A Sinner in Mecca

A Sinner in Mecca chronicles openly gay New York filmmaker Parvez Sharma's 2011 trip to Saudi Arabia for his Hajj pilgrimage—a risky journey, given that authorities labeled Sharma an infidel for his film A Jihad for Love, which is about LGBT Muslims. Some time before his trip, Sharma marries his atheist partner, Dan, and the pair honeymoon in India, where Sharma lived until he was 26 years old (Sharma's late poet mother never accepted his homosexuality). But Sharma travels to Mecca alone, and since filming is forbidden, he uses his iPhone. Like other male pilgrims, Sharma wraps himself in white cotton sheeting and starts at Masjid al-Haram, where men and women worship freely together (unlike other Saudi mosques). From there, he moves down the corridor between Al-Safa and Al-Marwah, and then heads toward Mount Arafat. The next part of the pilgrimage involves collecting pebbles to throw at the (symbolic) Devil, followed by a stay at the world's largest tent city, which unfortunately looks more like the world's largest garbage dump (a fellow pilgrim tells Sharma that he's glad they don't allow non-Muslims inside, so the Western world can't see it). Sharma then heads through tunnels that lead to the wall where he throws his pebbles. But unable to secure a goat in Saudi Arabia, he returns to India to complete his Hajj with an animal sacrifice (a difficult sequence to watch). "I have emerged from my Hajj a better Muslim," he concludes, although his experience seems more stressful and dispiriting than joyful and inspiring. Given the highly topical subject matter that addresses both LGBT issues and Saudi culture, this should be considered a strong optional purchase. (K. Fennessy)