Some Might Say

When documentaries just observe, whatever is being observed not always becomes transcendental. For this to happen, it’s necessary to have been able to detect the adequate observation point. This is the main virtue of Wiseman’s documentaries, where facts are naturally developed in a special and sometimes complex phenomenology before the camera. Lo que dirán has these essential virtues, but goes beyond them, since reality becomes a symbol and what happens in the film reaches an allegorical status in a social crossroad. The use of hijab, that generates so many contradictions in the West, is presented by way of a conversation between two friends with different views about the relationship between identity and personal appearances. The bitter social controversies around it are found here in a gentle and friendly discourse, yet not any less intense for it, generated from a tolerant, multicultural and multilingual environment in one of Barcelona’s High Schools, where a utopia that should be prolonged beyond its walls is made. In this sense, Lo que dirán, aside from a realisation is also an allegation. (Gijón International Film Festival)