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Anyone who is familiar with making a feature film or a documentary would be well aware of the herculean task of assembling such a project: whether it has been done well or badly, whether it ends up being a great success or a great failure, critically. applauded or commercial gap.
Over the decades, I have seen a number of world-renowned filmmakers at work; From Ridley Scott to Abbas Kiarostami, Elijah Suleiman, Amir Naderi, Hany Abu Assad, Ramin Bahrani, Annemarie Jacir, Shirin Neshat and many more. I learned from these filmmakers that there are so many financial, logistical, strategic, and practical problems at work that the real ideas at the heart of a film are almost lost to everyone involved, except for the artisan auditor called the standing (or sitting director). ) behind the camera and shouts “action” and then “cut!”
It’s easy to find fault with a final product, to understand how and why it failed, where it went wrong, but you have to be careful and cautious to categorically dismiss a film, even if it may be a complete failure.
A recent film about a crucial Palestinian subject made by an Egyptian filmmaker has become the subject of so much controversy.
Directed by Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab, Amira (2021) was shot in Jordan in 2019 and is a family drama co-produced by Jordan, Egypt and Palestine. The film tells the story of its main character, Amira (Tara Abboud), a Palestinian teenager who believes that Nawar (Ali Suleiman) was born from the sperm obtained from the smuggling of a Palestinian prisoners’ freedom fighter. The drama begins when Amira’s young mother, Warda (Saba Mubarak), agrees to leave another child with her husband, who is still in prison. This second attempt to smuggle Nawar’s sperm out of the Israeli prison reveals that she is sterile and therefore unable to be Amira’s biological father.
The main culprit
When Amira started touring international film festivals in Italy, Tunisia and Egypt at the end of 2021, she received some critical acclaim and even a few small awards. But when Jordan was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards, the quiet whispers of people who weren’t happy with the film began to grow louder. Finally, the Jordanian Royal Film Commission announced its decision to officially disqualify the film for the Oscars “in light of the recent controversy surrounding the film and the disrespect of the Palestinian cause.
The commission, however, added that “it believes in the artistic value of the film and that its message does not harm the Palestinian cause or the prisoners; on the contrary, their resilience stands out. ”
But how could this film “harm” the Palestinian cause? It’s just a movie. Neither the Palestinian cause nor the tremendous sacrifices of Palestinians who are deeply involved in the long and historic struggle against the theft of their homeland can ever harm or underestimate any film, book or poem. And speaking of “the feelings of prisoners and their families” – or anyone else, for that matter – should be relatively low on the list of reasons for a film to fail. The Royal Film Commission of Jordan needs to gather better prose to explain its decision.
In fact, the failure of this film is not that it is detrimental to the “Palestinian cause” or the “feelings of the prisoners”. It’s that it has crucial narrative and cinematic themes. It lacks some of the most basic features that make up a good movie.
The main culprit, in this case, is the film’s script, which begins on a premise mistake, continues to chase after its tail, and eventually collapses on its face.
Jessica Kiang perfectly summed up the issue at the heart of this film in her review of Variety magazine: “The clash between fatherhood, patriarchy and Palestinian identities is awkward. He added: “Biological revelations are causing more and more intricate and increasingly credible behavior in a confused and judged Palestinian melodrama.” That is the end of the matter. Do you see any reference to the Palestinian cause or its justice or any other such rhetoric? No. It’s just a bad movie. That’s it.
Joseph Fahim, a renowned Egyptian film critic, said even more clearly: “Amira is a very inventive and hilarious melodrama with endless believable details that take away any credibility that history might have had. The biggest crime in the film, however, is the portrayal of Palestinian society. “
Sometimes a cigar, as Freud said, is just a cigar. Sometimes a bad movie is just a bad movie and it doesn’t do any other harm to the reputation of the filmmakers.
Instead of engaging in nonsensical discussions about the harm done to the Palestinian cause, the Royal Jordanian Commission, filmmakers, and anyone else should try to figure out the real reason why the film is so hated and why it failed. .
Third cinema
First, let’s clear the air of any general exclusion from this film. Here we need to make some sensible distinctions. The three main actors – Tara Abboud, Ali Suleiman and especially Saba Mubarak – are staging some spectacular plays. Mohamed Diab is a skilled director who can tease the excellent performance of his actors. Ahmed Gabr’s cinematography is very rigorous and effective.
The main culprit is a script that does not reflect the Palestinian (or any other) reality. That’s where the insolence of a filmmaker comes in.
This has nothing to do with the filmmaker’s policy. A filmmaker might be politically committed to the Palestinian cause, but just write a bad, complicated and unfortunate script. As simple as that. Few people were as committed to the Palestinian cause as Yasser Arafat. However, I wonder if he could have made a good movie or written a decent script.
But why did Amira’s script go so wrong? Let’s get out of the Palestinian context for a moment. In the 1960’s, a group of Latin American filmmakers proposed the idea of a “Third Cinema / Tercer Cine” that, both thematically and formally, took over the hegemony of Hollywood (First) and European (Second) art productions. The kind of cinema they proposed and envisioned was not only a powerful political one, but also focused on examining the aesthetic and poetic attitudes of that policy. Filmmakers like Mai Masri, Nizar Hasan, Rashid Masharawi or Elijah Suleiman (among many others) are immersed in the hidden aesthetic attitudes of this savage event.
Amira’s script failed because she lost touch with this horrific fact of Palestinian existence. Fictional works must arise from facts and lived experiences before they can be brought into view of truths that we would not otherwise see; otherwise they become not only a mere delusion, but a mere act of lightness.
Palestinian and Arab, like any other, filmmakers from all over the world have to go to Cannes, Locarno, Berlin or New York to teach their audience what they don’t know, not only about the realities of the realities they have experienced, but also about customs. Stories full of clichés in Hollywood or now beyond Netflix.
You don’t have to go to Hollywood and live there to lose touch with the reality of a country or the experiences you have had. You can colonize yourself and take a visionary career to Palestine, Egypt, Iran, or Timbuktu. Stay home and take root in the experiences of people, then come out and show the world what you have seen.
Amira was badly thought out. That’s all. Every drop of the word game is intentional.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazeera.
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