a woman breaks that rule, she is shaming her whole family, risking their standing in the community and her sisters’ chances of being married to good husbands in the future. Jalila realises that the world in which she lives can be harsh and cruel and that she has to work within the rules. So, she largely internalises her feelings and keeps her head held high without making waves. But Layla takes a different approach. She believes that there are no limits. Everything can be hers if she only wishes for it hard enough. But, if only it was that easy! Through the course of events mother and daughter are forced to understand that in order to survive they need to start seeing the world through each other’s eyes.

Writer and director Elite Zexer makes an evocative, powerful feature film directorial debut.  She spent years traveling with her mother, who is, among other things, a stills photographer, to Bedouin villages and meeting many Bedouin women who became close friends. Their stories resonated with her. In one instance Zexer and her mother escorted a young woman who was being wed to a strange man whom she was marrying to please her family, while she secretly loved someone else. Minutes before she met him for the first time, she turned to Zexer and said: “this will never happen to my daughter”. Zexer looked at her and that was the moment she knew she had to make this movie.

It took her four years to write the script about a culture that was not her own. Its traditions, beliefs, customs and language were different to hers. While the screenplay is fictional, it is based upon real stories, real circumstances. She wrote it while feeling an obligation to make it as truthful as possible. The women in her film live in a world which is bound by very harsh rules and they are struggling and trying to find out – each in her own way – just how much they can push these limits without breaking the system.

In Sand Storm not everything is spelt out but the message is still clear. We – the audience – are left to interpret events. There is no back-story. We are just in the middle of the action as the husband’s first wife is preparing for his marriage to another woman. Both wife number one and number one daughter are strong women, but as strong as they are the system is working against them.

Seen through Western eyes, our frustrations are carried with us as events unfold and as much as we would like things to work out differently they don’t and can’t because there are centuries-old traditions at play. That, of course, is the whole point of the film – to shine a light on what seem like archaic practices.

Sand Storm has an authentic look and feel to it. Accommodation in the midst of the desert is far from palatial. Life seems hard, with few mod cons. The performances of the two women and one of the younger daughters are noteworthy and compelling. The movie leaves a lasting legacy. Zexer’s patient approach and attention to detail are rewarded. Rated PG, it scores a 7½ out of 10.

Director: Elite Zexer
Cast: Lamis Ammar, Ruba Blal, Hitham Omari
Release Date: 1 December 2016
Rating: M

Alex First