BEYOND HONOR

BEYOND HONOR is a poorly acted and poorly scripted melodrama about an important issue: forced female circumcision in Arab and Muslim families and nations. The movie takes place in Southern California in the United States, where a young woman’s Muslim family is terrorized by her mean, overbearing father, an Arab Muslim who married a white American woman. Sahira’s father, Mohammed, has allowed his daughter to attend medical school, but he doesn’t know about her American boyfriend, Brian. Meanwhile, Sahira’s brother, Samir, is the favored son who secretly looks at porn and spies on his sister’s naked body.

Toward the middle of this story, Sahira lets Brian sneak into her room at night and they fornicate while her brother secretly watches. Then, one evening, Sahira’s evil father, despite the protests of her mother, allows the other women relatives, some dressed in full Muslim Arab veils, to violently circumcise Sahira. Sahira takes drastic action to take revenge on her father, which leads to further tragedy.

Poorly acted and written, BEYOND HONOR also contains crazy incestuous themes and explicit sex, nudity and foul language, which dilutes its moral message. It also seems to be coming from a confused pagan and humanist worldview with a very strong feminist subtext. The movie contains a disclaimer saying that female circumcision is a cultural tradition, not a religious one, and Sahira still seems to cling to some kind of belief in God, despite her father’s actions. Sahira’s God, and the director’s God apparently, seems to be a radical feminist one who endorses sexual immorality.

Furthermore, the tragedy at the end is abrupt and disappointing. It dilutes the story’s climax which seemed to be leading toward an act of righteous revenge. The director deprives the audience of any satisfaction that Sahira’s father and her relatives will be punished for their crimes.