In his first feature film, Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy traces the emancipatory journey of a mother after the disappearance of her husband, who disappeared from a magic trick where he was turned into a chicken. Halfway between fable and naturalism,Plumshas been welcomed vehemently in some countries of the Middle East because of the grim portrait that he is brushing of a society widely trusted by men. The young director was thus the subject of a criminal complaint against« insult to Egypt and Egyptians. » (it doesn't make up) Is the point as acerbic as these reactionary critics suggest?
Poetry by the absurd
OMar El Zohairychose non-professional actors for his first film while leaving room for improvisation. He wanted people to «stay even when they play» did he entrust to Telerama, so much so that during the filming, he did not« no scenario provided». «I just told them the story and presented the technical aspects» He goes on to explain his work. This process, which is often used in contemporary theatre companies, is a major part of the film's staggered atmosphere, both sensitive and funny, moving and pudic.
The director almost claims an artistic method «anti-cinema». He is also willing to accept some of the errors that are indispensable to the emergence of absurdity. An approach that is felt on the screen especially when two children are planted in the middle of the frame and dance with a few embarrassed looks to the cameraman. A wandering that has its charm but also knows how to breath in the long term, as if each interpretation was simultaneously a missed act.
« In many sequences, actors make mistakes, like looking at the camera for example, but I deliberately incorporated these moments into the editing. I wanted raw and spontaneous matter to strengthen the absurd side and create other links. »
Rather than prefer dynamic views, the director sews behind the camera with very successful static planes that confine to photography. The decor is planted as it is, without fireworks, like a window on privacy. A precarious apartment, a simple bed frame, a small cathodic TV that gives the tempo and thanks to which the children escape between two cartoons. This approach to the home is part of the film's unique character.
There is this magnificent image of the omnipresent factory, which even gains our intimate space. Just leave the window open so that a black smoke infiltrates the apartment.Plumsbrings to light with elegance the industrial society and the working life of Egypt as Zola did inGerminal. The comparison takes on its full meaning while the title of the novel refers to the revival of new forces, the beginning of spring in the revolutionary calendar. An image that fits perfectly withPlumsWhile the mother's character becomes an actor of his own revolution.
Representing the Invisible
InPlums, no one seems carried by desire anymore. The distance between these characters is such that the gestures of love, if not affection, seem long gone. The husband pays no attention to his wife, even if he wants her son's birthday to be an event. The mother gives the bottle to the last born by pure automatism. A fountain sits as the only decoration in the middle of the living room. The thin jet of water splashes the ground, to better reveal the absurd of the situation. «It gives class at home and at the same time it's chic» hammers the agitated father, as if to make forget their misery and their condition exploited in a self-persuasion exercise.
Once the guests arrive, children dance clumsyly in the foreground and everyone applauds quietly in front of a duo of magicians invited to play a number. Nobody really seems to know each other but whatever. The father enters the trunk, disappears as required exercise but when the two illusionists reopen the trunk under a thunderous applause, patatra, here he is replaced by a chicken! This opening scene is a frank success while doubt settles in the unbelieving gaze of the guests. Was the father really turned into a chicken?
From this unlikely event to the end of the film, everything seems to escape the mother. No manifestation of sadness or hatred, no escape seems condemned. «Something's wrong, it's surreal! »Let go of her! Dialogues are episodic or even epiphenomena. The choice of an achievement brought about by the absence of movement fits perfectly with the logic of this woman tetanized by decision-making in the face of events (and men) that crush her. Paradoxically, never does the realization adopt a miserabilistic angle, even when the hen wanders on the matrimonial bed, now defiled by the animal's dejections.
On my lips
Initially,PlumsIn spite of him, he seems toroad movie –hope less – while actressDemyana Nassarwent in search of the magicians on the run and multiplied the marabout rituals to recover her husband. Omar El Zohairy alternates life scenes that marry the mother's journey. Without her spouse, the bills accumulate, but she cannot work in the factory, a place exclusively reserved for men. She alternates small jobs and vain attempts to recognize her bastard status, at the crossroads of the widow and the abandoned woman, soon resigned to have her young boy work. An administrative situation at the crossroads of Kafka andBrazil of theTerry Gilliam.
While Omar El Zohairy often defends himself during interviews for sketching a bitter portrait of patriarchy, it is difficult not to see a critical outline of a society that leaves little room for women. In some aspects, however, salvation sometimes seems to be within reach as suggested by the outcome. It is curious that the director renounces a political reading of his own film, while throughoutPlumsThe mother is almost exclusively surrounded by men and her destiny will long be taken hostage by them. Even when man is absent, his burden is felt heavily, like the phantom pain of the crippled.
A missed (political) act?
If the absurd that roots throughout the film is its trademark, it unfortunately penalizes narration by habituation. The events are going on at a slightly disheartened pace, forgetting his characters. The contemplation takes precedence over the rebounds and the rhythm is at a time of bank.
« I like to use the unexpected and inject humor or violence where they are not expected, to force reflection and open the audience's heart and mind more. »
For example, there is this taxi driver who helps the mother before declaring her flame by singing a love song. He opens the door, moves away to urinate while the mother remains planted in the car. A caustic scene, but one that leaves perplexed. One thing is certain,Plumsknows how to take off his spectator, even if sometimes left a feeling discompleted. The spontaneity of the scenes gives cinema epiphanies sometimes clumsy, sometimes touching.
This crude representation may thus seem meaningless at times, forgetting that poetry is never more successful than when it carries in it the torments of the soul.PlumsWouldn't he have gained a better choice of bias to leave space for his narrative? It seems like the director doesn't always know where he's boarding his own characters. Moreover, this is what emerges from the interviews, while he defends an idea of departure which he would have left germinated independently during the shooting. This experimental side is double-edged.
The drunken ship
PlumesIs he caught at his own game? Non-events follow at the expense of anonymous characters eventually reduced to mere interchangeable extras. Certainly,Plumsis able to represent gravity with a singular lightness, thanks in particular to his photograph in sepia tones. However, these portraits would probably have gained more incarnation. Even heroin remains mute most of the film. Perhaps it is a shame that he did not give this character more the floor, reduced to his only existence. Yet she undergoes a metamorphosis that is far more complete than that of her husband, transformed into poultry despite him.
« Poetry, on the other hand, is a kind of third eye that allows us to see what is just a little further than reality. »
For a first feature film, Omar El Zohairy thus blows the heat and the cold, while one expected a perhaps more daring and less formal unfolding, in the image of the opening of the film.Plumsremains a sensitive curiosity with some visual fulgurances that are worth the detour, even if the statement may seem a little futile or stopped halfway, while the recent revolutionary outbreaks in Iran give grain to grind as to the female condition suffered in many societies in the Middle East.Plumsis a beautiful photograph, but it deprives itself of a totally committed perspective by ignoring any radicality on the background. A dead angle for feminist struggle as much as a different object, which highlights these invisibles of everyday life. For a first feature film, it's already a lot! The film also received the Grand Prix of the week of Criticism in Cannes. Not sure he finds the same reception in his native country.
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