Tag Archives: Shahad Ameen

Scales (2019)

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'Bound by tradition. Controlled by no one.'
‘Bound by tradition. Controlled by no one.’
The film boasts some stunning landscape shots
The film boasts some stunning landscape shots

Starring Basima Hajjar, Ashraf Barhoum, Fatima Al Taei, Yagoub Alfarhan and Haifa Al-Agha. Written and directed by Shahad Ameen. Produced by R. Paul Miller, Stephen Strachan and Rula Nasser.

Basima Hajjar plays Hayat
Basima Hajjar plays Hayat

The people of a small coastal settlement sacrifice some of their daughters to unseen sea creatures (we only get a brief glimpse of a clawed, webbed, gill-man-style hand) and, in return, the village’s fisherman are able to hunt for Sea Maidens, which are the main food source for the population.

A Sea Maiden that Hayat has dragged to the village
A Sea Maiden that Hayat has dragged to the village
One of the hunters dies from a wound suffered during a fishing trip: it can be dangerous capturing Sea Maidens
One of the hunters dies from a wound suffered during a fishing trip: it can be dangerous capturing Sea Maidens

Plot-wise, we never discover how the life cycle of the mermaids & mer-creatures actually works. The teenage girls given to the sea in the nighttime ceremonies somehow become the fish-tailed Sea Maidens that are hunted, but just how the female humans mutate into mermaids isn’t explained. Just what is it that the gill-men want: does the transformation of the girls form part of the clawed gill-men creatures’ elaborate reproductive process, perhaps?

A Sea Maiden is caught and dragged onto a fishing boat, where she starts to crawl along the deck..
A Sea Maiden is caught and dragged onto a fishing boat, where she starts to crawl along the deck…
A close-up shot of the sand-speckled face of the captured Sea Maiden
A close-up shot of the sand-speckled face of the captured Sea Maiden

The main character, an outsider girl called Hayat (Hajjar), has fish scales growing on her left foot – and, when it is her time to be sacrificed to the sea-gods – she survives the ordeal and returns to the village the following morning, dragging a dead Sea Maiden with her. Had Hayat maybe come into contact with a gill-man at a young age, and she’d somehow been turned into a human with slight Sea Maiden qualities? Who knows? The details surrounding the whole ecology of these strange sea beings isn’t gone into by writer-director Shahad Ameen, as already stated, because, for Ameen, this isn’t her main concern. Instead, this wonderful-looking b&w film (a Saudi Arabian/UAE/Jordanian/Iraqi production), filmed around Musandam in Oman, plays out more like an allegory or fable, focusing on how Hayat is instrumental in changing a society’s dark, age-old traditions and practices. The film can definitely be seen as a look at how a determined female character navigates her way through a patriarchal social structure.   

Hayat's left foot has fish scales growing on it
Hayat’s left foot has fish scales growing on it
Poster
Poster

Of the actors, Ashraf Barhoum stands out the most, playing lead fisherman Amer, who starts to see something special in Hayat. Along with lovely landscape photography, the film boasts several memorable moments, including the scene in which the tide withdraws completely, leaving nothing but the dry, cracked seabed. 

Ashraf Barhoum, as Amer, imbues his character with thoughtfulness and toughness
Ashraf Barhoum, as Amer, imbues his character with thoughtfulness and toughness
A mermaid is found on the dry, cracked seabed
A dead mermaid is found on the dry, cracked seabed
The stranded Sea Maiden is buried by Hayat and her father (played by Yagoub Alfarhan)
The stranded Sea Maiden corpse is buried by Hayat and her father Muthana (played by Yagoub Alfarhan)

(Shahad Ameen also made the 2013 short film EYE & MERMAID, another production that tells a mermaid-focused tale)