Caramel

One of my old friends from Syria has recently moved to London. She stayed over at my place for a couple weeks before finding a flat and moving out. So far she has given me 2 wonderful gifts for my hospitality, both were visual feasts and I would have missed both if it wasn’t for her invite.

My friend unknowingly dragged me (and I have to admit that I was a bit cautious the first time so dragging is the word) to 2 non English speaking films! The first was in Persian* “The Kite Runner” and the 2^nd was Arabic, “Caramel/سكر بنات”.

I have to admit that if I was on my own, I wouldn’t have chosen to watch either of the two, for me going to the cinema is a time to disconnect from the real world and lose myself for a couple of hours. I like the collective psyche that you get from watching a film at a movie theatre, the audience laughing, gasping and cheering together. Taking that into consideration, watching a film that appeals to a niche market wasn’t much my thing but my friend has asked me to accompany her, and I’m too polite to say no!

What I got as a result of my politeness was breathtaking! I will write at another time about “The Kite Runner” it deserves another take before I can comment on the film, suffice to say that it was close to being a spiritual experience not just a movie.

The 2^nd film that my friend suggested, and I was a more willing companion this time, was “Caramel” or “سكر بنات”. A fellow blogger has already mentioned it here, and I’m happy that the film is getting some headlines as it is surely one to watch.

The story is very simple, it’s simple as life seem to be in a quiet Beirut street in a middle class area, everything goes by in its normal slow pass that is a trade mark of such neighbourhoods. A seemingly simple life at a seemingly simple time and the lives of four girls working at a beauty saloon with a satellite of characters surrounding them.

This simplicity is quickly dismissed once you’ve scratched the surface of the story! Tales of the forbidden and the unobtainable are tangled with the society’s views and taboos surrounding the female entity in our sunny orient.

Caramel, is a symbol of the simple act that all women are joint with, it’s sticky sweetness is that of a society’s view of what should be and not what is there. In it’s simple basis, it hides the painful differences that a woman have to suppress in order to fit into a structure that catalogues her in a rigid structure of looks, status, purity and sexual orientation; departing from that structure is not permitted and that same society has created the means to maintain this structure even by falsifying and masking the truth.

The simple/complexity of the story is mirrored in the langue used in the film, while the words are simple, common with no unnecessary pretence, the acting and the music complete the structure of the scene. One of the most breathtaking dialogues was with Rose sitting in front of her mirror preparing for the hope that arrived 30 years late only to be held back from her later day's dream by the ranting of Lili. You didn’t need words to read the conflict between duty and the simple hope for happiness. The words were redundant in that scene, the music was heart breaking and the acting was unbelievable.

The film touched on a number of challenging topics, some relevant only to our eastern society (purity, sexual orientation) and some relating to all women in all places and times, how the illusion of love can degrade someone, holding on to lost youth and how happiness is found in what we let go of rather than what we pursue.

I don’t know how a non Arabic speaker would rate this film, not being part of the culture, not understanding the usage of language that no mater how accurate the translation is, it can never convey the meaning of some of the words used. I know that for me and my friend, watching this film together at a west end cinema in London, we were transformed home for 90 minutes. In a way, I didn’t want it to end, I wanted to stay in that simple, sun drenched Beirut street and embrace more the different life that passes by there.

The last scene of the film was enchanting, crazy Lili gathering the discarded papers in the street with Rose, trying to find what a lost lover has written to her somewhere, sometime we don’t know about. How many of us walk through life chasing these pieces of papers? Never finding what we’re looking for but never giving up the search…

Caramel by director/actress Nadine Labaki

*Thanks Paolo!

Apocalypto 3 and final

So, if you've been following this blog over the past couple of weeks you would realise that an earlier blog I wrote have initiated a heated discussion between 2 distinguished Syrian bloggers, Syrian Brit and Abufares! Seeking an unbiased say and because they did hijack my initial blog in their discussion, they have turned to me, one with inferior knowledge of the over all topic of the film (the final days of the Mayan civilisation) and of the finer details that make or break a film...Faced with such a burden of a task I didn't have a choice but to buy the DVD and watch it, all 139m of it, and was left with a very mixed bag of reactions.Take the historical context of the film aside, the underlying story is one shared across civilisations and times, a young man seeking to return to his home, wife and family fighting against odds to save his loved one! In that the film, while in original Mayan has delivered exquisitely, the body language, the tone of voice and some superb acting by young Jaguar Paw's wife giving birth while trying to save her first born! The anxious look of a trapped victim when someone approaches their hiding place. The combination of camera work and stunning scenery has, for me, contributed to making this film click to some extent; unfortunately, it was only to some extent!!!Films that depict a certain period in human history are always bound to cause controversy, history as we all know is told by the winners and while I couldn't help but understand Syrian Brit's view about the touch of white supremacy in the end and the showing of how barbaric the Mayans were beforehand, I can't completely agree with him. The film is trying to be true to form and whether quoting National Geographic or Wikipedia, the practices shown in the film did happen, the use of religion as a tool to control the masses by striking the fear of God/Gods in them is prescribed throughout human history and to say that it happened in a less brutal way or it should not have been shown in that light doesn't change the fact that it did. In that regard I do apologies for my two good friends here since I wont be able to give you a final saying on that side of the film...So why the hell didn't I just say that in the first 3 lines and not drag on and one like this? well simply because watching the film, I was disturbed by something other than historical accuracy and hidden agendas in the film, what caused me to pause and take a deep breath (which I did a couple times watching the film) is the amount of gore that was shown in the film, if you consider that the film was rated as suitable for 18 and older audience only for the violence content within it, you would understand what I mean! You were asked to see the gushes of blood, be so engaged in the film that you feel you can even smell it and be caught by the spray flying about with each blow. I can understand the need to be realistic but what worries me is that we live at a time when you need to be that shocking on screen in order to reach to your audience. Apocalypto, true to a long line of other films, reflects the psyche of the new generation of audience; we are faced with that gore in the papers, in our daily life and every time we switch on the TV and although disturbing in itself, what is more worrying is that we've grown accustomed to it! We don't react to such images as before, gradually, less and less things shock us and the film makers are picking up that underlying trend and responding by increasing the volume in each new production. It’s becoming a never ending cycle spiralling upwards all the time.This line of thought is not new, when I was telling my friend about watching this film and what I thought of it, he referred me to someone who has presented this argument before. Funny enough it relats to the same moviemaker, Mil Gibson's Passion of Christ! Walter Davis's article reflects on the change in the American psyche since 9/11, "the deadening of emotions" that we flee by an overdose of violence whether that violence was on screen or off! Going back to Apolcalypto, I think I should be grateful that I still cannot stomach that level of violence, that unlike my young niece and nephew, I still feel a bit uneasy at some of the scenes from CSI! And after a long thought, that gratefulness was the overwhelming idea that I ended up with!I'm really sorry SB and Abufares, I told you from the start that great sequences never happen (with the exception of Godfather 2) and this "long awaited" opinion is no difference.I enjoyed this virtual interaction over this film, and that counts as a point in its favour! I think that we should do this more often (films, books) We've already had a musical argument (abufares you remember I think ;-).And now I leave the floor to you my friends.... shoot!



(A reference should be made to a very dear friend who helped me in correcting a number of writing errors within the blog! Thanks dear, you're editorial skills are always welcomed.)

Apocalypto 1

Amazing Grace & V

It's been sometime since I last been here, I have returned back from Syria after a holiday that left me amazed in a lot of ways and I had so many ideas for things that I wanted to write about in this blog, unfortunately (or fortunately) every time I think of what to write I feel it either too personal or too cheesy to share!

Getting back to work to a diminishing department (due to holidays, sick leaves and market crashes) and an expanding work load didn't really help the creative process either and I ended up leaving my cosy little virtual corner here for more than 2 months!
Having been checked upon by my favourite blogger Abufares, and kicked off my comfy sofa by my other half to get back to this place I finally mastered the will power to turn my PC on and start typing again.

The minor issue of a topic that hindered me for so long was resolved quickly by the happy coincidence (although some argue that there is no such thing) of going on a movie binge yesterday and watching 2 films one after the other, as it happened, I picked one on impulse (from a store called Impulse at Euston station) and the other was a web order. Now as it happens, the two films couldn't have been more different on the outside, Amazing Grace tells the story of William Wilberforce, the man who brought about the end of the slave trade in the British Empire; V for Vendetta a film which depicts a bleak view of the future when the state becomes the instigator of fear as a way to control its subject rather be answerable to them.

I did say that these two films were so different, but there is a common thread that joints them together, over a stretch of almost 200 years, the first recites one of politics finest real hours while the latter speaks of its imagined worst.

Amazing Grace tells of a time, when people had the power and the will to change, when being 24 didn't stop you from being a Prime Minister (William Pitt) and standing against the whole parliament to abolish a trade wich at the time was the equivalent of arms or oil trade these days was something that you dedicate your life to and in the end, after 20 years of struggle, you succeed in doing..

V for Vendetta is almost a negative view of Amazing Grace, it is closer to our modern days, politics is a dirty game and people have lost the will and the spirit to fight. V, our hero masked as Guy Fawkes, is not driven by the good intentions of William Wilberforce but rather pursuing a darker path for revenge. Unknown, unloved and unseen, V's brutality reflects that of his time, his plan that took 20 years in the making is that of killing and destruction; love and tenderness are just words that don't have a meaning in his world.

Both films are strong in their own way, both deliver a message of ideals and struggle. Both reflect the same country but in different times, neither fails to reflect the basics of human decency. Both start from a dark surrounding and end in a blaze of triumph, the first finishes with a hymn and the second closes with a bright V of Victory, Valour and a Vision marked across the London sky.

There are still so many things to say about the films but I just realised that if I can easily stay all night and fill many pages without saying all so I’ll just finish with the words of Amazing Grace, Christian hymn, maybe; gospel music, at its best; exclusive to some, not at all..

Amazing Grace"

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Pursuit of happiness!

Or should I write “Happyness” as the film is titled? It has been some time since I last watched a film that moved me so deeply and have made me really stop and think about what we all want in life and what we work so hard for, Happiness…

Being based on a true story, a time in the life of Chris Gardner, the film has a different taste to your usual morally strong, socially oriented films. The knowledge that this has actually happened to someone, that the drama is derived from real life and is not a fragment of imagination from a talented writer gives it that much more weight and that much more impact on us outside viewers.

I saw the film for the first time on my way back from Syria, I blamed an already over emotional, over active set of feeling, or maybe a horrible neighbour in the seat next to me, for crying in a plane full of people but then I realised the most of the people on the plane were trying to hide a tear or two after seeing the film! Then I accepted it as the impact of brilliant writing and acting in a very good film, there was that bit of doubt about the liberal artistic changes to the real story to fit the film, that bit more of spices to create a stronger set of feelings in the viewers but the aftertaste remained, hence when the film was out on DVD and I noticed that within the special features added there is an interview with the real Chris Gardner I couldn’t help but buy the DVD and take it home.

I watched the interview before the film and the impact was amazing, realising that there were little, or no, artistic additions to the story, that this man has actually spend nights in train station’s lavatory with his son because he had nowhere to go was shocking. To know that someone have reached that low and then managed to end on top is inspiring to say the least!

We all seek happiness; we all, whether we know it or not, work towards it and have it in our horizon in every direction we go to. A lot may disagree, may proclaim other intentions or other goals but even the most unselfish act one does are aimed to get a sense of self satisfaction and happiness for being able to help someone else.

These days, with all that is happening around us in this crazy world, happiness, very much like that blue bird over the rainbow, is hard to see, hard to find. Even if we’re happy in our personal life, we feel guilty for being happy when so many around us are so miserable, as if feeling happy is something to be ashamed of now. With life being not that simple, all that much cruel and all the more complex; being happy is reserved for simple or selfish people who can ignore that craziness!

But I disagree, pursuing happiness is part of our humanity, one of reasons for our existence, seeking happiness is the thing that drives me to wake up in the morning, to struggle with work and annoyances all day, seeing that happiness in the horizon is what gives me my will to live.

But do we ever reach that horizon? Can we ever be happy? The pursuit of happyness gives you a good clue, that one moment in the end, he calls that time Happiness! One moment when all is well, all is right, that second that is suspended in time is what it is all about! That perfect embrace, that one single kiss, the first time you hold your child or that first time to he says I love you, that is what happiness means. Don’t fall for the illusion that it will be forever and a day, it is not lasting or permanent, that happiness is reserved for that moment, and once that moment is passed, so does the happiness that came with it and all that we’re left with is a memory of that moment, that sweet aftertaste that we remember and desire for a long time to come.

But does that mean that the Pursuit of Happyness is a mirage that never lasts? Some people despair and think that is the case, some see this pursuit as waste or a fantasy that would drive you mad in the end. I beg to differ…

It is that single moment that gives life meaning, you seek it, it comes, it takes your breath away and leave you with an afterthought of warm, sweet pleasure but that is not all that it leaves you with! Like clues to a treasure, each moment of happiness points you in the direction of the one after it. The moment passes, but there is a new horizon and a new rainbow that we seek and work hard to reach, till we get to that new point of utter happiness and so on for as long as we live.

Life is all about that, moving from one point of joy to the other, remembering the ones that passed and dreaming of the ones that are on the way. The excitement of living is that we never know where the next pursuit will lead us, the possibilities are endless and we are pilgrims searching for that holy grail of endless joy. The journey is never easy, most of the time is hard, stone hard, the journey might include sleeping in the lavatory with your child or seeking shelter in a homeless home, but for all that hardship, that moment is that much sweeter and last that much longer.

In this there is the answer to whether it’s worth it or not; is something worth the heart ache, the stress, the struggle? A lucky person would say yes it is, would know that the reward is worth the price and would fight for it. A lucky person won’t take the easy way out and settle for a medium level of semi happiness just because the alternative is much harder. A lucky person would realise how precious this happiness is and realise that for their life to mean something he or she should go down that rocky road for some time to come.

Finally, a lucky person would have someone to seek that happiness with, one of those rare times in life when your walk is not a lonely one, your fight is not a me against the odds but Us against the world, for those lucky few, part of that perceived happiness is involved in the journey itself, for those lucky few, the road is as precious as the moment. For those lucky few, like Chris and Christopher Gardner, happyness is always close by…

Be happy

Picture is the property of © 2006 Columbia Pictures Industries Inc