You Resemble Me (2022) Film Review
In today’s society, judging people we don’t know seems to have been normalized. What’s worse is this has resulted in generalizing in regards to religion, race, gender, and whatever other label you can think of. The categorization of “peers” seems to have been lost in the age of much needed (and much asked for) tolerance.
How did we get to this? How can we be so naive and ignorant? How are we so focused in empowering this horrific practice that solely works for further division? As I like to say, we need to start a conversation once again, only this one is much more important than the others.
Perhaps, at first Dina Amer’s work You Resemble Me doesn’t feel like the proper starting point. Fiction seldom is. But through a very mysterious execution of concept, Amer accomplishes more than we can imagine in the beginning. Yes, You Resemble Me starts as a compelling drama about trauma in the middle of a social crisis that’s very real today. Then it slowly becomes something else, much more universal and insightful. There is a reason for this, revealed in the last minutes of You Resemble Me, where everything we have seen is justified through a montage of evidence that carries the message throughout to the end.
To call Amer a brave filmmaker is to fall short of what she must be called. Not because of her film’s theme, but because this can’t be easy for any woman trying to tell this story.
In You Resemble Me, two sisters are separated when they’re just children. Hasna and Marian live with their mother and other siblings. Hasna protects Marian even from their mother. Their connection is strong enough to be a powerful shield in danger-riddled Paris.
But one day, they are separated. Hasna’s trauma starts from this point on, going to foster care and extricating herself from the only reality she’s aware of. As she grows and leaves the system that allowed her to survive she faces a crisis that has to do with her identity, origins, and even her appearance. As she gets closer to Islam, Hasna dips her toes in the horrific world of radicalism.
Amer decidedly portrays Hasna’s journey from the perspective of a lost identity. Hasna actually “changes” her face during this horrible fall into the dark (I won’t explain how she does it, because it’s somewhat of a very cinematic resource that fully works). As her relationship with religion (and the identity it includes) grows and becomes stronger, Hasna’s separation from reality becomes dangerous. Yet it also feels inevitable.
Adapted from a great script, You Resemble Me ends with an insightful address of Hasna’s fate. This is when Amer reveals it’s all based on true events and the story goes full circle in regards to logic and Amer’s insistence with Hasna’s crisis. This doesn’t mean the “fictional” part of the film becomes secondary. On the contrary, it becomes much more relevant in the face of a character so mysterious, yet so human, it’s impossible to miss the connection.
Yes, You Resemble Me is a good way to start a conversation. One that could be uncomfortable for some but incredibly fair for others. Maybe those “others” are beside you and they’re your peers.
