SULTANA'S DREAM

Spain, 2023, 80 minutes, Colour.

Voices of: Miren Arrieta, Arunima Bhattacharya, Mary Beard, Paul B.Preciado.

Directed by Isabelle Herguera.

An unexpected film, with a touch of the exotic.

This is a Spanish animation film, hand-painted backgrounds with digital figures moving in front, sometimes bright colours, sometimes a focus on design, always intriguing.

The central character is a Spanish filmmaker, Ines, who is on a quest. She has memories of interactions with men during her girlhood, is critical of men. She discovers a story, Sultana’s Dream n, written in India, in Bengal, in 1905, by Begum Rokaya, Rokaya Hossein. She was an educated woman, encouraged by her husband, exploring themes of the role of women, inventing a fictitious country, Ladyland, where women prevailed, where men were subject, locked up, crowded, the women excelling in their work and inventions. Ines is intrigued and finds a friend in India who accompanies her on her quest.

There are also scenes in Spain, Ines and a visit with her oceanographer mother, her Bollywood filmmaker father, even visiting him in Rome on one of his sets and exploring his treatment of themes of men and women. There are also discussions with the actual scholar Paul B. Preciado and British classicist, Mary Beard.

Comment has been made that the film is dramatically unfocused. In fact, the various sequences are put together somewhat in a piecemeal fashion. Which means that audiences have to be attentive to the drama and its continuity.

There is fascination in the animation, fascination for the theme of the presence and superiority of women, raising issues for reflection.