Scales, 2019.
Directed by Shahad Ameen.
Starring Baseema Hajjar, Yaqoub Alfarhan and Ashraf Barhom.
SYNOPSIS:
In an isolated island community, each family must sacrifice one daughter to the sea creatures who surround it. But one young girl has been spared that fate by her father, making her an outcast in the community.
A few years ago at LFF, Ana Lily Amirpour brought along her “Iranian vampire western” A Girl Walks Home At Night – an unusual genre mix, for sure. Now, there’s something to rival it in the shape of Scales, which can be referred to as a “Saudi mermaid fable”. It’s an unusual monochrome fantasy set on a secluded island and, despite its attempts to flirt with various allegories, it never quite coalesces into anything meaningful.
The debut feature from writer-director Shahad Ameen is set in an isolated community described in the opening crawl as “barren and surrounded by a dead sea”. Tradition dictates that the villagers sacrifice female children to the “Sea Maiden” and, in exchange, the men of the village are able to hunt the mermaid-like creatures that populate the waters for food. Hayat (Baseema Hajjar) was marked for sacrifice as an infant, but was saved by her father and now, years later, she’s something of an outcast and made a scapegoat for the increasing scarcity of sustenance facing the community.
There’s an immediate intrigue to the premise of Scales, helped by the inherent fantasy escapism of its otherworldly black and white setting. Ameen conjures a bizarre, austere tone that takes its world deadly seriously, despite the ridiculousness of its fantasy elements. That is not a bad thing in itself, but it means that the movie has to nail down its allegory, which is not something it ever manages to do.
Ameen has a lot going on in her script for Scales, which perhaps overwhelms its relatively simple storytelling over an incredibly brief running time of just 75 minutes. The core thrust of the narrative is an up-ending of the patriarchal regime on the island as Hayat, played with brilliant ferocity by Hajjar, moves out of the shadow of her position in society to mount an attempt to change the system that repeatedly threatens to claim her life. The story vacillates between defiance and powerlessness, as she is inexorably pulled back towards the established order.
But the movie also flirts with notions of human-made climate change and the effect of over-consumption of resources. Scales lacks a clear thematic background to justify its languorous pace – even at just over an hour long – and ends up wallowing in its sparse dialogue and lack of significant narrative events. The tone that is so intriguing in the early stages eventually loses its shine and fails to inject the movie with anything approaching tension.
There’s plenty of room for genre cinema, especially of the cult variety, to use its genre to make a point about the world of today. That’s certainly the sandbox Ameen is attempting to play in with Scales, but this is a raggedy debut feature that never seems entirely sure of its point. The high-concept takes it a certain amount of the way to success, while being unable to get it over the finish line. It’s an interesting idea, told with fantastical flair, but it never finds a satisfying narrative groove.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Tom Beasley is a freelance film journalist and wrestling fan. Follow him on Twitter via @TomJBeasley for movie opinions, wrestling stuff and puns.
