An Act of Worship is an important documentary examining the treatment of Muslims in the United States.
6.5/10
Documentaries are an important part of cinema. Sadly they never get their just dues and sometimes get largely ignored at festivals. As someone who has worked on a documentary, the extensive work that is done on them is incredibly respectable. Documentary filmmaking is just as important as narrative films and when it comes to film festivals I make it a priority to watch some documentaries. At Sundance, I watched some great documentaries like Tantura, A House Made of Splinters, and The Territory. Alas, I was approached to watch this documentary film that highlights the past 30 years of Muslim American lives in the United States.
Anyone who does not see the world with rose-colored glasses can easily see that the past thirty years in the US have seen a massive increase in Islamaphobia. Islam is the second-largest religion in the world. Yet in the United States, the lives of Muslim Americans are constantly under attack and used as political targets. The main goal of Nausheen Dadabhoy’s An Act of Worship is to examine the past 30 years through its various subjects and express the need for change. The film uses archival footage and interviews with various family/friends of the people included in the documentary.
The film is far from being perfect and that is okay because that should not be its main priority. The film excels at expressing its message through its execution by using some emotionally raw interviews. Learning about each person in this film was one of the best parts of this film whether it was about the women who were running for office or the various people who are still separated from their families. I found the examination of three big eras pre-9/11, post-9/11, and Trump’s presidency. Ultimately, the film is held back by its uneven pacing which makes the narrative drag throughout the runtime. The last two acts of the film are where it lacks and eventually fell apart before it recuperated in the last fifteen minutes.
Ultimately, even with its lackluster pacing, the film is still important to watch and that is why I recommend it. As someone who is not Muslim, I connected to the parts of the film where they discuss being separated from their families in other countries. I also gravitated a lot toward the discussion of cultural differences between the generations in the family. The idea of belonging to several identities is important to me so when the film touches on that I was pulled back in. The message of the film is more important than its execution. It’s pieces of art like this that remind us of the various steps that we need to take in making our country a better place for everyone. Whenever this makes its way out to the public or if you can catch a screening I highly recommend giving this a shot.
Watch An Act of Worship at the Tribeca Film Festival by visiting their website and buying a ticket for its remaining screenings.
The Nerd Corps 