Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching a couple of cracking films showing at the Edinburgh Filmhouse as part of its Middle Eastern Film Festival (in turn part of the larger Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace). With the whole of the region (and beyond) entering a period of uncertainty and transition it was interesting to see some of its cinematic output from recent years.
First up was Captain Abu Raed, the first film to be produced in Jordan in 50 years. Abu Raed, played by UK-based Nadim Sawalha, is an airport janitor nearing retirement who is leading a somewhat insular life following the death of his wife and son some years before. Finding an airline captain's hat, Raed decides to wear it home which prompts the local kids to mistake him for a pilot. Fighting against his instinct to ignore them, he goes along with it and regales them with stories of his imaginary foreign adventures which gradually leads him to come out of his shell and start to take an active interest in the lives of others, especially the children and a friendly female pilot.
While the music and use of fades and slo-mo leads the film to occasionally come across a little twee, it is still a highly enjoyable couple of hours. Key to its success is the superb performance of Sawalha who makes it so easy to relate to and sympathise with Raed. He wrestles with his decisions- whether to do nothing or to put himself to inconvenience and danger by helping others. Doing the right thing is not always easy and instinctive- the dilemma is successfully conveyed without ever being oversold.
Sawalha was available for a Q&A after the screening and explained some of the background to the production and his relationship with his excellent child co-stars. Interestingly he remarked that he liked that the film stays clear of overt references to religion and politics but that view seems at odds with some of the key themes that run throughout. The film confronts issues of domestic abuse and gender equality as major plot points and class is broached in the same way. "You can tell he's not an airline pilot," says one of the boys. "People like us don't become pilots."
The second film I caught was Times and Winds from Turkey, a much slower work following the lives of four children, their families, and fellow villagers over the course of a year. The picture opposite, showing off the stunning the scenery and the sleeping kids, is a great summary of what the film's about. Over the course of a year, the kids encounter a lot of problems, some bigger than others but all of huge importance to them. The landscape serves as an indication of their isolation which acts as a kind of prison, but its scale also reminds us that their problems are miniscule in a global context. This is not to minimise how they feel, but is more a comment on how children in particular sometimes have difficulty putting things in perspective (although this is obviously not a trait confined to exclusively to children).
Like Captain Abu Raed there is a very forward-looking feel to the film. The kids constantly find themselves in conflict with their elders and traditions although they don't fight against it and there are no value judgements placed on the village traditions. The film ends on a spring morning with the children looking out beyond the sea- it's their choice what they do next. As it is for millions across the region today.
A couple of days later I spotted in Fopp for just £7- well worth it.
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