32 Meters
(Turkey/Iran/Qatar, 92 min.)
Dir. Morteza Atabaki
Prod. Morteza Atabaki, Murat Ones
Programme: World Showcase (North American premiere)
You’d think that two elder women determined to organize a shooting competition would encounter one huge barrier after another. But that’s not the story in 32 Meters, a documentary that’s full of surprises, upending expectations all along the way.
The film sets the scene in a small village where women attend to their household chores, stoking an outdoor fire where they share the preparation of food. From the looks of it, this is an ultra-conservative, patriarchal location where the gender roles are adhered to strictly. But then an aerial shot shows a woman, Halime, trudging along a dirt road carrying a rifle. What?
Turns out Halime’s off to target practice, having returned from a shooting competition where she was the only woman vying with men. Three of her friends are impressed with her achievement and agree to work with her to create an all-women’s tournament in their village.
But they need a permit. Their first stop is the office of the village chief, who responds to their request not with hostility but with bemusement. He was sure they were coming to him with complaints about garbage collection or something like that and quickly gives them the OK.
Next, they have to find enough shooters to create a credible competition. Halime and her co-organizer Gonul figure that in order to increase participation, they’ll train other women. But they have to find them. Here’s where they encounter predictable resistance.
Many women refuse because their husbands won’t allow it. But a telling sequence in which men good-humouredly discuss the prospect of women developing shooting skills reveals that not all of them have total control over the village women. In fact, they fear that if they say no, their wives will go on strike in the kitchen.
Some women refuse the opportunity because they don’t like guns, to which, typical of the doc’s many amusing elements, Halime responds, “Join us and then you can go back to hating guns.” But that same young woman who says she doesn’t like guns and won’t compete, in a moment that speaks to the fact that the village does not live in the equivalent of the Stone Age, , adds that she’ll support anything that empowers women.
In the end, the key to the successful recruitment mission is the town’s main economic driver, the manufacturing of rifles, which moves many female employees to get on board. Says one, “If I make them, I should be able to shoot them.”
Then organizers have to find sponsors, men with the trucks to move equipment and competitors, companies to supply extra rifles and cartridges, someone to donate stands for the targets. Halime secures these things via her astonishing candour and good-natured joshing, at times laughingly promising to change men’s macho images. Even with the village chief, she’s bold, “Beware women with guns,” she says, eyes twinkling.
This she and her team do while never neglecting their household responsibilities. Lensed expertly by Mateza Atabaki and Faith Kizilay, especially as the women prepare a huge batch of flatbread, their subjects clear branches from their properties, prepare herbs, and perform other quotidian tasks. The cinematographers also create beautiful vistas of the village’s environs.
So successful is Halime and her team that she recruits too many competitors and has to struggle to change the terms of her permit in time for the scheduled competition. This creates a rare element of tension to a film that mostly follows Halime’s skilful pursuit of her vision and the often amusing responses she gets: her male counterparts are nowhere near as patriarchal as you’d suppose.
She is a compelling character in a pleasurable film that uses wit to shed light on resilient women living in a world that shows potential for change.
