A thrilling and complex documentary about an international con-artist that's as confounded with the distinction between truth and lies as its wildly believable (and equally untrustworthy) subject.
A thrilling and complex documentary about an international con-artist that's as confounded with the distinction between truth and lies as its wildly believable (and equally untrustworthy) subject.
In July 2004, Norma Khouri, the best-selling author of Forbidden Love, was exposed as a major literary fake. Her book, which had sold 250,000 copies worldwide, purported to tell of her experiences in Jordan where a friend, Dalia, had been stabbed to death by her father after she had fallen in love with a Christian man. Khouri claimed to have fled Jordan to Australia after being targeted with a fatwah over her campaign against honor killings. In reality she seems to have left Chicago in 1999 one
step ahead of the FBI who wanted her for questioning over property transactions and other assorted frauds. Filmmaker Anna Broinowski has been able to get access to Khouri (or rather Norma Bagain) who emerges as a charismatic and manipulative figure, as well as to her victims and the law enforcement agencies she has left in her wake.
Even after you've seen Forbidden Lie$, the dizzying, drop-dead fascinating documentary on Norma Khouri, you won't be absolutely sure if she's on the level or a con artist ranked as "one of the best ever." That's how good she is.
Even as Broinowski exposes Khouri's shameful and pathological abuse of such genuine tragedies, the filmmaker may be giving her subject exactly what she wants.
This entertaining, provocative film raises pointed issues about con artists and their sometimes-culpable "victims," and also speaks to the elusive pursuit of documentary truth.
It must be fun to make a film about a con artist when the con artist is a full and willing participant, literally going to the ends of the Earth to prove she is the real deal.
It's a compelling story with a deathly serious topic, treated in a near sideshow manner. I like it. Less factual than a doc, less fiction than a drama. Faction
Thankfully, both filmmaker and subject approach the film as a duel. Broinowski thrusts, Khouri parries. Finding out what, if anything, is true about Khouri's story is simply the Macguffin for a filmmaker more thrilled by the hunt.
As unusual, even sensational, images appear, it becomes clear that Forbidden Lie$'s more conventional images are also up for challenges, that they can no longer be assumed to be true.
Like 2003's "Shattered Glass" this film is a story of one of the best scandals ever. A well done documentary and valuable opportunity to see how good a con-artist can be.
Director, Anna Broinowski, and her illusive subject, the scheming best-selling author Nancy Khouri, are locked in a cat and mouse game, but you're never quite sure who's playing which role. Their compelling competition of wits turns this documentary into
Forbidden Lie$, a Möbius strip of a documentary, weaves in and out of its protagonist's story to the point of exhaustion -- but the ride is thrilling and intermittently jaw-dropping.
Really interesting documentary. It seemed to go from bad to worse with this woman and her stories. My end impression of her was that she was slightly crazy.
A fantastic documentary full of twists and turns. It never gives anything away too soon and never slows down. Everyone gets their fair say and all storeys and angles are investigated thoroughly but who are you going to believe?
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