Reviews on Alicia's Film 'Life after Refuge'

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.