New York Sun Review of a Jihad for Love

From the New York Sun

Gay Muslims Fight Uphill Battle at Home

Movies  |  Review of: A Jihad for Love

By S. JAMES SNYDER

May 21, 2008
 
If heterosexual, non-Muslim Americans were, until recently, mostly unaware of the prevalence and intolerance of homosexuality in the Middle East, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, probably cleared up some confusion when he visited Columbia University last year. Speaking on the subject, Mr. Ahmadinejad said: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon."

Such a laughable comment helped bring the issue of gays in the Muslim world into stark relief. It also helps us to understand the considerable dangers facing director Parvez Sharma — not to mention his interview subjects — as he set out to make a documentary about the countless repressed homosexuals in Arab nations, many of whom are considered monsters who should be put to death by their families, friends, and neighbors. During the course of three years, Mr. Sharma amassed about 400 hours of footage with various subjects, distorting most of their faces with gray blots for fear of violent reprisal.

 From the outset, Mr. Sharma's "A Jihad for Love," which opens today at IFC Center, makes one thing clear: It is not, as some might expect, a story of alienation. Unlike other recent documentaries that have tackled religious and moralistic themes — such as Tony Kaye's "Lake of Fire," which lent a soapbox to every side of the abortion debate — "A Jihad for Love" is not about irreconcilable differences or two groups that regard each other with disdain.

Mostly, the film presents men and women who are passionate about their faith, who have tried to live life as prescribed by their parents and spiritual leaders, but who cannot ignore the fact that their source of love and comfort, of lust and consolation, is a person of the same sex. Their story is not one of alienation, but of determined reconciliation.

Mr. Sharma has said repeatedly in interviews that he believes Islam has been "hijacked" by a minority of extremists who have dictated to believers how the Koran is to be interpreted, and who have established an array of punishments incorporating physical violence and social ostracism. In several scenes, we see the ways in which homosexuals try to wrestle the interpretation of their holy book back from the extremists.

They point, for example, to the brief passage about the ancient town of Sodom, where foreign men were raped by local men, arguing that the condemned act is not consensual sex between two men, but the forceful rape of another.

Whatever the argument, there's no denying that these couples are fighting an uphill battle. Early in the film, Mr. Sharma plays a radio talk show concerning gay culture, and we listen as caller after caller demands death for every gay man and woman.

Similar stories of threats and intimidation — even from one's own family — spring up throughout the film. As Mr. Sharma keeps crossing borders to talk to his subjects, it becomes clear that most have had to flee their homelands, seeking the artificial amnesty of anonymity in foreign communities. One man speaks happily about his marriage to his male partner, but turns sober when describing what happened when the filmed footage of the wedding became public. Another deeply conflicted man phones his mother, devastated in his state of exile, but relieved finally to have an apartment of his own and eager to start a new life. It's this back-and-forth that makes "A Jihad for Love" both haunting and inspiring as it chronicles the horror stories even as these devout Muslims refuse to abandon their religion.

There's an inherent limitation to "A Jihad for Love" — a title that Mr. Sharma says uses the traditional definition of "jihad," which is not "holy war," but that of a personal religious struggle. With so many interview subjects fearing for their safety and living abroad, he is primarily interviewing anonymous sources in anonymous lands. As such, there is a glass ceiling to what the film, wrapped in secrecy, can capture. For the time being, though, it is a passionate, essential first step — an attempt to cut through the rhetoric spouted by the likes of Mr. Ahmadinejad and expose the plight of a severely underappreciated stratum of the Muslim world.