Hicham Lasri : "J'ai fait un film youtubien"
Deuxième long-métrage du réalisateur marocain et premier à sortir en France, C'est eux les chiens fait revenir des1
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The lives of three Egyptians will be disrupted by the Revolution of the 25th January 2011.
25 January 2011 changed Egypt forever. The activist Omro, the journalist Farah and the government security officer Adel – individuals whose pasts will be resurrected and whose stories and destinies will collide as they struggle to remove the obstacles between a man and himself, all the way to the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
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Winter of Discontent El sheita elli fat (Egypt) The personal toll in body and spirit of the 2011 Egyptian revolution is the
Winter of Discontent
El sheita elli fat (Egypt)
The personal toll in body and spirit of the 2011 Egyptian revolution is the theme of Ibrahim El Batout's fourth and smoothest feature, "Winter of Discontent." Shuttling back and forth between an activist's torture in 2009 and his revolutionary activities two years later, the pic is an ultra-clean, stately lensed look at the chaotic events, oddly airless at times yet with moments of power. Originally titled "R for Revolution" and in gestation for about a year, "Winter" unfortunately already feels old, given recent events that suggest a more appropriate title chronicling the current political scene might be "S for Stalled."
As a Johnny-come-lately to the increasing number of pics dealing with the Arab Spring, and with little acknowledgement of the delusion currently plaguing many Egyptian activists, there's a chance El Batout's film will have difficulty gaining traction at fests already on to the next best thing. Those willing to program the pic, however, are likely to be thanked by a receptive public; no Egyptian distrib deal is in place yet, making ancillary a likely local home, though lead/producer Amr Waked's name is a definite draw.
Amr (the intensely browed Waked) is first seen on the eve of the January Revolution uploading videos onto YouTube that detail torture by state security forces. Via frequent flashbacks, auds learn that Amr himself was a victim of prolonged detention and torture (though it's never clear exactly what led to his arrest).
Adel (Salah Al Hanafy), the secret police chief overseeing Amr's brutal incarceration in 2009, is deeply involved in official attempts to smash the Revolution in 2011. Woven into their stories is a further strand about newscaster Farah (Farah Youssef), apparently an old flame of Amr's who ankles the regime-supporting talkshow she co-hosts after developing a backbone. More of this story, and the connection between Farah and Amr, would increase the pic's emotional weight.
A brief scene at the end suggests that Adel and family will do just fine in post-Revolutionary Egypt despite his repressive activities, but curiously it's the only one conceding that the uprising has been hijacked by forces affiliated with, or just as tainted as, the Mubarak regime. Without more of this acknowledgment, the pic feels behind the times, ending on a more or less celebratory note (tinged with mourning for those who died or were maimed during the struggle) that doesn't sit well with the current political situation.
Dates appearing across the screen ensure that auds aren't confused by time shifts, with each strand moving along chronologically. Though scenes of regime thugs and wounded activists are scattered throughout, "Winter" largely misses out on the gritty disorder during those fateful days in late January 2011. The decision is deliberate, since El Batout's previous films (most recently, "Hawi") reveled in their rough edges.
None of the graininess of those earlier pics is felt here, exchanged for a more mature style that speaks of an overarching seriousness. Shots are meticulously composed with darkly rich saturations, and Victor Credi's smooth camera slowly glides within the hermetic shots.
Winter of Discontent (El sheita elli fat): Venice Review Socially committed Egyptian director Ibrahim El Batout examines the pain
Winter of Discontent (El sheita elli fat): Venice Review
Socially committed Egyptian director Ibrahim El Batout examines the pain behind the Arab Spring in a drama starring Amr Waked and Salah Al Hanafy.
The temptation to capture the excitement of current events in a fiction film has one serious drawback: news ages very quickly. This is particularly true of the Egyptian Winter of Discontent, which attempts to convey the spirit behind the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in the story of an activist computer programmer. Though sensitively directed by award-winning Ibrahim El Batout (Ein Shams), this tale of police torture ends on the high note of president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, without reflecting the recent wave of repression that has dampened the hopes of many Arab Spring supporters. After its Venice Film Festival premiere in Horizons, it will probably struggle to find playdates outside the Mideast.
The Tahrir Square protests and the fall of Mubarak marked a turning point in Egyptian cinema, and El Batout is one of the country’s major socially-committed directors checking in on the momentous events dating to Jan. 25, 2011. Caught up in a moment of euphoria, Yousry Nasrallah’s Cannes entry After the Battle set the barrier high; arriving in Venice just four months later, Winter of Discontent covers much the same period yet already seems out of date.
But the film should remain in the annals as a brave protest against the brutal police torture that was being carried out against protestors and an apt document of its logline, “the pain that caused the fury.” Its soberly filmed, uncompromising scenes of naked men being doused with water and electrified unfortunately recall many other dictatorships on film. Memorable here is the strange unflinching face of state security officer Adel (Salah Al Hanafy) as he finds ways to terrify his victims. His humiliation of a religious leader by forcing him to keep drinking water without access to a toilet sums up his diabolical intelligence.
Amr (Amr Waked, Syriana) lives in a spacious old Cairo apartment with his elderly mother. When he’s first arrested, two years before the Tahrir Square events, he is ferociously tortured by Adel and his henchmen within an inch of his life, then suddenly released. From that moment on he has become a solitary soul living in fear. His mother died while he was locked up, and his girlfriend Farah (Farah Youssef) has drifted away, becoming a well-heeled news announcer for state TV.
The film’s early scenes are so atmospheric they are hard to decipher, and it takes a while before the enigmatic characters fall into their proper place. Why, for example, is Amr being tortured when his computer monitors show dolphins gambolling? Western audiences have to scramble for narrative clues that are probably obvious to locals.
Youssef’s scenes at the top Egyptian television station, on the other hand, are over-simplified. Her bosses are nervous about their jobs and testy about white-washing Tahrir Square and down-playing its significance to their viewers. Meanwhile they, like everybody else is Egypt, watch the BBC and CNN to find out what’s going on. Farah quits in a flurry of disgust and makes moral amends by putting on jeans and filming her own mea culpa for having lied to the country as a journalist. When she asks Amr to upload her confession to Internet using his satellite phone, which is well known to the police, it’s clear trouble is on the way.
El Batout’s strong feeling for place and time once again translates as a poetic undercurrent that runs through the film, lending graphic visual expressiveness even to the scenes hardest to watch. Amr’s house, where he lives like a prisoner within earshot of Tahrir Square, is even more claustrophobic given the notable lack of visuals of the demonstrations. It feels frustrating not to see what’s going on outside, but all that Amr and the audience can see through the window is a brick wall.
Waked and Al Hanafy, who are both listed as co-producers, are fine dramatic actors who make the story plausible. It would be be interesting to see them reprise their roles in a sequel that expands on the end titles, which suggest the arrests, torture, virginity tests and murders are still going on. But at the moment, history is still being written.
As this review was being posted, Egyptian state television put its first veiled anchorwoman on the air.
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