Loodhifa - Life In Deception
Thoughts On: Loodhifa (2011)
Made by Moomin Fuad, this is the Maldivian film of the series.
Despite the daunting 4+ hour run-time, Loodhifa holds a densely structured and fluidly moving narrative. Its drama unfolds in layers as to explore and reveal many faces of its large cast, utilising the 'hyperlink cinema' structure to enthralling effect. Grounded to real and quotidinal themes of suffering and desperation, Loodhifa works to explore destruction in deception. Initially the narrative deals with self-deception; an abandonment of ones morals in a time of desperation. It sees many individuals become their shadow, using their skills, virtues and good fortune in ways that conflict with what they know to be right. Through montage and the hyperlink narrative, a greater sentiment emerges from this: a notion of deception becoming a way of life. Characters learn to make money and survive by deceiving others and themselves. Life, between and around these people - hence their narrative connection - then eventually comes deceptive in itself. The world of these characters thus transforms to be one that will betray them; a consequence of, at first, their self-betrayal, and finally, their view of life a deception itself. One arrives upon the road they walk. Each character grows to believe that the world functions through strategy and trickery. The more they push it to become so, the deeper the game of their life becomes. They each act out a drama before a fall, and are left reaching for morality to catch them when the fall is suddenly beneath them.
Simple in its morality though complex in structure, Loodhifa constructs a powerful thematic world in which trusting ones basic senses is a moral virtue and fatal choice.
