Worth Abbey from the BBC TV Series 'The Monastery'. Photo: worthabbey.net

Documentary as a genre has become a staple of television programming. Every evening, audiences can expect to see anything from the drinking habits of British teenagers to radicalisation in the Muslim community. Although varied in content, the form and presentation of these films has become convergent. It is not only the constraints of the slot, being a national broadcast and thus speaking to a general audience, but also the way they are constructed. There is a standardisation occurring in the narrative arc and the use of music. How can an audience engage with a topic if the frame is predictable and rigid? And is there room for authorship by the filmmaker given the constraints set by commissioning editors?

‘The Monastery’ is a BBC TWO programme produced by Tiger Aspect TV, broadcast as three one-hour episodes in May 2005. Two hundred and fifty people responded to advertisements inviting them to spend six weeks in a monastery, living alongside the monks. The five men who were chosen had little or no experience of Catholicism or monastic life.

Adam Kemp, long running commissioning Editor for the BBC will be joining us for the discussion.

Wednesday 25th November, 6.30pm, FREE

J Z Young LT, UCL, Anatomy Building, Gower Street, London

Every day, especially living in any city in the UK, we see women wearing the hijab, the headscarf that is often part of a Muslim way of life. In her short and succinct film, Close Your Eyes and Look At Me, Lindsey Dryden provides an insight into the reasons behind one woman’s choice to wear it.

One could be forgiven for making some assumptions about the hijab – women are ‘forced’ to wear it, the onus is on them to cover themselves from the prying eyes of men who can’t be expected to control themselves. But in fact Close your eyes presents us with another way of looking at it. The young woman shown in the film, 25-year-old Shabana from Edinburgh, tells us that, for her, the hijab equals more freedom in her everyday life. She doesn’t worry about hair or makeup, about conforming to an artificial ‘ideal’ about the way one should look.

Would people communicate more efficiently if they weren’t influenced by the judgments made about others’ appearances, their clothes, hair, other external features? Is choosing to wear the hijab a way of freeing oneself from the restrictions of others’ judgments? Dryden gives us answers to these questions and more in around six minutes by putting the audience behind the camera and letting us see the world through Shabana’s eyes.

Shabana admits that although she no longer suffers judgment on the basis of her appearance as a stereotypically ‘attractive’ woman, she now experiences abuse from people judging her for wearing it. But for her, this is perhaps more acceptable (or she is less equipped to combat it) than attention received because of her femininity. She is not denying her identity as a woman; she is simply showing reverence to it by concealing what is considered in Islam to be a woman’s most beautiful feature, her hair.

Dryden presents us with an honest and simple account of one woman’s choice to cover her head and it is refreshing to hear the story narrated by this young woman herself. Making the film more of a personal story, the director achieved a greater sense of authenticity and as she gives her explanation, she lets us into her world momentarily. By the end of this tiny gem of a film, we find ourselves just that little bit better informed and enlightened.

Katharina Chase
London-based Australian writer, linguist and social historian

To read our interview with director Lindsey Dryden, click here.

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