|
This is the first film to document the custom of bride kidnapping, an
ancient marriage tradition in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic in Central
Asia. When a Kyrgyz man decides to marry, he often abducts the woman he has
chosen. Typically, he and several friends hire a car, stake out his
bride-to-be's movements, snatch her off the street, and take her to the groom's
family home. A delegation is then sent to her family. The abducted woman is
held until someone from her family arrives to determine whether they will
accept the "proposal" and she will agree to marry her kidnapper.
Bride Kidnappingdocuments in harrowing detail four such abductions,
from the violent seizures on city streets and the tearful protests of the
women, who are physically restrained and persuaded to accept their fate by the
women of the groom's family, to the often tense negotiations between the
respective families, and either the eventual acquiescence or continued refusal
of the young women. While two of the four women accept the forced marriages and
later seem happy in their new relationships, one young woman fiercely resists
and is finally released hours later by her captors, while the fourth kidnapping
ends tragically, with the young woman dying under mysterious circumstances.
Subsequent interviews with the kidnapped brides, their families as well as
their in-laws' families-sensitively conducted by the film's Kyrgyz Associate
Producer, Fatima Sartbaeva-reveal both the deep cultural roots of the tradition
as well as growing rejection of it in this newly independent and rapidly
modernizing society, especially by young women who wish to continue their
education. Although bride kidnapping has been illegal in Kyrgyzstan since 1994,
it is a law that is rarely enforced, and one in three rural ethnic Kyrgyz women
have been forced into such marriages. Bride Kidnappping is a
remarkably illuminating look at what will seem to most Westerners, apart from
the most committed cultural relativists, as a shocking social custom but one
that, at the same time, raises provocative questions about the nature of love
and marriage.
A Petr Lom film. 51 minutes.
|
