Flirting with the formula

By Tarek Atia
Leih Khalitni Ahibak (Why'd You Make Me Love You?) is nothing more than it purports to be: a light, romantic comedy. So what's wrong with that? Hollywood has made some of its most successful and memorable movies in this vein -- as did Egyptian filmmakers of the so-called Golden Age of Egyptian cinema in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
Some people, however, have a problem with feel-good fare. Pundits think real cinema should be heavy and meaningful, filled with either biting sarcasm or gritty reality. Discussions in Egypt about cinema as art or as a commercial venture can often sound disturbingly similar to debates about religion. In other words, either you're an artist, or you're a candy-maker and each camp is staring the other down across a very wide divide, claiming they know what real cinema is.
Which brings me to Leih Khalitni Ahibak. Judging by director Sandra Nashaat's Cinema Institute final project Last Winter, one would have pegged her for the art crowd. A black-and-white mood piece starring the then-relatively unknown Mona Zaki (one of this venture's stars as well), Last Winter promised a rising talent. But no one expected Nashaat's second venture to be a breezy romantic escapade -- one of the so-called youth films crowding the box office these days. And yet, that's exactly what Nashaat has given us, complete with a silly-but-surprisingly-effective musical narration that runs through the length of the film. And when I asked her about the shift she seemed pretty surprised.
"It's no joke making a film that a lot of people want to see," Nashaat said. "I don't want to make a film that only my friends watch. The artsy crowd doesn't like the popular crowd, but the target for all of us should be to get people to go to the movies." Brushing off many a director's vaulted artistic integrity as sour grapes, Nashaat argued that anyone who says they don't care if crowds flock to their film is lying -- the only reason they would say that is because their film couldn't pull people in.
And of course, Leih Khalitni Ahibak is definitely pulling people in. The highest grossing of the six Egyptian films released for the Eid, it made LE1 million in its first week. But it was this runaway success that set the stage for a showdown between the film's producers and the new behemoth on the bloc. Al-Arabia, the entertainment conglomerate begun by brokerage house EFG-Hermes, is starting to change a lot of rules -- and a lot of people aren't happy about it. The company has been avariciously buying the rights to films, gobbling up master copies of films and practically covering the costs of production in exchange for the right to distribute them from then on. A lot of producers are being brought into the fold, including all of the films released for the Eid -- except Leih Khalitni Ahibak.
Wael Abdallah, the film's producer, happens to own the Ramsis Hilton cinemas downtown. Since one of the multiplex's two screens is occasionally used as a theater, the rule has been that when there's a play showing, the film making the most money out of the two screens stays on. And since the play Hakim Oyoun (which stars Ahibak's two male leads, Karim Abdel-Aziz and Ahmed Helmi) is currently on stage at the Hilton, Al-Arabia's Al-Agenda Al-Hamra was dropped in favour of Leih Khalitni Ahibak, which was doing significantly better business. In retaliation, Al-Arabia promptly pulled Leih Khalitni Ahibak from six of its cinemas, even though it was doing better than all the other films. In other words, just to say "we can."
Tit for tat. The move generated a lot of controversy and even more bad press for the company, widely accused of attempting to monopolise all aspects of Arab entertainment with its unmatchably deep pockets. The result was a police report filed against the company that eventually led to the film returning to the six cinemas it was pulled from. According to producer Abdallah, the move reflects a bleak outlook for independent filmmakers. The scene is highly reminiscent of the so-called contractor films of the 1970s that Abdallah says "ruined the cinema industry and made people hate going to the movies."
The five other films released for the Eid -- the rights to which have all been bought by Al-Arabia -- all reflect the principal of quantity over quality. Of these, only one has approached the attention given Ahibak -- Mahmoud Abdel-Aziz's Souq Al-Mut'a -- primarily because word had gotten around that co-star Ilham Shahin shows a lot of skin. And it seems a shame that just when the film industry has hinted at a return to its golden days, a rash of poorly made films out to make some quick cash could have the same effect as those dreaded '70s contractor films.
One of the main problems, says Abdallah, is that when producers get their money back before a film is even released (when, for example, a company buys all the rights), it eliminates the all-important element of risk. Movie-makers need risk; it spurs creativity and forces them to only spend money on what they believe in. In the case of Leih Khalitni Ahibak, the film cost some LE2.5 million to make, plus another half million to market it. But there needs to be more people out there willing to take the same risks as Abdallah, without selling out to the behemoth, if Hollywood on the Nile is even going to come close to its glory days of yore.
Changing of the guard
Ahmed Helmi (or just "Helmi", as he's mentioned in the credits), is the odd man out in this film. He's the goof, the poor guy, the guise used by Mona Zaki to fool her ex-boyfriend Karim Abdel-Aziz into thinking she's gotten over him and is about to marry someone else. An easy-going guy who got into the acting business by chance, Helmi is part of a gradual infiltration into Egyptian cinema by a younger generation of actors and filmmakers. And like many of his colleagues, he likes doing group films like Leih Khalitni Ahibak. He doesn't mind waiting to get his chance at first billing, although that might happen sooner than he thinks. He is next slated to play opposite Mohamed Saad in 55 Isaaf, producer Magdi El-Hawari's first effort at directing. Originally from Benha, he studied decor at the theatre institute and then found himself getting cast in Abboud Al Hudoud as one of Alaa Walieeddin's sidekicks. And the rest is history. But there's also Helmi the TV presenter, who became famous via his Egyptian satellite channel programme La'b Ayal (Kid's Play), where he interviews little kids. Helmi calls himself "a presenter outside the cadre. You only see my hand." He interviews children because he says they get very little media representation and "their opinions need to be heard." Helmi says he was against the idea of putting a little inside joke about him always talking to little kids in the movie, but the rest of the group convinced him, and really, it is one of the film's weak points -- along with the fact that the character played by Helmi first appears with a massive hearing and sight problem, then in later scenes he miraculously seems to see and hear fine. Nonetheless, in this and in Omar 2000, Helmi has shown that he knows how to act. Sitting next to a lamp made out of a loofah in his Hakim Oyoun dressing room, Helmi says he is very conscious of being a role model for the younger generation. He says he is very careful to be on his best behaviour everywhere he goes, because the worst thing would be to have someone say, "Oh, we like him on screen, but what a jerk in real life."
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
Send a letter to the Editor