30 DHUVAS

[This review was first published in local newspaper Haveeru in 2002 ]

The opening scene of Thirty Days itself, where our anti-hero Hanim (Mohamed Rasheed) is seen pasting large strips of red clothing on a white wall, clearly establishes a foreboding sense of doom.

Indeed, it is so as director Ahmed Nazmi takes us along a ride where distinction between reality and fantasy is fuzzy. Although the film by no means claims to be the best, it rises far above other conventional Dhivehi films of weepy love stories.

The script of Thirty Days ("Thirees Dhuvas") is unpretentious, direct, intelligent, witty and implicit, and obviously written by a screenwriter (Ali Rasheed) who has a great sense of humor; there are so many genuine laugh out loud moments in the movie that the dialogue itself is a factor that makes the film worth watching. For instance, Hanim's best friend Gattey uses a most routine conversation at a teashop to subtly attack Hanim's isolation with reality, while Hanim, surprisingly, resorts to self-acceptance of his inability to come to terms with real life as a defence against Gattey's continuous verbal onslaught.

The director's real success in making this a one-of-a-kind Dhivehi film is his ability to hold our interest in the most mundane moments of life until the film's twisted but appropriate ending. The film also demonstrates that Dhivehi films - or at least a few of them by more daring directors -- have now come of age, because for the first time, we are seeing a film which painstakingly creates consistent but disturbing characters.

Loner and brooding Hanim is the unassuming but troubled youngster whose only reality in life is the world of surfing; every other thing may not be real, except perhaps for his ex-lover Sadha (Aminath Shafeeqa), whom he still loves and whom he desperately wants back.

The film is really unique at this point, and makes us feel as if we are watching a David Lynch film where only truth matters, not logic. At certain points in the movie, a white ghost appears alongside a child, and the viewer gets the notion of the schizophrenic nature of Hanim, and that of his sense of alienation and isolation.

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