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Award-winning Bahraini director Taqwa Ali Naser has taken a shot at marriage in her latest silent short film with her stars walking down the aisle … in a supermarket.
As many a singleton might say, it’s better than being left on the shelf ... or
maybe not, as this presentation portrays!
The 26-year-old scriptwriter came up with a surreal 15-to-20 minute dark comedy called The Grocery List about the process of women landing on a matchmaker’s list.
“My grandmother used to tell me a famous Arabic phrase which is ‘marriage is like watermelon, it’s either sweet or tasteless’,” said the filmmaker and producer who
lives in the Northern Governorate and has a Bachelor’s in cinematic arts from Malaysia. “Years later, I realised that the taste of marriage can also be bitter when it’s not by your own choice.”
The idea came to her after an incident involving her cousin who she had been visiting following the birth of her second child. Her cousin suddenly received a mysterious phone call asking for her hand in marriage. Her stunned cousin was a happily married mother.
“The caller mentioned taking my cousin’s information from ‘THE LIST’,” said Taqwa. “THE LIST is a mysterious myth for some Bahrainis. Basically, matchmakers create these lists with different women names and descriptions on a WhatsApp group chat. Some of these women also might not even want to get married!
“Then the list gets shared and women randomly get called. It’s like they are products on the shelf getting picked up – just like being in a huge supermarket. However, perhaps it’s a beautiful destiny for those who want to get married.
“Maybe I am overthinking it and maybe I am not. I just feel that sometimes people glorify the concept or the process of marriage. I wanted to tell this story to ask the viewer to make their own choices and not listen to everything society says or shares or else we will all ‘weep over spilt milk’ so to speak.”
Using the supermarket symbolism, she and her collective of creatives designed a store-like set in Actions Lab Studio and filmed her story in six days.
l More about the film and Taqwa’s cinematic career – Page 2.
