Director: Chloe Abrahams

British Sri Lankan director Chloe Abrahams’ harrowing, but clear-eyed and lyrical documentary, is both a cinematic therapy session and a feminist exhumation of family history told via three generations of women. The title was inspired by Chloe’s memories of watching her mother Rozana peeling mangoes, her mother explaining that one must slice around the edges to get to the sweet parts. Here Abrahams intends to investigate what lies under the sweetness. Rozana had left Sri Lanka as a young woman, to start a new life, and to get away from her abusive stepfather. She still suffers from trauma from their abusive relationship, and when her mother, Chloe’s grandmother, Jean, comes to visit, the traumas re-emerge. Abrahams questions Jean on camera about why she has stuck with her husband. Jean replies with talk of societal expectations, the importance of forbearance and lowered expectations, and, in the most shocking sequence, judges her husband’s ‘frisky’ victims. The director sweetens the mix with video footage of Rozanna’s glamorous wedding as well as impressionistic images of birds and ripples. It’s a harrowing watch, but there are springs of hope here too, in its account of how successive generations are willing to interrogate, learn from, and challenge the past. Abarahams overeggs it a little with the bitterly ironic country music selections from her mother’s record collection, including ‘Rose Garden’ and, inevitably, ‘Stand by Your Man’.

David Willoughby

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