Ahmad Helmi's latest vehicle is supposed to expose the problems of Egyptian society, writes Hani Mustafa, but it exposes the problems of Egyptian cinema as well Political satire has always been among drama's principal points of departure, whether in theatre, television or cinema. It may also be an indispensable vehicle for the kind of Egyptian joke-making that functions, in among other ways, as a release for social, economic and political discontent. One approach to couching satire in drama is to introduce a protagonist who lives in a different environment and, at the risk of looking down on society, chronicle the details of daily life in Egypt through his eyes, revealing their absurdity. This is hardly new to Egyptian culture: at the turn of the century the author Mohammad El-Muwailhi's famous novel Hadith Issa Ibn Hashim registered the drawbacks of Egyptian society through the eyes of a character who had supposedly travelled forward in time from the age of Muhammad Ali Pasha over a century earlier. Most famously in the mid-1980s television drama Rihlat El-Sayyid Abul-Ila El-Bishry, by the late writer Ossama Anwar Okasha and the director Mohammad Fadel, television in particular has not since tired of the theme of the disappointed returnee. It is probably the approach's capacity for generating laughter that drove the star comedian Ahmad Helmi to settle for Assal Eswed (Molasses, literally: Black Honey) as his vehicle for this season. Assal Eswed is the fourth film by director Khalid Marie and the second script by Khalid Diyab, whose first, Alf Mabrouk (A Thousand Congratulations) was also written for Helmi. The film opens with a young Egyptian-American named Massry Sayed El-Arabi (which, translated, would mean Egyptian Master of the Arab) on the plane, returning to his home country after 20 years in America, to which he immigrated with his father as a child. To pave the way for the many complications he will subsequently face, the script inserts what turn out to be unconvincing details from the very beginning. On travelling to Egypt, for example, Massry leaves his American passport at his home back in the States, travelling on his Egyptian passport -- only to suffer discrimination as a result -- and giving no thought to how he will return in so doing. This makes the protagonist seem like a child or a retard, rather than a normal person over 30 years of age. However, no sooner does Massry arrive than it becomes apparent that it is this aspect of his character -- ludicrous naiveté -- that conditions his experience and hence the entire film; sadly, in its ridiculous excess, it is seldom actually funny. When the taxi driver who drives Massry from the airport (Lotfy Labib) tells him that a dollar costs LE2 (instead of 5.5) and a bottle of mineral water LE30 (instead of LE1), for example, no laughter results from such nonsense. It merely serves to underline the notion that Massry, who could have easily found out about prices and exchange rates in America, is far too stupid to be true. Through the first half of the film, this is how the script progresses, desperately searching for comedy where it cannot be found. The dramatic structure of the film is lacking in many ways. The viewer knows nothing of Massry's personal history, for example, why his father immigrated, how he spent his entire life in complete isolation from the country where he was born. What you see, rather, is how badly Massry is treated as the holder of an Egyptian passport who is nonetheless a hapless tourist with long hair and American-seeming clothes: at the hotel, at the Pyramids, even at the mosque (where his shoes are stolen), and at the police station... until he finally decides to have his American passport mailed to him. At one point he is saved from the riot police during a demonstration against Washington by shouting, "I am an American citizen." These scenes are repetitive and monotonous, the poorest excuse for merriment. And the film does not improve very significantly when, in the second half, Massry -- having thrown his Egyptian passport out of the window -- loses his American passport along with all his papers and money. He is forced to seek out his childhood friend and neighbour Said (Edwar), the only possible support under the circumstances. At this point the film descends into generic television drama and Said becomes the focus. Once again, except for Said himself, who like many young Egyptians is out of work and in love with an English-language teacher named Mervat (Emi Samir Ghanem), the family with which Massry now lives are TV-style caricatures: the kind mother (In'am Saloussa), who only expresses her motherliness by giving her children -- Massry included -- food and money; the elder sister Ibtissam (Jihan Anwar) and her husband Abdel-Monssif (Tariq El-Amir), who suffer from lack of privacy in the family home and cannot afford their own space; the younger sister Noussa (Shaimaa Abdel-Qadir), whose character is muddled even by TV standards. There is also Amm Hilal the elederly photographer (Youssef Dawoud), a neighbour whose sole purpose seems to be the moralistic and largely meaningless speech he gives towards the end of the film in one of the worst scenes. In his fourth film Marie makes a mess not only of editing but also of directing, offering the cheapest solutions to the problems of a weak script and losing touch with cinematic narrative. This is not so much a comic film as an idle audiovisual discussion of the problems of daily life in Egypt that includes some references to positive traditions as well. That it grossed so much at the box office speaks better for the demise of society.
