A Woman Captured: the Power, or Maybe the Importance, of Anger

Yosra El Zogh

CAIRO, Nov.13 (SEE)- A beautiful woman with the traces of age on her face and a young body appears picking flowers and enjoying a smoke. The documentary (watch trailer), which competed at Sundance Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival, declares early how the director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter met Marish, and found out about “modern slavery” and we realize by the end of the film that around 4.5 million people live in the phenomena in Europe.

Reading the title, I thought the film captures the life of a woman. It does, but it’s more about a woman in captivity, and maybe courage, the courage to see that there are other options in life.

Up until the middle of the film, the word “modern slavery” sounded like a bit of an exaggeration. Marish lives in a house, and in exchange for being given a home, she has to do some chores and cook food. But as the film proceeds, and Marish is being insulted, not allowed to go out of the house, not able to take a day off, then being beat up for talking to others, and finally forced to sign a contract to commit to this life indefinitely, the description turns out to be more than accurate.

She works in a factory for 12 hours, then goes to complete work at Eta’s home captivity. But why can’t she run away?

As she puffed at a cigarette, I hated it. I hated that she puffed her disappointment away and took this desperate situation. I wanted her to be angry, so angry that she would stop accepting this situation.

And I wondered what she was scared of. The director asks her this question right after in the film footage. Marish says they’ll come after her – which they do – but it seems more likely that she was ashamed to ask for help and let others know how miserable her situation is.

As the film rolls on, we feel like she needed a friend, and needed to let the world know, both of which she gets from the film. And as Marish is boldened to take the step to move out - or rather flee, look for another home and find a job, an important aspect is added to the power of the film. Besides simply “capturing” her, the film actually changed her life. And that could be what I like best about it.