Reviewed by Alicia Glass
Director: Skye Fitzgerald
Rating: 7 Veils
A moving documentary detailing a new manner of attack happening against more and more women in Cambodia and various other places: assault with liquid acid.
Though the film does make mention and have graphic pictures of a few other women to whom this has happened, it mainly centers around Tat Marina and her particular story. I am sorry to say, the story is a fairly commonplace Asian one: Tat Marina is a rising Kararoke star, gets noticed by the Cambodian undersecretary and forced into an affair with a married man, and his wife decides to take revenge, but with a twist. And what a twist it is: on a crowded market street, in front of dozens of witnesses, Tat Marina is doused with who knows how much nitric acid, and the assailants get away. No charges have been or are likely to be pressed. Tat Marina flees to America, and that’s where the movie begins. Keeping in mind, it starts with Marina’s brother telling the story, which can be taken any number of interesting ways.
Yes it’s terrible and yes it’s tragic, but I simply failed to understand a lot of the things that came across in the film. The first half of the film, for example, shows these horrifically scarred women only behind a gently blurred filter, and even with that, somehow a sense of shame comes across from these women. The latter half of the film shows the faces of these women without any kind of cover, but not in a stark reality kind of way, but rather briefly and again, as conscientiously as possible. Marina’s family meet up again after some-odd years apart and through the magic of the internet see what happened to Marina’s face, and are understandably saddened by it, but to what end? There’s no call to action in the film as far as I can see, despite the newspaper headlines used and the harsh reality of the topic. Not that there needs to be, but I find it hard to see a film so soft about such a terrible subject. Little information is given about the Tat family, and yes I understand they have to be kept safe due to Marina’s involvement with revenge from an undersecretary in Cambodia, but I would’ve liked to have seen more of Marina and her spirit.
Despite being tragic and terrible, Finding Face gets a score of 7 veils, for at least bringing to my attention happenstances I had never heard of.
And the trailer
Tags: 2010, finding face, san diego asian film festival, SDAFF, skye fitzgerald, tat marina
