Rehana (2021, Abdullah Mohammad Saad) (Patreon)

61/100

Came close to bailing on this ND/NF selection (which premiered in Un Certain Regard last year) as it became evident that neither the weird blue filter (?) nor the shaky handheld photography were ever gonna go away. It’s hard for me to resist an unsympathetic, monomaniacal protagonist, though, especially when she’s constantly making terrible decisions in pursuit of a laudable goal. “Can’t you talk like a normal person?” someone asks Rehana at one point; I’m guessing that some degree of irritatingly formal diction didn’t make it into the English subs (film’s from Bangladesh), but her contempt for social lubricant practically emanates from her in visible waves. Crucially, it’s made clear that she holds herself to the same standard (or a higher one, more likely) as everyone else, and I don’t know that Rehana would work without the extraordinary scene in which she stands at the bathroom sink and proceeds to splash water onto her face I kid you not 39 fucking times, violently enough to create the impression of someone just below frame who’s pulling the playground bully’s “Stop hitting yourself!” routine. Briefly threatens to move into thriller territory by way of a Bedroom Window analogue—unable to persuade a student who’s been sexually assaulted to file a complaint, she claims to be the victim herself—but wisely retreats back to mundane yet disturbing explorations of righteousness’ limits. Questioning her methods without implicitly undermining her justifiable anger is tricky business, and Saad mostly gets the balance right, even as he gets the filmmaking all wrong; Rehana’s final scene, in particular, is singularly upsetting, even before it makes you wonder whether this woman might injure her daughter physically as well as emotionally. (Kinda masochistically wish that Saad had just cut to black following “two” in her count to three.) Far more interesting to me than was The Assistant’s portrait of frustrated impotence, though that film’s so very much stronger formally that the ratings aren’t as far apart as they’d otherwise be (61 vs. 56). Had this been executed as boldly and expertly as it was conceived, it would surely have been among my favorites of last year.