Forbidden Lie by Anna Broinowski - Essay Example

Title Author’s Name Grade course Institution Tutor Date Introduction Forbidden Lie$ is a documentary film that was done by filmmaker Anna Broinowski about Norma Khouri best-seller, “Forbidden Love” that was about the honour killings, politics and greed in Jordan, her apparent home country. The idea for filming a documentary based on Khouri’s book was born in 2004, when film director Anna Broinowski, after reading Malcom Knox’s piece exposing Norma Khouri as a fraud in Sydney Morning Herald. Anna wanted to find out how Norma Khouri could be so brilliant of a woman that she could talk the best minds in the media and publishing industry into believing that she was telling the truth while on the run from the FBI. Together with Sally Regan, her producer, Anna decided to ask Norma to be present at the premiering of HELEN’S WAR, Anna’s last documentary. Norma agreed to attend and after watching the Helen’s War, she agreed to Anna’s request of doing a documentary that she thought would set the record straight about what had been written about her by the media in a bid to convince her that her book was not a fraud. Power imbalance in Forbidden Lie$ is revealed the moment Khouri agrees to accompany Broinowski to Jordan to attest to the fact that her friend, Dalia, was murdered. Anna was later to realize that this journey, in search of Norma’s side of the story, as turning out to be a ride of betrayal as portrayed in the documentary. Witnesses vanished, locations disappeared and the hair salon Norma claimed to have worked in with Dalia never came to be. There is absolute power imbalance in the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject. Khouri takes part in re-enactments of her book and although Broinowski starts to have doubts on the subject’s credibility, the documentary exposes “an ongoing tussle between the subject and director for control of the film” (Delofski 2009). Nash (2012, 328) also states, “power relationships are complex within the filmmaker and participant both seeking to influence the other and the documentary.” In the film, Broinowski herself discloses that she believed Norma at the beginning but then she took advantage of her. However, Broinowski decided to hide her frustration behind the pretense of a filmmaker in order to stay objective and continue asking questions. As the documentary continues, the falsities make it apparent that Khouri is acting as the director of her own film (Rooney, 2010). There is a point in Forbidden Lie$, where footage of Khouri taking pride at giving false information to Broinowski is included. At this point, it is vivid that roles have changed with the filmmaker taking the role of the con-artist and the con-artist taking up the filmmaker’s role (Rooney, 2010). Strangely, it becomes clear that Khouri’s participation in the documentary film is not driven by the desire to establish truth or innocence, but by the burning desire to outsmart Broinowski. Forbidden Lie$ thus does more than emphasize the significance of trust in the filmmaker-subject relationship, it questions whether it is right to veil this relationship at all. According to Gross, Stuart and Ruby (1988), white-middle-aged men dominate the production of ethnographic documentaries and they greatly emphasize Western opinion of the East in these films. In Forbidden Lie, Broinowski takes advantage of the tropes and elements usually used in ethnographic films, only to openly challenge such themes. The film begins without the disclosure that Khouri’s story was bogus, expressing the original incidents regarding “the blown up, Western allegory of the all encompassing Islamic ‘culture of killing’ and its outdated, domestic locking up of women” (Martin, 2009). Theatrical re-enactments and recounting misinforms the audience for roughly seventeen minutes before Dalia’s image crumbles to that of the unheard, Rana Husseini, a Jordanian journalist who exposes Khouri’s book as ‘phony’ and ‘offends every Arab, Muslim lady.’ Husseini goes on to punch holes in Khouri’s assertions of Jordan, for instance the frequency of honour killings occurrences yearly, laws concerning hijab wearing in addition to geographical inaccuracies throughout the book. As a result, Broinowski’s Forbidden Lie$ challenges the discriminatory nature with which Western audiences have against the East and this is where hybridization is revealed. Even Broinowski, in the documentary, demonstrates Khouri’s hyperbolic depiction of Muslim men in her book as “vicious, cruel, two-dimensional and precisely what had been believed as the truth by the West” (Rooney, 2010). Broinowski goes on to critique highly regarded publishers behind the novel like, Random House, Transworld and Simon & Schuster for endorsing such imaginations of the Middle East. Forbidden Lie$ thus challenges the very concept of Eastern depiction in the West, undermining the stylistic and philosophical predispositions of ethnographic genre. Traditional claims suggesting that documentary is truth (Sanders, 2010) have led to documentary filmmakers making implied assurances of truthfulness thus heightening the audiences’ expectations for a real life film as it is. Broinowski’s Forbidden Lie$ builds this type of connection with the audience from a spontaneous mode that intentionally pulls her audiences’ concentration to the film making process (Thomas, 2012). The implied agreement between audience and filmmaker in Forbidden Lie$ becomes void the moment the documentary first makes known that the initial act was totally false. Broinowski intentionally takes advantage of the trust her audience has built in the film. There are different ways on how meaning is created and turned in a problem all through the documentary, such as the theatrical re-enactments that are later on ridiculed and falsified and the exposure that the mise-en-scene behind Norma is just a big green screen. Broinowski argues that the audience realizes that the subject is at all times conscious that the camera is on her or him and for that reason they as filmmakers, are allowed to use any tricks up their sleeves and not let the audience in the loop. According to Rooney (2010), “documentary is just as deceitful and constructed and for the filmmaker to pretend he or she is not there is the ultimate lie.” It is on this belief that Forbidden Lie$ director, Anna Broinowski builds her relationship with that of her audience. In documentary filmmaking, filmmakers are expected to maintain accuracy in their individual perceptions of the world (Ruby, 1988, 313). Broinowski’s spontaneous approach to her film is in reaction to her discontent with documentary practices. As Jonathan Dawson (2007) states, “Forbidden Lie$ is pure entertainment as well a major discourse on the relativity of ethics-and flat out lying.” Broinowski goes on to query the impartiality of documentary filmmaker with respect to their subject matter and even says that there are a number of documentary filmmakers not pleased with how she talks about documentary (Rooney, 2010). She is of the opinion that documentary filmmakers with the intention of capturing something similar to the truthful version, the film is supposed to acknowledge the process of filmmaking is a reality (Thomas, 2012. 338-339). Upon returning from Jordan, Broinowski comes clean by revealing that she was faced with an ethical dilemma the moment she realized that the documentary would not substantiate Khouri’s claims. She also reveals that the only way to she could get Khouri to show her lying nature was to promise her “a redemptive ending” by talking about the allegedly abusive relationship she had with her father as she had told Khouri that it was not possible to make the movie. Broinowski says that she is not proud (Rooney, 2010). Forbidden Lie$ questions the honesty of Broinowski’s filmmaking ethics, what constitutes a true version, where to draw the line between filmmaker and subject and the filmmakers’ responsibilities to the audience. A lot of the sequences in Forbidden Lie$ can be argued in according to their reflexivity. The process the film undergoes is greatly revealed thus referring to and creating problems in the manner in which the films meanings are created through its different techniques (Rooney, 2010). This is evident in a particular scene where Khouri is on camera in an interview and the mise-en-scene she is located in is, in full view of the audience, deconstructed as a huge flat screen on her rear is moved exposing Broinowski and the technology the green screen holds (Thomas, 2012). The style of the film was deliberate so as to openly reflect psychological sleights of hand played out by Khouri on her victims (Delofski, 2009). This was made possible by the huge budget and the filmmakers collaborated with Resin and DOPs, a visual effects company to generate CGI and in-camera illusions; the cost that was to be incurred shooting around the world was made up for by filming numerous Jordanian cites in Adelaide with the help of Robert Webb, an imaginative designer. This is in an attempt to find proof that that would support Khouri’s claims (Thomas, 2012). Broinowski also used a lot of different sounds s a way of getting the audience to realize the extent of incredulousness that was Khouri’s story. Music, piano, birds tweeting, wind, soft music and many more other sound effects were employed in the documentary (Delofski 2009). The interesting manner in which these sound effects are applied is intentionally chosen to make the audience view the story in a certain way (Rooney, 2010). Top notch sound effects throughout the ‘recreations’ of the film are applied to demonstrate that the events were false. The unexpected change from sweet music at the beginning of the film to the harsh reality of Rana in her office challenging Khouri’s claims is used to sway the audience into differentiating between the falsities presented at the start of the first film and the journalists ‘truth.’ Practically all sounds presented in the film must have been recorded away from the filming scene and this is evident from the exaggerated nature in which money is pulled out of a wallet and the clicking of the cigar lighter. These sounds were added after the shooting of the film, and edited together to create a sense of a authenticity in order to allow the filmmaker use them where it is most effective so as to portray the filmmaker’s intention (Nash, 2012). Forbidden Lie$ pleasures are experienced best when the audience knows very little about it as he or she can (Krawitz, 2010). The film at first celebrates Khouri’s activism and goes to the extent of re-enacting excerpts of the relationship between Dalia and her Christian lover exactly as described in Khouri’s Forbidden Love. The film’s first hour highlights an unrelenting hagiography of Norma, describing her as somebody who is almost achieving a martyr status. Her sacrifices in the name of a noble cause, her bold stand against ‘archaic’ Muslim fundamentalism has lead put her life in danger as she starts receiving ‘fatwah’ threats (Sanders, 2012). The film then builds up to a playacted pastiche of Dalia’s serious tryst which is followed by a song to celebrate their love. Then after a short while the song stops with a screech and Dalia’s montage thaws into sand. It is at this point that Rana, the Jordanian activist takes centre stage and steadily disproves and destroys Khouri’s claims depicted in Forbidden Love one at a time (Krawitz, 2010). It is at this moment in the film that reality meets fiction as that the audience realizes that it’s been a set up all along with the help of a more than impressive act of misdirection. Khouri’s story begins to crumble and in spite of her efforts to salvage it, excerpts of her novel continue fly apart as the documentary wears on (Sanders, 2012). Broinowski, grants a great deal of time to recreation of incidences that never even occurred and without doubt did not take place as written by Khouri. In doing this, Broinowski understandably recognizes the dominance of illusion in the documentary. The question the audience poses to itself is the degree to which it defines ‘truth’ as a product of its visual perception (Sanders, 2012). Having Khouri tell the story will most definitely leave the audience with a lot of suspicion while offering a visual estimation of her narration wipes it away completely. The audience is left to conclude for itself given the image that is planted in the mind. As she undermines her dramatizations, Broinowski in turn generally undermines the image’s uninfringeable sanctimony (Krawitz, 2010). Troubling questions arise when one watches the documentary, the main subject being the degree to which the West believes narratives for the very reason that they abide by the West’s political philosophies (Martin, 2009). The initial minutes of the film witnesses Khouri mocking media gagging within Jordan- and sees the predominantly white West ingesting her performance. Khouri’s persistence that honor killings unnoticeably occur in Jordan could be trashed out with very little research yet her claims without doubt reverberate with the West (Martin, 2009). It gradually becomes clear that giving a fictionalized account of how foiled the Jordanian society is Khouri mirrors the principles we desire to show: freedom, justice and tolerance. The constant persistence that her story is true and that Dalia actually existed and was murdered by her family is a rhetoric feature by Khouri meant to create sympathy on the audience’s part (Martin, 2009). Norma Khouri takes several identities and even Broinowski is confused on who she really is. At first the audience comes to know her as Norma Bagain, a woman of Jordanian origin who left her country for America when she was a child and whose book, Forbidden Love, narrates the story of her friend’s honor killings in Jordan (Nichols, 2010). This identity eventually appears to be wrong. Her other identity is Norma Touliopoulos who’s book was revealed as a sham and that she is under investigation by the FBI. Throughout the film the audience is left to decide who to believe as deceit upon deceit and every possible bit of truth unearths a newer version of the story (Nichols, 2010). With very minute that passes, a previous fact is discredited by the present fact which is in turn thrown into question by another fact. When the documentary begins, most people have their minds made up about what is true and what is not, and then during at several stages of each sequence they are absolutely certain that they have made out what the real truth is (Aufderheide et al, 2009). However, by the time the documentary ends the audience realizes that one thing is for sure: that somewhere in between the sequences, they were lied to. Broinowski wittingly creates a non-linear story that treats Khouri’s rollercoaster nature with utmost humour and an occasional bewilderment. All through the film she interviews everyone who had fallen victim to Khouri’s fraud and every interview brought with it a new block into the jigsaw puzzle (Aufderheide et al, 2009). As the documentary unfolds and more layers are peeled off, the audience begins to again believe what it is listening to and before this is taken too far, Broinowski with an intelligent twist in editing, reminds the audience of the type of story it is listening to and makes it clear, again, that the audience has been fooled previously. Watching Forbidden Lie$ leaves one with more questions than they started out with (Nichols, 2010). Conclusion Documentaries are meant to provide a means to view the world afresh (Nichols 2010). Documentary filmmakers are thus responsible for the truth of circumstances they represent. Anna Broinowski’s Forbidden Lie$ however, raises concerns over this responsibility as is the kind that leaves the audience with more questions than answers. Broinowski thus does a good job as she takes into account the multifaceted and diverse issues surrounding the practices in documentary filmmaking, something central to the process. References Delofski, M., (2009). Dreaming a Connection – Reflections on the Documentary Subject/Filmmaker Relationship, Scan, Retrieved from http://www. http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php Krawitz, J. (2010), ‘Treading softly: Ethics & documentary production’, Knowledge Quest, 38 (4), 49-51. Martin, A., (2009), Forbidden Lie$, Cineaste, 34 (4). Retrieved from http://www.cineaste.com/articles/emforbidden-lieem Nash, K., (2012), ‘Telling stories: the narrative study of documentary ethics’, New Review of Film and Television Studies, 10 (3), 318-331. Nichols, B. (2010). Introduction to Documentary, (2nd Ed). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rooney, M. (2010). An Interview with Anna Broinowski, Director of Forbidden Lie$ (2007), Humanities Research. 16 (1). Retrieved from http://epress.anu.edu.au/apps/bookworm/view/Humanities+Research Sanders, W. (2010). Documentary Filmmaking and Ethics: Concepts, Responsibilities, and The Need for Empirical Research’, Mass Communication Society, 13 (5), 8-553 Sanders, W. (2012). The ethics of documentary filmmaking: an empirical turn, New Review of Film and Television Studies, 10 (3), 315-317. Thomas, S., (2012).Collaboration and ethics in documentary filmmaking – A Case Study: New Review of Film and Television Studies, 10 (3), 332-343. Read More