This movie should have come with a trigger warning.
In this painful drama, director Bachir Bensaddek and writer, Maria Camila Arias, take us on a journey to Halima’s devastating past as she prepares to become a mother to a boy.
Halima (Naïla Harzoune) has a seemingly perfect life; her husband Sylvain (Antoine Bertrand) is an excellent father and treats her right, they are financially stable and their daughter is a healthy and happy young girl. Halima has a beautiful connection with her daughter, they do karate together, they play, laugh and make art together. They have a the type of relationship every family dreams of.
But something isn’t right. Halima watches longer than normal when Sylvain shows affection to his daughter, watching his hand placements and where he kisses her. She flinches at how close they are. Sylvain is not the most empathetic man. He reacts harshly before finding his sensitivity- does she dislike him? Does he neglect her? Is something unnatural happening behind closed doors? When Halima discovers she is pregnant, she does not seem happy or excited. Instead, she is concerned and glares at her husband in a way that makes the audience wonder if she’s taking pause because she is dissatisfied with him.
Upon discovering she is going to have a baby boy, Halima falls apart. She can’t sleep and memories of her childhood keep her up at night. Something terrible happened to her and she can only reconcile this by returning to a home she has not visited in many years.
This film messed me up on a spiritual level; it hit way to close to home and it left me feeling sick to my stomach and full of rage at Halima’s choices. I really struggled to sympathize with her in the end, despite feeling so much sadness for her throughout the film. What I did enjoy was the pacing and performances by the principle cast, with every scene and every new sibling we meet, the sense of traumatic imprisonment haunts every minute of their lives. The effects of triangulation have broken this family so bad that the only way they could go on with their lives was without each other, and that is heartbreaking.
What I disliked was how the film ended. This of course is where my biases come out because I related to other characters more than I did Halima, but I felt like the writer punishes some of her characters for not living their lives in the way Halima decides to. That really bothered me, because (with the exception of one sibling) they were all victims of their families nonsense. I felt that grace was lacking for how they turned out.
Because of the intense reaction I had to this movie, I give it a 10 out of 10. I was fully sucked in, I could feel everyones pain, and taking anyones side felt impossible because their situations were impossible. I encourage you to check it out.
The Hidden Woman is now playing at Cinéfranco.
