Influential film critics in Egypt have been queueing up to doff their hats to director Magdi el-Hawari for his new film Al-Watar (The Chord). El-Hawari, who has directed several box office hits, such as Eyial Habiba (Young Lovers) and El-Eiyal Herbet (The Lads Ran Away), is said to have carved a name for himself in the pantheon of great Egyptian film directors. He certainly deserves his new title for his delicate and well-assessed directing of Al-Watar, described as a psycho drama, thriller or action movie. The director has also been praised for his clever use of flashbacks and scenes, that overlap in an exciting manner. El-Hawari's wife Ghada Adel stars in his latest movie, along with Moustafa Shaaban, Arwa Gouda, Ahmed el-Saadani and veteran actress Sawsan Badr. Al-Watar's narrative develops coherently and consistently, rather like a tune played on a stringed instrument. Moreover, the murder which is central to the plot is committed with the string from a musical instrument. Maysa (Ghada Adel), is a violinist, her younger sister May (Arwa Gouda) is a cellist and their murdered colleague, Hassan Ragheb (Ahmed el-Saadani), is (or was) a composer. The complexity of the murder can be attributed to the composer's romances with several women, including the two sisters. Although he's initially misled, a clever police investigator, Mohamed Selim (Moustafa Shaaban), discovers, too late, that the two sisters are the murderers. They reveal all to the police officer when he is admitted to hospital to recover from a nervous breakdown after killing his lover's stepfather, following a call for help from her. We also discover that the police investigator killed his wife by mistake, when she called him, when she was attacked by a rapist. The excitement heightens, when the two sisters tell investigators that his late wife was the mistress of her alleged rapist and she fabricated the call for help to escape disgrace. Despite the delicately constructed events and brilliantly lines conjured up by the scriptwriter, the audience cannot understand why the investigator wasn't punished for the murder of his wife. Some critics suggest that his past is the only weakness in the carefully written script. El-Hawari is not celebrating his success in Al-Watar on his own, as his wife has also been praised for her role by her husband (naturally!) and the critics too. Shabaan's impressive acting comes as no surprise; he has arrested the attention of moviegoers on several previous occasions.
