Only Men Go to the Grave is a story about how a mother’s love can transcend everything. Emirati writer-director Abdulla Al Kaabi explained the premise of his first feature film in a Q&A session after its screening at the Dubai International Film Festival.
This film has been highly anticipated following Al Kaabi’s acclaimed 2010 short film The Philosopher, with French actor Jean Reno. In many ways this feature film carries on the legacy of the narrative shorts that precede it — Only Men Go to the Grave is shot beautifully, is interested in its characters’ inner lives, and employs symbolism and colour with gay abandon in order to tell an intimate story.
The title might refer to men, but it’s the women who are at the centre of this film that explores familial and other relationships after a matriarch dies in an accident in a small, Middle Eastern village. As inevitably happens, the deceased’s past comes under scrutiny, driven by the fact that the mother was about to reveal a deep secret when she died. This tests the relationships between the three other women in the house over the three-day funeral, and the men in their lives, both present and past.
The film follows a languid pace, with the camera lingering on perfectly composed frames — kudos to cinematographer Payman Shadmanfar.
Al Kaabi explores with great delicacy the tension between how much we need or want to know about others’ personal lives — even close relatives’ — and what is better left unknown. Ultimately, though, he is hampered by the multiple storylines used to flesh out the core narrative, and he leaves the viewer with more questions than answers — not all of them conducive to the story.
The director says he’s in talks to secure a theatrical release. Let’s hope he gives it one last edit. But this film does prove the director is brave enough to tackle difficult subjects, and is definitely one worth seeing.
