Incoherence and cinematic plagiarism mar the latest offering from director Mahmoud Kamel, writes Hani Mustafa One genre of dramatic writing depends on isolating characters in a secluded place, an island perhaps or an elevator or bus, and then analysing their thoughts and actions. Theirs would be a mini-cosmos, from which one can draw conclusions about life as a whole. This genre of writing can be laudable on stage, as in Saadeddin Wahba's play Sekket al-Salama, which was a great hit in the 1960s. And it can also be adapted for the screen. The film Ezbet Adam (Adam's Farm) by director Mahmoud Kamel and scriptwriter Mohamed Soleiman is from this genre. The characters all live in a small fishing village by the sea. The film begins with three children stealing fish from a shop on the farm. When they grow up, they become Hamed (Fathi Abdel-Wahab), Mostafa (Ahmad Azmi) and Khalil (Seliman Eid), no-good characters with a penchant for crime. The three agree to rob a man from the village. To commit the crime, they obtain a gun from al-Morshedi (Fattuh Ahmad), a drug-dealer. Another dramatic line involves Maryem (Donia Samir Ghanem), who is the narrator of the film. Maryem, who is working as a prostitute to support her bed-ridden father, is in love with Mostafa. But it is Hamed, the man she intensely dislikes, who pursues her. While narration can be used to enhance the literary effect of film, in this case it is mostly a way to avoid dramatising essential scenes. In one instance, Maryem announces that the arrival of police officer Saad (Maged al-Kedwani) in the village has changed everything. It is not quite clear why this is so, as the main dramatic twist is not the arrival of the officer but the murder of Hag Tolba (Said Tarabik) at the hands of Khalil and his friends. It is this crime that brings the police to the village, not the other way around. In what seems akin to cinematic plagiarism, the film borrows entire scenes from earlier films. From Al-Jazeera, a film directed by Sherif Arafa two years ago, it hijacks a scene in which police officer Saad protects Hamed from justice in order to make him work as an informer on drug-dealer al-Morshedi. Soon, Hamed becomes both a dealer and an informer. Then we get a few scenes giving naïve interpretations of the armed Islamist groups that have been common in many films of the past decade. The scene of Mostafa's encounter in prison with Maryem reminds one of Emaret Yaqoubian (The Yacoubian Building) by director Marwan Hamed. Later on, Mostafa's gang destroys a bar in a scene reminiscent of Damm al-Ghazal (Gazelle's Blood) by director Mohamed Yasin. As it turns out, much of the film appears to be a re- enactment of earlier films, minus the dramatic cohesion. At one point, we find that Hag Farag (Mahmoud Yasin), who is head of the fishermen, leaves the village just because the officer advises him to do so. Farag's motivation in this case is less than clear. Rawheya (Hala Fakher), a former prostitute, suddenly appears in Islamic garb, veil and all, and begins to market a questionable financial scheme. This, too, is an overworked stereotype of the 1980s, when Islamic investment funds were busted by the government. Even a good film can be criticised, for only through criticism can its strengths and weaknesses be appreciated. Film criticism is no less valid than filmmaking. You and I may differ on the ways in which we appreciate a film. But every now and then one comes across a film so mediocre that it is not even worth criticism. Ezbet Adam is one of those.
