I was not sure whether or not I should be going to another movie about Jordan. I saw Body of Lies and that was terrible. However, Forbidden Lies seemed like a very serious documentary, dealing with a very real issue: honor killing in Jordan and the book : Forbidden Love that Norma Khouri had written a few years back and was revealed to be a hoax.
A local movie theater here in Tucson decided the movie was so good that they were going to squeeze it into their schedule and show it only once on a Wednesday evening. I was really hesitant to go. Despite the ugliness of honor crimes, I was not looking forward to seeing another movie showing us as clueless Bedouins who beat up women and watch all their movements and deprive them of any right, something that Norma Khouri had claimed in the beginning of her book. But with town half-dead in this heat, I had nothing better to do.
I was surprised by how many people showed up (more than a 100), even thought the movie was already on DVD. My only wish was for it to show something positive about Jordan. ANYTHING.
Briefly, Norma Khouri wrote a book about her best friend (Dalia) who was honor-killed sometime in 1997, and the father who murdered her got away with 3 months in jail. She wanted to tell her story to the world. The book became a best seller, and was well-received in the West. However, many stated-facts in the book were clearly big fat lies. (for example, as a spoiled Shmesani kid myself, I immediately recognized that books @ cafe did not exist before 1997).
Norma responded by saying that she had to modify a lot of things in the book to protect people. The director of the movie goes Norma a chance to defend herself. It also interviews and interacts with a few Jordanian personnel who work on honor killings in Jordan, including Rana Al-Husseini.
The movies is fantastic. It has many twist and surprises. It's really one of the best documentaries I've ever seen and an example on how looking for one piece of truth leads you to the full truth. I very highly recommend it to any person interested in honor killings, Jordan, or journalism overall. And at times it's very funny, we really got some sense of humor.
Regardless of what you think of Norma, her story could have been true and it did happen to many women and will happen this year and the year after. However writing a bunch of lies about her country and her people did hurt the cause of these victims and the country itself. If you think differently let me know!
Finally, the take-home-message from the movie could be: Jordan River does not flow through Amman! HAHAHAHAHA
here's the trailer:
A local movie theater here in Tucson decided the movie was so good that they were going to squeeze it into their schedule and show it only once on a Wednesday evening. I was really hesitant to go. Despite the ugliness of honor crimes, I was not looking forward to seeing another movie showing us as clueless Bedouins who beat up women and watch all their movements and deprive them of any right, something that Norma Khouri had claimed in the beginning of her book. But with town half-dead in this heat, I had nothing better to do.
I was surprised by how many people showed up (more than a 100), even thought the movie was already on DVD. My only wish was for it to show something positive about Jordan. ANYTHING.
Briefly, Norma Khouri wrote a book about her best friend (Dalia) who was honor-killed sometime in 1997, and the father who murdered her got away with 3 months in jail. She wanted to tell her story to the world. The book became a best seller, and was well-received in the West. However, many stated-facts in the book were clearly big fat lies. (for example, as a spoiled Shmesani kid myself, I immediately recognized that books @ cafe did not exist before 1997).
Norma responded by saying that she had to modify a lot of things in the book to protect people. The director of the movie goes Norma a chance to defend herself. It also interviews and interacts with a few Jordanian personnel who work on honor killings in Jordan, including Rana Al-Husseini.
The movies is fantastic. It has many twist and surprises. It's really one of the best documentaries I've ever seen and an example on how looking for one piece of truth leads you to the full truth. I very highly recommend it to any person interested in honor killings, Jordan, or journalism overall. And at times it's very funny, we really got some sense of humor.
Regardless of what you think of Norma, her story could have been true and it did happen to many women and will happen this year and the year after. However writing a bunch of lies about her country and her people did hurt the cause of these victims and the country itself. If you think differently let me know!
Finally, the take-home-message from the movie could be: Jordan River does not flow through Amman! HAHAHAHAHA
here's the trailer:
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5 comments:
I don't think it matters where Jordan river flows or if Norma lied. What matters is that honor killings are happening in Jordan and it’s no laughing matter. For Jordanians to get all outraged about the geographic errors in this book is kind of ridiculous. Don't you think?
No, it's just a relfection of how absurd it was for this person to be allowed to publish this book. If the editors did a little investigation they would have discovered this fat lie and several others, but it looks like a book tarnishing a middle Eastern culture is something that sells and should be published ASAP without paying attention to detail.
Yes honor killings are terrible but having a awful person like Norma talk about it is very dispicable
I will be very interested to watch this documentary.
I have just finished reading 'Forbidden Love', and am shocked to find myself so taken in. I did not find the execution of the book that thrilling, however, my interest was held, as I believed it was a true story. Jean Sasson's quote, printed clearly on the cover, states that this is an '...extraordinary true story...'.
I cannot believe that the publisher's made no effort to corroborate her story! Surely the editor will have had to check up on basic facts such as geography before they would even consider publishing it??
Having read the book, I decided to find out a little more about the supposed campaign being carried out on the back of this book. As five years have elapsed since it's publication, I thought it would be interesting to see how things may have changed. I was perplexed to find that not only does the website 'www.honorlost.com' not (no longer?) exist, but the name Norma Khouri supplies plentiful entries that include the words 'lies', 'fraud' and 'hoax', when simply googled.
I love to read fiction based in history and other cultures, and am keen to learn about these while enjoying a good story. I appreciate that 'literal licence', as Norma was quoted calling it, is a necessary part of such works, however I would hope that unconfirmed 'facts' were extrapolated from historical records mixed with the writers feel for the characters and the time, place and culture. In fact, in many good books that I have read, there has been a large addendum before or after, where the writer explains to the reader what liberties he or she has taken in trying to create a good story, and what genuine research this was based on.
'Forbidden Love' has tainted my enjoyment of books such as this, as I will be sceptical now when reading, detracting from my immersion in the story, which is a shame.
If Norma had wanted to make a genuine contribution to a real cause, she would have contacted the lobby and support groups involved and worked with them - and gained true statistics of the problem, which could be verified and examined.
In retrospect, is it apparent that Norma has no understanding of living in a patriarchal society, as she does not express the depth of anguish caused by the conflict between her need to conform to the indoctrination of her upbringing, and her wish for freedom and change. There is no balancing of the condemnation with an explanation of how the 'evil' protagonists have become as they are or justify themselves, beyond shallow repetition. The story lacks almost any reference to any positives, or even heartfelt affection for her homeland and family.
I feel soiled and used for having been conned in this way, and sorry for all of the genuine writers of true accounts, because they will find their reception that much cooler because of it.
i totally agree! it is just so wrong for them to say she is lieing when it has been proven that she did not lie! so she left out the part of her being an American. so what! i thought it was a free country....they need to stop bothering her about it, and at least she cared enough to say it and share the story all over the world. what did they do???
It has been proven that Norma did lie and wrote a story about a very serious problem of honor killings for her personal gain. It is sad to see that a book filled with lies could be published, her book is filled with information trying to hurt Islam as well as Jordanian society.
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