aude24 oktober 2008 – 16:08

A Jihad for Love is the first documentary ever made that very explicitly combine the themes of Islam and Homosexuality and which deeply explores the antagonism between a dogma and individual freedom. The title at first might tickle the ears, might interrogate, but don't look for any form of provocation toward the Islamic world in there, for there isn't even an inch of it. Indeed, the term “Jihad” refers to the wide concept of “Struggle”, and in that context, surely does not refer to the meaning of “holy war”. From that point, Sharma precisely demonstrates that Love, whatever form it might embrace – pagan or divine - is always a struggle.

Shot in twelve different countries and using nine languages, the message is obviously reaching an universalism. And the personal tales of the characters is sublimed by this feeling. All of them, beyond sharing a deep-rooted religious sense, have all experienced the reject by their society, sometimes by their own family. And reject, depending on the countries they are from, may level up from banishment to stone death. And there, irremediably, sneaks in the question of Faith. How can you possibly maintain this high relation with a god when people in its name are trying to erase you as if you were nothing meaningful enough to remain.

If homosexuality all across the world is a subject that still needs to be defended, mixing it with religion suddenly makes of it a bomb waiting to explode. Because love and devotion cannot be rationalized, they can only – if supposedly opposed – crash into each other. A perfectly example of that impossible communication is the scene where one of the boy in India tries to discuss his sexual orientation with his Imam asking him for help. The man will reply that god will make him change in order to save him. Two voices raise up but unable to rejoin in any way. That's what the whole contain of the film is about: yet another struggle.

Of course the authenticity of the images speak directly to the heart and probably less to the mind. But for once a muslim director is rising up his voice and within his voice, the voices of those who are kept speechless and that is also what makes “A Jihad for Love” that powerful. The permanent melancholy that emanates, as we're following the sinuous paths of those people, emphasizes the unknown of their fate. All of them have rejoined western countries to start anew, but we easily feel that this new world they're approaching will not bring any relief, any tranquility for their mind but in fact may carry on stigmatizing them over again, though in a different way.

A Jihad for love does not pretend to have an answer on this delicate question: do Islam and Homosexuality can at some point meet up. Parvez Sharma is modest enough in his filming to recollect and offer different views, different stories and stick to it. Nevertheless, he questions each one of us, forces us to react and at the very same time he portrays with an impeccable fair eye each one of his characters. The documentary has received many prizes in various film festival, the least we can say is that it deserved each one of them.