SIFF 2002 Films: A-J

OVERSEAS FILMGROUP

Asoka the Great

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JIYAN
Iraq (Kurdistan), 2002. Director: Jano Rosebiani
Thurs., June 13, 7:00 p.m., Harvard Exit
Sat., June 15, 11:30 a.m., Cinerama

Dramatizing the aftermath of Saddam's chemical warfare attacks against Kurdistan in the late '80s, Jiyan won't win any awards for subtlety but usefully reminds us of a region unhappily "trapped between four monsters" (Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and the former U.S.S.R.). Kurdish-American Diyari arrives in the village of Halabja to build a new orphanage five years after one attack. He's understandably shocked by what he sees: maimed and disfigured children; limbless men; soil so damaged that flowers no longer grow. Shy 10-year-old orphan Jiyan, her own face scarred by the nerve gas, attaches herself to Diyari, then is gradually coaxed out of her shell. Minor subplots provide comic relief and transmit local color, making Jiyan something of an ethnodocumentary; it's also interesting to see how the music-hating local Muslim fundamentalist is mocked by all. Funded partly by the Kurdish