Writer and Director Dana Amer makes her first feature film directional debut with ‘You Resemble Me’, with a world premiere standout at the Venice Film Festival. This film is about a Hasna’s journey through trauma, and what develops throughout her life that caused fractures of personal and family relationships.
You Resemble Me starts off with a young Arab girl Hasna (Lorenza Grimaudo) living in France, where she is standing on the balcony and the heavy breathing sound effects are slowly growing, giving pressure to how stressed she was feeling at such a young age as she gazes down her low-income neighbourhood. With a slight hop, she appeared to imply that she was going to jump off the balcony, only to return to the floor and into her house. Because in that house, she finds happiness in taking care of her younger sister, Mariam (Ilonna Grimaudo).
Hasna shows her unconditional love for Mariam, not only being a big sister to her by playing with her, but also taking great care of her, from making breakfast and giving her baths. However, when they are out on the streets, the neighbourhood environment is plagued with issues, from racism towards Arabs and their religion, and fist fights happening right in front of Hasna and Mariam’s eyes.
The street scene revealed two different perspectives experienced by Mariam and Hasna at the very moment when they witnessed a racist Arab fist fight, with Hasna seemingly enjoying what she saw, whereas Mariam thinks the attack was brutal, and told Hasha that she seems to have a messed-up head thinking it sparked joy for her.
With the sisters happy with their day out, they return home to celebrate Mariam’s birthday. Mariam’s birthday turned into a chaotic fight as the scene shows the mother has a lot of flaws and trauma herself, manipulating her kids and taking Mariam’s presents away to sell to Morocco for money. She even almost went as far as stripping Mariam’s clothes, only for Hasna to snap and fight back against their mother. The mother beats the two sisters and they escape their home, leaving to the streets of Paris, homeless. What was interesting, it was ultimately Hasna’s decision to flee, taking Mariam with her.
Hasna’s personality shows she has a great sense of pride and independence, and that her young upbringing in a broken family and a rough neighbourhood made her trust nobody but herself. The only person that she consistently showed unconditional love was for Mariam, and Mariam would follow what Hasna would do. Hasna would often tell Mariam that “you resemble me” to reinforce their bond. While the two were living briefly on the streets, authorities caught the both of them, told them they have removed all the children from their biological mother, and have decided to separate the two to foster families due to concerns of Hasna’s psychological nature.
The separation further traumatizes Hasna as You Resemble Me reveals an older version of her, from running away from her foster home and authorities, failing to reconcile with her mother who blames her for all she caused, and was told she will just grow up on the streets like a whore. All these negative experiences come to a head when an adult Hasna (Mouna Soualem, Sabrina Ouazani, Dina Amer) ended up being just that.
With no family, no Mariam, and no real purpose to trust anyone, Hasna’s character is void of so many personal and family conflicts that constantly adds fuel to her anger she has carried with her throughout her adulthood and struggles to find purpose in her life. Several scenes show that Hasna still misses Mariam, but is unable to track her down since their separation.
All this comes to a head when Hasna feels the world is against her and searches for answers in Islam. But with living in France, she comes at a head that her religion is heavily scrutinized with conflicting ideals and the French culture, only to find a man that preaches these issues that resonated with her, radicalizing her with the Islamic State. With that said, the themes of current political issues and her Arabic religion has led her down a path of self-destruction, thinking that this was her real purpose in life.
Overall, You Resemble Me is a sad story. Seeing the evolution of Hasna’s character where one might feel sorry for her, and seeing how no one was really there to make her realize the wrong paths she was going down on. Director Dina Amer truly left no bounds when bringing out personal, familial, and religious issues, that all come to a head, creating a threat to society, only to leave Hasna’s legacy an unconfutable and unfortunate sight to witness.
Dina draws from her personal experience of cultural and intergenerational conflicts she grew up with as a Muslim Egyptian woman living in the western part of the world, and her intention is to not only depict how one’s struggle with identity could lead to devastating life choices, but to educate viewers about how a supportive community is very important to provide a peaceful purpose in one’s life. The only peace that stems from Hasna’s life, was the unbounded love for her sister Mariam.