An unprecedented terrorist attack takes place in a peaceful café in the center of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, on a nice Saturday afternoon. The terrorists use religion to divide and to kill people, while the surviving hostages, all of them also Muslims, try to defend their own humanistic values. The film unravels the clashes and contradictions of religion, ideology, and civilizations through a terror drama shot in a single take.
While the hostage takers' motivations are in the right place - standing up against persecution and preserving their culture - it's clear that the film is strongly opposed to their methods. 'Saturday Afternoon' is a shocking and abrasive assessment of terrorism, and will be especially confronting to Western audiences. As the finale fades to black, we'll never know the real outcome - only that many lives were unnecessarily lost.
- Charlie David Page
Read Charlie's full article...
https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-saturday-afternoon-a-shocking-and-abrasive-assessment-of-terrorism
Head to https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/sff for more Sydney Film Festival reviews.