Women Behind the Wheel
Two female documentarians traverse the Pamir Highway in Central Asia in search of women’s stories.
This film set in Central Asia is a first feature by Catherine Haigh and Hannah Congdon who met at the age of eighteen and became best friends. No sooner had they left university then they planned to take a road trip together driving around Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. This journey would take them along the celebrated Pamir Highway in the course of a trip lasting 56 days and it would introduce them to a part of the world unknown to them. However, despite relishing much of the landscape through which they would pass, their chief focus was on the people who live there and in particular on the women. The two travellers wanted to learn from them what the lives of women are truly like in this region, how hemmed in by traditional views, religious or otherwise, and how informed their lives are by those who, whether or not seeing themselves as feminists, want to create a more equal society.
In deciding to record their time on the road, the two travellers took on the duties of directors, producers and chief photographers and at the outset when referring to the women they hope to meet they describe this as being “our story and their story". And that is what this refreshingly informal documentary gives us: we become fellow travellers as we discover both towns and cities and the high mountainous terrain in company with these two. You may be reminded at times of those TV travel programmes – some good, some not – in which a celebrity travels around a foreign country and meets the people. Such pieces however sincere feel set up to make the presence of a celebrity an effective part of their appeal. In contrast to that, what we have here are two engaging unknowns who appear quite natural in front of the camera, have the ability to ask pointed questions of those that they meet and make us feel that we are going along with them like lucky travelling companions.
At no time does the film seem set up or effortful and we share in the sense of adventure as we encounter with the travellers many unexpected moments (a woman who is the champion at taekwondo, another who is an animal keeper at a zoo and a third who engages in bee farming are examples of that). At times we hear things as bad as might be feared (one example being what we hear about the traditional acceptance of brides being obtained by men who kidnap them), but rather more often Cat and Han (as we come to think of them) encounter women both young and old determined to make a difference in their society. We are drawn in and find ourselves admiring a number of such people, while the genuine enthusiasm of the two travellers is attractive in itself – and all the more so because the film includes such everyday details as problems that they have with their car. Such touches add to our sense of sharing an experience as it unfolds and, while we learn much of value, the film is all the more engaging because Cat and Han are not experts or personalities but people who themselves want to learn and to share what they discover with others. Women Behind the Wheel may be considered a small film, but it is a very appealing one and is marked throughout and in every way by a distinctively feminine sensibility.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Catherine Haigh, Hannah Congdon, Aziza, Sitora, Zarrina, Zuhro, Sabina, Mohijahon, Dilbar, Hafiza, Sayram, Khursheda, Zumrat, Gulina, Baktykan, Aiperi, Ainagul, Guliza, Jamilya, Guilairam, Zarina.
Dir Catherine Haigh and Hannah Congdon, Pro Catherine Haigh and Hannah Congdon, Ph Catherine Haigh and Hannah Congdon with Magda Skrabalak, Ed Anna Zavialova with Jake Kennedy, Music Hollie Buhagiar.
Limonero Films-Dartmouth Films.
97 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 3 March 2023. Cert. 12A.
