Edification, with style

By Khairiya El-Bishlawi
Almost two years ago, Oula Thanawi (Secondary One) was screened at the Alexandria Film Festival. Within the jury (of which I was part) there was a near consensus about the outstanding performances given by the three young actors -- Maher Esam, Ahmed Hassanein, Sherif Badawi -- who played adolescent students in the film. Collectively, we decided to honour their achievement -- until somebody pointed out that, however excellent the actors might be in their own right, they would not have proved so outstanding without the help of a tightly constructed script (Ashraf Mohamed) and an accomplished film maker (Mohamed Abu-Seif). Of all these parties, in the end, we still chose the actors.
Yet I was left with a singular impression: in this film, happily, Egyptian cinema had once more assumed upon itself that somewhat old-fashioned role -- to provide social edification. For once we have refined, serious entertainment that makes concessions to neither box office nor lovers of "scenes" (i.e. as much flesh as the film makers think they can get away with). The film operates on the principle of duality: matching pairs. Through the magnetic attraction and repulsion of two generations, two sets of values, two kinds of person, the film communicates a well-balanced sensibility and comments constructively on social relations. It is worth noting, too, that this particular shoot stems from the private sector (Shu'a' Productions), a significant fact regardless of one's bias.
Nour El-Sherif's character, for one half of a pair, represents the emotional, intellectual and spiritual centre of gravity. Ostensibly Hamza, an antiques dealer in his 50s, actually Hamza, a surgeon forced into early retirement after a failed operation (for which, in recompense for the patient's life, Hamza spent three years in prison): he is the traditional tragic hero, a "respectable man" in the old, meaningful sense of the phrase. Abandoned by his wife (who took their as yet unborn daughter with her when she left), he lives in a villa he inherited from his parents, alone except for the maid who stayed on when they died. By chance, Hamza comes across Ghali, a troubled young man about to be kicked out of school who in turn introduces him to Ashraf and Selim (Ghali turns out to have a heart condition and eventually dies). These students represent a lost generation of Egyptians: squashed by a faulty educational system, the victims of dysfunctional families, absent parents (who seek a more lucrative career outside the country) and an increasingly mechanical, unsympathetic society. Hamza becomes their mentor, providing much needed moral and sometimes financial support. The relationship of father/teacher-child forms the backbone of the action. These scenes are tackled with subtlety and strike a credible balance between dignified wisdom and potentially comic immaturity, creating memorable and ultimately lovable characters in the process.
The film posits a parallel relation between the characters of Rawya (Mervat Amin), the second half of the pair to which Hamza belongs, and her daughter Salma (who forms her own pair with Ashraf). Salma is more privileged than the three aforementioned boys, but she suffers the triple ordeal of growing up, emphasising her individuality in the face of her mother's influence and seeking love (that it should be with Ashraf is surprising but dramatically justified). Rawya is the widow of a diplomat: a progressive disciplinarian, a "civilised woman" with a keen sense of moral rectitude and an amateur's passion for antiques. She too is alone, and when she begins to visit auctions she eventually bumps into Hamza and falls in love. One remarkable accomplishment of the film is its portrayal of these two parallel loves. One scene shows the mother and the daughter reading love letters from the mentor and disciple respectively, the eager male voices and the silently joyful female responses synchronised to produce an aesthetically provocative yet perfectly inoffensive symmetry.
The theme of love, indeed, informs not only the two romantic affairs but the two parental relations, the link between Hamza and his maid, the friendship that develops between Shafiq (Ghali's uncle) and Hamza, to mention but some examples. Ghali's funeral is so effectively portrayed it comprises the most complete and vital image of love in the movie. Without overt gestures, the scene communicates a notion of love that transcends religion, generation, social standing, maturity and even death: a unique scene of impressive subtlety.
Another theme that runs through the film is the dichotomy of real vs. unreal, symbolically represented by the original and reproduction pieces of furniture in which Hamza and Rawya deal. The theme is transported into the realm of the characters, too: Hamza and Rawya are not only respectable and civilised, they are genuine people in an increasingly spurious world, both dispossessed and beguiled. Rawya's nemesis is Hamza's wife (Sawsan Badr), who has planted new roots in the West and whose daughter refuses to acknowledge any connection with her country of origin or her father: all this is communicated in a single, cardinal scene, without which it would be impossible to fully understand the film. Hamza and Rawya, each in their own way, are attempting to instil the values of the real in young men and women they have come to be responsible for -- adolescents who, exposed to the unreal, have yet to be trained to distinguish. On another plain, early on, Hamza "accidentally" breaks a fake vase Rawya has just bought, using his influence to retrieve the inordinate price she paid for it. The scene is neatly duplicated at the end of the film, when Rawya goes through the same motions for somebody else, having become an expert in her own right. The message is clear: morally, artistically, intellectually, one must suffer to discern, distinguishing the genuine from the fake.
The airport as a point of departure (in time as well as space) highlights another, central tenet of the story: at the airport Hamza both parts terminally with his past (his wife and daughter) and embarks hopefully on his future (Rawya). Past and future aside, contrasts of social as well as narrative significance abound. Hamza on the one hand, and the school master or the Arabic teacher on the other, comprise two different kinds of mentor. The school and Hamza's villa as learning venues form an equally disparate pair. Yet the focus remains integrated: whether through moral or physical attributes (the latter include manners, surroundings, interests), the qualitative divisions between the characters remain intact. The characters' stories are disclosed gradually, subtly, preserving a sense of suspense that adds to the film's appeal. A constant comic dimension adds to the entertainment, too. The encounters between young men and women, for example -- in many recent films merely an excuse for obscenity -- are gripping and moving at one and the same time. They manage to provoke uninhibited laughter without resorting to the crude tactics of much contemporary cinema.
Omar Khairat's score gives the film a distinctive and memorable sound. Any memory of the tune inevitably brings to mind the countless paradoxes and contradictions of the film. Perhaps the most impressive paradox of all is that the film provides equally for entertainment and edification, revivifying an indispensable yet curiously absent genre.
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