Bangladeshi filmmaker Maksud Hossain’s debut feature film Saba is an emotional deep dive into an atypical mother-daughter relationship that is factious and compassionate in equal measure. It is also a poignant exploration of the essential reciprocity and trust underlying a patient-caregiver bond.
Young Saba (Mehazabien Chowdhury) is the nurse, guardian and provider for her ailing, bedridden mother Shirin (Rokeya Prachy). Often annoyed, exasperated, and angry, they are also united in their affection, care and concern for each other.
Hossain is non-judgmental and empathetic in framing his characters as creatures of their limiting circumstances and interminable struggles, but who still dare to dream of changing their fate while enjoying the little joys of life.
There is also a larger moral arc of betrayal, guilt, forgiveness and deliverance that is subtly implicit in the film, as is the evocation of the economic tenuousness plaguing Bangladesh. Hossain also vividly brings the sights and sounds of Dhaka to life.
The human drama rides on memorable performances, especially Mehazabien Chowdhury in the titular role. A universal, relatable tale of the parent-child bond, Saba has an Indian connection. It was one of the South Asian projects featured in the Co-Production Market in the National Film Development Corporation’s Film Bazaar in 2021, and Leena Khobragade, formerly with the NFDC, is one of its co-producers.
Also, the sound designer, Neeraj Gera, is from Mumbai. Hossain was born and brought up in Abu Dhabi, studied in the USA and made hundreds of commercials before moving to Bangladesh to make feature films.
Excerpts:
You have dedicated the film to two ladies. Is it inspired by a real-life story?
My wife, Trilora Khan, who is also the co-writer, and her mother were in a near-fatal car accident, almost 25 years ago. Ever since then my mother-in-law had been a paraplegic, and she depended on my wife. It’s then that we started thinking together about telling the story of a young woman, Saba, who lives in lower middle-class Bangladesh and must take care of her paraplegic mother without having any help around. What would Saba do in a situation like this to keep her mother alive at any cost? Though the inspiration is from a real story, the characters are completely fictional. So, I have dedicated the film to my wife and her mother.
The film is about people stuck in certain situations and how they respond to them…
As a filmmaker, my goal is to make films that are an emotional experience. I’m more interested in the characters than the plot. I am very interested in culture, in the country, and in politics. I don’t make an outright political statement, but you can feel it. I’m interested in the emotional truth. That’s what keeps me up at night.
The subcontinental cinema largely idealizes the mother figure and the parent-child relationship. But you have shown a complex bond…
That’s how I love to direct. I feel that human relationships are very complex. I also love to tell stories from a female perspective. Trilora helps me with that part—is it feeling authentic? Would a woman do that? The mother-daughter dynamic is inspired by Trilora and her mother.
But, the perspective of your film is that of the daughter Saba…
It was by design from the point of view of Saba. She is in every scene. Wherever the camera is, Saba is there. The camera can’t go anywhere where Saba is not. Those were my rules. That’s what I was interested in because I felt that I knew Trilora’s story from a kind of bias, from her perspective. I wanted to give that feeling to the audience as well. Also, to highlight that more, I decided to shoot the entire film with a single lens, only a 50-millimeter lens, so that there is no shift in perspective.
There is a moral dimension to the story as well, in her growing interest in her office colleague Ankur and the betrayal...
I am very interested in moral dilemmas where you don’t know which choice is the right one or the better one because there is none. And that’s the case in life when it comes to crucial decisions. I knew a friend whose father was dying from cancer. She knew that his end was near and didn’t want to be next to him at that moment. So, she went out of the house, circling it for 15 minutes waiting for him to die. But when she came back her father was still alive and passed away in her arms. I remembered that. I was thinking, would I do the same if I was in a similar situation? Was what she did morally right? These kinds of conflicts interest me.
You make great use of the city spaces and the sound—the traffic, azaan, old film songs…
I worked with Neeraj Gera, who is a very talented sound designer from Mumbai. I was very lucky to have worked with him. I worked with a lot of people from Mumbai in the post-production. They were very gracious with their time. I wanted the sound to represent Dhaka. I recorded hours and hours of sounds from Bangladesh. As far as the locations are concerned, I wanted the audience to feel claustrophobic for Saba because she’s stuck. She has to let go to be free.
Which brings me to the fantastic performance from Mehazabien Chowdhury as Saba and all the other actors as well.
It was Trilora who recommended Mehazabien. She is one of the biggest TV stars in Bangladesh. She has been working in television for the last 14 years. She has over 5 million followers in Bangladesh. I’ve worked with her on commercials before. She had been waiting to do her first feature film. I gave her the script, and she got back to me in two days. She agreed to the six months of rehearsals with the entire cast. And after that, I cast the others depending on how they would fit with her. It has been an absolutely wonderful experience working with them.
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