Maryam

Maryam is a 50-year-old woman of Muslim origin, who comes from a wealthy family with aristocratic ties. Beautiful, intelligent and serene, she is the director of an art gallery. At work, she meets a young African man from Sierra Leone, whom Maryam ardently wishes to marry. Unfortunately, the patriarchal local law doesn’t allow the wedding unless her father consents – and he is far from willing to do so.

As Maryam fights the fear of loneliness, we follow this woman in a series of agonising, dehumanising encounters. The religious bureaucracy threatens to put an end to her dream, and she is constantly exposed to mockery, humiliation, incomprehension and disapproval.

In this carefully paced drama, where cats and durian fruits become recurring metaphors, Badrul Hisham Ismail gives us an extremely harsh portrait of Malaysian society. To say that the film is an endless parade of patronising attitudes and suppression by institutions is putting it mildly. Scenes where Maryam has long conversations – with her father, a counsellor and two female friends – mercilessly expose how everybody around her internalises and justifies racism, classism and misogyny. Maryam shows us how the hypocrisy inherent in power structures infiltrates the hearts and minds of people with devastating effect.

– Cristina Álvarez López