Alicia's Film (Life After refuge)
At last, an interesting film. After an interminable time
spent trying to decipher half a dozen strange combinations of personalised and
plot-less graduate shorts, the audience audibly woke up and engaged with Alicia
Hoser’s film, Life After Refuge.
Hoser's documentary revealed itself to be a remarkable
personal voyage through her time living in a women's refuge. It was shot in a
gangly video-diary style interlaced with home movies and with more formal
interviews. The film’s delivery was restrained, with a light directorial touch
which allowed the participants to have full ownership of their contributions.
The auteur guided the viewer through the physical and social landscape that the
women inhabit and this accorded the film with the naturalness and intimacy that
gave it its warmth.
The audience clearly engaged with the film, which was
both enlightening and deeply touching, particularly the short testimonial by
one lady, who told of her husband's hatred, depicting his violence towards her
female body parts with a frank and understated dignity. The woman’s eyes filled
with tears as her testimony jarred with the sympathetic forum she was
expressing the events in. The audience empathised with her suffering, as she
mourned the hatred that underpinned the man's feelings towards her. There were
other voices of terrible ritual violence by men who had gained temporary
control of these women. However, the participants were keen to stress that they
were still capable of re-emerging as the strong, sassy powerful women they were
and still are, on either side of the abuse.
This is not to say it was simply a depressing look at
abuse. It was an affectionate and affirmative look at life in the wake of
turmoil, violence and chaos. Hoser has made a film about hope, strength and
friendship. As such, it was a refreshingly honest and candid look at the issues
surrounding society’s perception of the ‘victims’ of domestic violence.
