Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
So far with this series, our Two Cents crew has covered strange plagues in Cincinnati and the murder trends of a hallucinatory Swiss countryside. But now we shift focus across the globe to Ethiopia, where a 14-year-old girl named Hirut stands trial. Her crime? Defending herself from rape.
Difret is inspired by a true-life story that unfolded in 1996. The 14-year old girl was kidnapped while walking home from school and raped, with the intention of being forced into marriage to her much older kidnapper. After being assaulted, Hirut escapes and ends up killing her assailant when he pursues her.
Instead of high fives all around, Hirut ends up arrested and faces exile, imprisonment and death for her actions, not to mention risking the ire of her village, since many of the inhabitants are offended that she would strike back against their ‘traditional’ combo of abduction, pedophilia, and involuntary marriage.
Crusading attorney Meaza Ashenafi hears about the case and puts her organization, Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association, to work defending Hirut, combating not only the law but the deeply held prejudices and beliefs of a nation.
Difret won the Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, and it seemed like the perfect fit for this series. Did writer-director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari do this story justice, or this a ripped-from-the-headlines narrative that should have stayed there?
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
We finish off our “Girl Stories” series with our readers’ choice selection, 1988’s cult classic high school tale Heathers, so named for its mutually eponymous quartet of teenage girls. With surprisingly dark characters and subject matter, Heathers tanked hard upon release but sprang back as a cult video sensation. Catch it on Netflix and shoot us YOUR Two Cents!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Team
Elizabeth Stoddard:
Difret has been in my Netflix queue for a ridiculous amount of time, so I’m glad this selection finally made me watch it. That being said, this telling of Hirut’s abduction and trial is a mess. From the shaky handheld camera to the stilted dialogue and awkward pacing, it is difficult to sit through.
I found myself contrasting it to a film from the opposite end of the continent, Tall As the Baobab Tree. Difret depicts the abduction of girls for marriage and spends more time with Hirut’s lawyer than the girl herself; Tall as the Baobab Tree depicts child marriage in Senegal, from the viewpoint of a young bride’s little sister (and it is frickin’ gorgeous to boot).
Both films work within limited means to throw light on issues impacting girls in these African countries, but Difret suffers by not spending more time with its young subject. Hirut’s flashbacks are rare stylistic touches in what is ultimately a rote, forgettable legal drama. The subject matter offers such deep emotional potential… it’s unfortunate the film never fully takes advantage of it. (elizabeth stoddard)
Brendan Foley:
About midway through the film, I had to pause it and look up the real story that the film was based on. I needed that safety net, since the sick feeling in my gut that had started when the film began had only coiled and grown stronger and angrier with each passing moment. This is an angry film, and it intends to make you angry, and on that front it can only be called a roaring success.
If there’s one major knock against the film, it’s that this is a courtroom drama that skips the courtroom material. And after the film devotes 90 minutes to building up this trial, laying out in exacting detail how screwed our heroes are, how insurmountable their odds…and then they just kind of win and then the movie ends quickly.
These storytelling issues are mitigated by the force of nature performances by Tizita Hagere as Hirut and Meron Getnet as Meaza Ashenafi. History is written in bold strokes, but what both these women capture is the fear, rage, and uncertainty that constantly cloud ‘great’ people as they struggle against the world, and it makes the triumph all the sweeter. (Brendan Foley)
Austin Vashaw:
Difret isn’t a slam dunk of a film narrative, but as an exposé on a difficult and disgusting subject, it’s clear-eyed, immediate, and rightfully mad as hell.
As Elizabeth mentioned, the dialogue is pretty stilted at times — to be specific, it often feels overly expository as if laying out details for the audience in case they need to catch up (though practically speaking, the film’s target audience probably includes rural Ethiopia, so in that context it makes perfect sense).
But despite some artistic or technical shortcomings, the story is critical. Ethiopia may be a very different place, but one scene in particular really stuck out to me as all too familiar: after the film’s inciting incidents, the village’s men gather to discuss how a woman should rightfully be punished.
The filmmakers and distributors of Difret have laid out a campaign for the film to combat the practices of abduction and forced marriage that robbed Hirut of her innocence, and similarly affect millions of girls each year. We were inspired to highlight Difret for this reason, and encourage you to check out their call to action, which include ideas for raising awareness of these global issues. discussing the film on social media, and donating to the Women for Women Social and Development Association. (Austin Vashaw)