6. Queer Imaginaries and the Essay Film: The Cinema of Raed Rafei
“SALAM” directed by Raed Rafei | 19 mins. | Lebanon | Arabic with English subtitles | 2017
SALAM is a docufiction that retraces the ordinary afternoon of a working woman in the intimacy of her home. While carrying out household chores, Salam reveals the tumultuous journey of discovering her sexuality in a traditional society. Based on a six-hour-long interview with an anonymous Syrian woman, the film exposes the complex dynamics between desire and patriarchal power structures.
While Rafei's other works are explicitly essayistic, SALAM utilizes docufiction to explore a deeply personal narrative. Based on a six-hour interview with an anonymous Syrian woman, the film reconstructs her story within the intimate, mundane space of her home.
Formal Strategy: The film blends documentary's truth-claim with fiction's controlled aesthetic. The protagonist performs household chores while her voice-over (drawn from the interview) reveals her inner turmoil and self-discovery. This creates a powerful tension between the visible, socially-sanctioned domestic labor and the invisible, tabooed journey of sexual awakening.
Key Concept – Dual Marginalization: The film highlights the specific struggles of Arab queer women, who face marginalization both as women in patriarchal societies and as queer individuals in societies where non-heterosexuality is taboo. SALAM gives narrative space to a subjectivity often rendered invisible, challenging what scholar Iman al-Ghafari notes is a tendency to leave such experiences "nameless in Arab culture".