A hard look at love: Mohamed El-Assyouti finds reasons to commend 'An Al-'Ishq wal Hawa If Kamla Abu Zekri's 'An Al-'Ishq wal Hawa (Of Love and Infatuation) appears surprising it is because it dares to speak about matters of the heart in a relatively serious manner. With an increasingly conservative audience too embarrassed to discuss love seriously, the film attempts to attain a golden mean, suggesting that at best "love" is an illusion, at worst a power game, though more often than not it is simply a way to pass the time. Omar and Salma, the couple at the heart of 'An Al-'Ishq, discover that between each meaningful relationship there is inevitably one involving exploitation, a relationship in which one partner is victimised and sometimes destroyed. A third character, Aliya, learns the same thing, even more painfully. 's screenplay is successful in concentrating its discussion of love, addressing the romantic dilemmas of its characters in scene after scene. The characters' consciousness of the nature of the problems they face increases as the plot unfolds, as does their awareness of the dilemmas faced by their partners. And the film does conclude with a happy ending, suggesting that if the perfect romance remains impossible, a clear insight into the dynamics of relationships combined with emotional maturity can give hope for a better tomorrow. Hearts, hope and a happy end -- the three H's, indispensable to the kind of cinema Habib and director Kamla Abu Zekri have been endeavouring to create over the last five years -- are present in full measure. The three leads, Ahmed El-Saqqa, Menna Shalabi and Mona Zaki, who play Omar, Salma and Aliya, are popular with today's young audience. Their acting skills are, however, varied and their screen chemistry non-existent. Action hero El-Saqqa attempts in vain to shift into Romeo mode, and the film would probably have benefited from a relatively more capable actor, even the stereotyped lover Hani Salama. Zaki, who plays a singer, was also miscast. A careful choice of one of hundreds of today's singers would have been a better bet, generating some energy in the song scenes and adding verisimilitude to the part. Including a song to be screened on music channels at the time of the film's release is deemed essential in most of today's mainstream films; it keeps distributors happy since it saves on the advertisement budget. ( 'An Al-'Ishq 's song aired regularly on satellite TV is not by Zaki, but by popular singer Shirine, who only acted in one recent film.) 'An Al-'Ishq 's dialogue is calculated to show the workings of the law of desire on the hearts of the protagonists. It includes catch-phrases like "balash nasb" (enough swindling, i.e. I'm not going to lie to myself), and bandies about melodramatic words such as tyrant, washing down the mixture with a dose of home grown wisdom of the "he who tells you he understands what love is lies" and "do people fall in love just because they are ready to fall in love, like cats in the springtime?" kind. As the characters become more mature they develop the ability to criticise themselves, but also make decisions that victimise others. The screenplay jumps five years, so we miss seeing how protagonists Omar and Aliya, whose four-year-old first love was doomed to end in separation, actually acquired their emotional maturity. But far from weakening the characterisation, the time lapse allows greater focus on the conclusion of their second, interim relationships, and the beginnings of the next. Sadly, El-Saqqa and Zaki's low energy performances turn potentially strong moments into the stuff of soap opera, despite the best efforts of director Abu Zekri and cinematographer Sameh Selim who, filming mostly in low-key close-ups, tried to create a visually sombre emotional charge. The close-ups were merciless in showing not only the flaws in acting but also of facial features. The inclusion of secondary characters allows the film to add some embroidery to its central romantic canvas. There is Fatma, the prostitute sister of Aliya, Ashraf, the heroin addict who falls in love with Aliya only to betray her with an older woman, and Murad, Omar's brother who is secretly in love with his sister-in-law Ismat. Fatma, though a prostitute, is ironically capable of the most altruistic form of love shown in the film, sacrificing herself on the alter of her younger sister's romantic illusions. Ashraf's love is so humiliatingly dependent upon Aliya it becomes a burden, dramatised by the abortion she undergoes and his addiction to heroin and tragic end. By contrast Fatma is rewarded, finding a husband who forgives her past trade and understands her rare ability to love selflessly. Similarly, Sherif Mounir, in a cameo, plays Aliya's potential Prince Charming. Habib respects the limits melodrama by eliminating the irredeemably bad and rewarding the good. The balance in characterisation is warped in favour of Omar, played by the star in whose name the film is marketed. Omar remains the focus of the plot at the expense of the female leads, Aliya and Salma, whose romantic journeys closely resemble his. Besides meeting market demands this may be a pandering to the audience's willingness to forgive a man's betrayal of his wife and view it as far less heinous than a woman's illicit affair, abortion or prostitution -- all of which are skimmed over rather than dwelt on. Tellingly, Salma obtains a divorce from her husband before embarking on her affair with Omar. Such female resoluteness turns their relationship into a legal (albeit secret) marriage, wiping out the shame of adultery and allowing Omar to indulge in Haroun Al-Rashid-like polygamy for two years. Calculated, shrewd, though weak on performances -- the secondary players Tareq Lutfi, Magdi Kamel, Ghada Abdel-Raziq, Bushra and Khaled Saleh outshine the stars -- 'An Al-'Ishq is as good as it will get this summer.
