BREAKING a seven-year absence, Egyptian director Daoud Abdel-Sayyed has released his new film Rasayel el-Bahr (Messages from the Sea), which fuels the controversy about his vision and his visual language and technique. Emerging from local cinema halls, admirers of the director's intellectual and social themes shook their heads in confusion when asked whether they fully grasped his message. As previously, Abdel-Sayyed did the script for his new movie. In over a quarter of a century, he has directed no more than eight films. His filmography, critically acclaimed as enlightening and culturally sophisticated, includes the socially complicated Kitkat (named after a densely populated district in Giza); Ard el-Ahlam (The Land of Dreams), Ard el-Khouf (The Land of Fear); and Mowaten wa Mokhber wa Harami (A Citizen, Detective and a Thief). Apparently set in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria, Rasayel el-Bahr appears to be about what compels people to compromise their ethics, traditions and mores. In an attempt to redeem themselves, the prejudiced baddies blame the way they behave on destiny. "It's a film analysing overpowering destiny and the claim that man's actions are optional," one film critics wrote in a local newspaper. The main protagonist is a physician (played by Aser Yassin), who murmurs “inaudibly” his comments on a world drowning in materialism. Despite the temptations, the physician refuses to abandon his innocence and integrity …quot; and an apartment he inherits from his family in Alexandria, despite the big money someone offers him for it. Because of his stammer, the physician, named Yehia, struggles to communicate with his patients and neighbours. He decides to abandon the medical profession and take up sea fishing. In rejecting the modern world with its destruction and greed, the former physician campaigns to stop people using explosives to catch fish. Yehia is rewarded for the stand he takes, when he comes across a pretty girl, who, like him, refuses to give in to her destiny by redeeming herself. Inevitably, it soon turns to love. Perhaps the end of the film is the most intriguing part of all: the redeemed couple are seen sailing happily at sea through schools of fish killed by dynamites. The frightened couple cling closer together. As in his previous films, the director and scriptwriter has done a very good job in the way he interweaves his characters and their experiences. The film is really a landmark in the career of young actress Basma.
