The concept of the video diary has been gaining traction the last few years, with many festivals nurturing this very experimental, very personal style of filmmaking. Shaima Al Tamimi implements this approach in a 9-minute short that uses her family story to make a number of sociopolitical comments.
“Don't Get Too Comfortable” is screening at Vienna Shorts
The film implements a series of vignettes, including photographs of Al Tamimi's grandfather and extended family, various types of footage, animation, and some very impressive images of the sky juxtaposed with buildings or other elements as she essentially narrates his story throughout the movie. The fact that he had 22 wives emerges as shocking this day and time, but his emigration to Zanzibar and his eventual return to Yemen are also quite impactful as parts of the story. Gradually, the filmmaker starts moving away from her family's history, in order to make a more general comment regarding the declined fate of Yemen, and the issues people with passports of the country face, since there are a number of countries in the world who do not accept people from there, without a VISA.
From this starting point, Al Tamimi comments on the significance of citizenship and the injustice this aspect brings, also making a remark on the whole concept of immigration, that moves further away from the issues Yemeni face.
The combination of her family's story with the more general comments, as much as the overall audiovisual approach that lingers between documentary and fiction works quite well here, because both actually emerge as rather interesting, while their juxtaposition actually helps both axes, in a testament to the quality of editing here. At the same time, the filmmaker's soft but somewhat imposting voice works excellently in the narration of both, while the finale, that essentiallly showcases the nature of the movie. concludes the whole project in the most meaningful fashion.
“Don't Get Too Comfortable” may be perceived as too artsy, due to its overall cinematic approach, and the truth is that it is not a film addressed to any kind of mainstream audience. However, both the comments and the story here are quite interesting, while the economic duration and the fact that Al Tamimi makes it about more than just herself, allow the short to elevate far above the many video diaries, also because it emerges as not pretentious at all.
