Review of A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness

"A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" is a 39-minute documentary from last year written and directed by female Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. With this one here, she already won her second Oscar after "Saving Face", a documentary short film that centers around the mutilation of females in the Middle East. And in this one here, her newest project, the subject is once again the humiliation of and discrimination against females in the Middle East. This time, the subject is a young woman named Saba who almost died at the hands of her (seemingly) beloved ones. This film is about honor killings, and in particular about a woman who was really lucky to survive it and we find out why she still manages to forgive the people who want her dead. It is a touching subject for sure and an emotional movie at times, but I personally felt that it delivered nothing really new beyond the fact that everybody (with an open mind) knows about, namely how women in the Islamic world have hardly any rights, except the right to die when they don't strictly obey to what the men in their lives have in mind about them. It's a solid watch, but an Oscar may be a bit too much I guess. I still recommend checking it out. Oh yeah, and make sure you got subtitles unless you're fluent in Panjabi.