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Sinner in Mecca (A)
- Director: Parvez Sharma
CGiii Comment
“I’m glad they don’t allow non-Muslims, so the Western world cannot see this.”
Well, for those of you who haven't visited the tourist mecca that is Mecca...here's a jaw-dropping, eye-opening exposé....the Saudis can be nothing but embarrassed. This is a truly dangerous film.
The Hajj - the pilgrimage that every muslim must undertake at least once in their lifetime...now that's what we call a great business plan...
And a booming business it is...did you know that there is a Starbucks only a few hundred metres away from the holiest stone in the world? Well, there is - in a massive air-conditioned shopping mall...stuffed to the rafters with souvenirs.
Anyway...filmmaker Parvez Sharma undertakes his hajj...as a gay man, in Saudi Arabia...he literally placed his life in his own i-phone-cradling hands...then, now and later. Those fatwas are dished out rather liberally! The consequences from this film are scarily tangible.
However, this is not all about exposition...this is a deeply personal journey for Sharma...that teeters precariously close to the edge of self-centredness. The word 'martyr' resonates a little too loudly...but, thankfully, amid the mountains of litter and pious consumerism, he evolves...due entirely to what he witnesses. He is genuinely shocked.
Yet...it's the revelations that make this film for non-muslims. Muslims - regardless of sexuality - may take something entirely different away from watching this...perhaps, a sense of being thoroughly duped.
A dangerous, unmissable, compelling film.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
For a gay filmmaker, filming in Saudi Arabia presents two serious challenges: filming is forbidden in the country and homosexuality is punishable by death. For filmmaker Parvez Sharma, however, these were risks he had to assume as he embarked on his Hajj pilgrimage, a journey considered the greatest accomplishment and aspiration within Islam, his religion. On his journey Parvez aims to look beyond 21st-century Islam's crises of religious extremism, commercialism and sectarian battles. He brings back the story of the religion like it has never been told before, having endured the biggest jihad there is: the struggle with the self.