‘Saba’: Red Sea Review

Dir: Maksud Hossain. Bangladesh. 2024. 95mins

Saba is everything to her mother; daughter, friend, loyal companion and full-time carer. Maksud Hossain’s accomplished debut feature sensitively explores the tensions in that relationship, as Saba’s sense of duty threatens to become an intolerable burden. Carefully steering a path between sentiment and melodrama, Hossain creates a compassionate human drama that will strike a chord with anyone who has shouldered similar responsibility. Further festival berths should follow screenings at Toronto, Busan and Red Sea.

Compassionate human drama

Inspired by the experiences of Hossain’s wife, co-writer and co-producer Trilora Khan, Saba unfolds in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka. Twenty-five year-old Saba (Mehazabien Chowdhury) lives with her paraplegic mother Shirin (Rokeya Prachy). She has little life of her own as she devotes herself to a demanding patient, feeding and showering her mother, and changing her diapers. Television news and the distant noise of city traffic feel like the only intrusions from the outside world.

Hossain subtly conveys the way in which their cramped home has become a prison for both of them. The only time Shirin has ventured out of the door in the past two years is when an ambulance takes her to hospital. Saba visits a pigeon coop in the loft, spending time with birds that are as constrained as she feels. Saba’s frustrations with her mother transform her into someone she doesn’t want to be. “Whatever I do, I can never make you happy,” she complains. Hossein balances that bitterness with glimpses of the love that binds them in their shared meals, tender gestures towards each other and memories of the past.

When Shirin’s fading health requires an expensive operation, Saba goes in search of employment. A series of rejections obliges her to accept an offer of work at a hookah lounge where her immediate boss Ankur (Mostafa Monwar) proves to be sympathetic to her circumstances. His easy company and genuine concern give a suggestion of the life she has sacrificed. When he asks her what she wishes for in life, it stops her in her tracks – as if she has never thought to consider the question.

Hossain manages to imbue his story with some sense of daily life in Bangladesh; a Muslim society at the mercy of widespread corruption and an unreliable sewage system. Saba’s dilemmas are seen as symbolic of a population split between those who choose to remain or those who hunger to leave. “We are breathing to barely survive here, “ says one character. Saba learns that Ankur is saving to make a fresh start in France.

The story builds through the push and pull of the growing friendship between Saba and Ankur and the failing health of Shirin. It becomes a tale of divided loyalties and desperate acts but one that is layered with precious reminders of life’s simple pleasures; the trio enjoy a meal of Bangladesh favourite Kachchi biryani together, Ankur hires a van to give Shirin a rare day out.

A modest tale in the social realist tradition, the demands of Saba’s plot never overpower the focus on the characters. Individuals here are flawed and vulnerable, capable of both kindness and cruelty. Mehazabien Chowdhury, also a co-producer, makes Saba a sympathetic figure as she constantly strives to do the right thing regardless of the consequences.