Educational Media Reviews Online

This powerful documentary short from filmmaker James Longley depicts the efforts of a determined mother seeking medical treatment for her 10 year-old son, Sari, who is living with AIDS in war-torn Iraq. Nominated for an Academy Award, Sari’s Mother was included as an extra on the DVD release of Longley’s documentary feature Iraq in Fragments (also Academy Award-nominated), but it deserves this separate release from The Cinema Guild – though shorter and simpler than its feature-length counterpart, it is no less compelling.

Fighting the red tape of Iraq’s health-care system—a bureaucratic nightmare made worse by the war—Sari’s mother struggles to find decent care for her son. Her name is Faten Zegum, although we never learn this in the narrative. Sari contracted AIDS during a blood transfusion, and as one doctor notes, looks closer to age five than ten. The film presents an unflinching look at the daily lives of Faten and Sari: the painful injections she must administer him; her struggles with indifferent doctors and officials; and perhaps hardest of all, the realization of mother and son that Sari will never be well enough to play actively with the other kids.

Doing her best to raise a family against the impossible backdrop of illness and war, Sari’s mother maintains a resoluteness and modesty that are remarkable. The film unsentimentally—and convincingly—portrays her as a fighter and a hero. The film also excels at depicting the larger issues of daily life in occupied Iraq, where chores and play can be interrupted at any moment by military machines. In one of the most effective scenes of this type, Sari and his brothers are seen playing war with homemade models of Hummers, but are interrupted by the swooshing of real war planes overhead, which sends the boys scurrying to watch.

Sari’s Mother is highly recommended for public, high school, and academic libraries.