Zain Duraie’s Sink is as honest as it is heartbreaking
Zain Duraie’s Sink is the right amount of devastating. One of my favourites of the festival, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last week.
There is no shortage of films that cover mental illness in the modern context. Predominantly American or European, there are dozens if not hundreds of projects that show the sadness, the stigma, and the need for community support when dealing with mental health issues. Still, few films expertly portray an earnest perspective of the emotions involved outside of the melodrama frequently depicted. To truly succeed in portraying mental illness requires a delicate understanding of the metastasizing discomfort and distress such conditions can bring, an understanding Duraie seems to have mastered.
With the confidence and clear vision, it’s hard to believe Sink is a debut feature from the Jordanian filmmaker. Duraie captures emotions with a depth of experience difficult to explain.
The Arabic-language film follows Nadia (Clara Khoury) a Jordanian mother of three and her attempts to connect with her teenage son, Basil (Mohammad Nizar), whose mental state is slowly unravelling.
Taking place largely after Basil has an outburst in school, which subsequently results in him getting suspended, we follow Nadia as she grasps at straws to understand and support her son. Four Daughters (2023) cinematographer Farouk Laâridh delivers simple yet emotionally striking shots of Khoury’s captivating performance — highlighting a depth of sadness and quaint frustration innate to a mother struggling to connect with her child.
Nadia loses herself in trying to understand Basil. She takes vacation days to give him her full attention whilst unintentionally distancing her from her husband and two younger children — missing her youngest son’s soccer game in the process.
Despite the film being set through a mother’s eyes, we still receive the full complexity of a family response to mental illness. The father loses pride in his son, whom he once believed could do great things; the younger brother grows more distant from his parents as their attention is constantly elsewhere; the youngest sister grows fearful and resentful of her older brother, whose cold and distant nature is entirely unfamiliar to her.
As much as the film is focused on Nadia, Nizar’s performance as Basil is as devastating as it is excellent. He gives Basil a quiet and fleeting self-awareness. The lasting knowledge that he is losing himself is never expressed, but simultaneously barely repressed. There is a constant silence in his eyes, an isolated note in his outbursts — again seen expertly through Laâridh’s cinematography and stellar directing from Duraie. The outbursts are not cries for help, but a dissociative confusion.
In one such fleeting self-aware moment, Nizar delivers one of most powerful lines, which, translated from Arabic, means:
Don’t quit on me now.
The dynamic between Khoury and Nizar is almost painful. It screams without opening its mouth. Nadia tries everything in earnest and at times desperate attempts to connect with her son, and get him to open up. They dance, they eat, they play together in the mud, they swim. But there’s a moment in each of the scenes, in each attempt, where it is just abundantly clear that something is wrong.
The layers of complexity in the performances underscore depth in both filmmaking talent and acting, with an astounding amount of the film taking place in silence. The first ten minutes were almost completely without dialogue. So much is given by how these characters act, react, or understand without saying a word. The amount of control that Duraie holds in the film is nothing short of remarkable for a debut feature, the film’s narrative style so distinct and confident, akin to something made by someone with decades of experience.
Mental illnesses, specifically psychotic disorders, are understood in this film like no other. The attempts to get Basil to open up and explain what’s going on are as ineffective as they are devastating, because he hardly knows himself. What he does know is that he is hurting his mom, and eventually he pushes her to realize he is hurting her too. She has to decide to not sink down with him.
Discussions around mental health have become widely accepted, but still they reach a wall when mental illnesses become pervasive. In a typical mental health story, the resolution might be seeking treatment or opening up about the need for support. But most mental illnesses extend past simply being honest about their existence. How do you watch someone you love lose themselves without losing yourself in the process?
Sink shows that there is no answer that will please an audience. Instead, Duraie gives as realistic a hope as could be given. I left the film feeling melancholy, devastated, and worried — as I’m sure Nadia had felt.
