The idea of love!

I have a serious defect in my head.

I keep on falling in love with the idea of love, not with a man of flesh-and-blood. I know many people think like this, but it drives me crazy because this over-emotional notion usually blindfolds me in terms of who the man really is. I wish I could sober up and think clearly for once in my life, for a change.

I feel like Sabrina (as in the film) when she was in love with George (I guess that was his name) and they told her that not even George could keep up to the image she has of him.

People say I am a nutcase, my brother said I grow older but not wiser. Well, to complement me, they say that all great people are nutcases. I am not sure about the great part of it, but I am definite that I am not ordinary in the way I weigh things and events in my life. I am over passionate about everything and everyone. When I love, I AM IN LOOOVE, when I am sad- I am mourning, when I am happy I feel like a newly born child and when I am upset with people, I simply and plainly DISAPPEAR.

I have never experienced half-way mediocre feelings or reactions. I don't even know how they feel. Some people say it is wrong to be that enthusiastic about everything in life, and that it can destroy you eventually (self-sabotage and stuff) as life is all about compromise. But I can only think with my own brain. If it proves fucked up, then I am stuck coz that is the only one I have got.

Anyway, I was inclined to write this as I feel that history is once more repeating itself with me.

If it was boring to you, forgive me. If you feel like sharing a thought, I would love to read it.

Ain Shams: Variations on the pains of simple people!

Yesterday I watched an Egyptian movie for the promising Egyptian director Ibrahim El Batout. The film took us slowly, yet deeply, into the lives and experiences of a poor family in a popular area in Cairo, Egypt. There have been numerous films, Egyptian and otherwise, that took us into the lives of simple people and their basic needs and endless sufferings. Yet, there are a number of elements that made "Ain Shams" (a.k.a. The Eye of the Sun) unique, for me at least. Some things grabbed my attention, namely:

To begin with, I liked the fact that the narrator/the director spoke not from a neutral position, although I wouldn't have appreciated this aspect in other movies, however in this one, it was needed. The narrator not only narrated incidents, he also explained them with his own voice and vision.

I liked how the film went around in one circle from beginning to end, beginning with a sad song about a girl who just died, and ending with the same song (after the reasons for her death are explained).

Something important too in the sequence of the film was a clear communication issue between some of the characters of the film, especially representing different classes and ideals; how the characters almost all stuttered sometimes (with lots of mmms and hmmms)- as if improvising in real life situations or not knowing how to best say what is on their minds; the smooth transitions between the different scenes (and from Iraq to Egypt); as well as seeing the poor from the eyes of the rich and vice versa.

I also appreciated Shams' simple, naive dream of visiting downtown, which is an act that we do on a daily basis if we please, yet for this eleven-year-old child, it was her maximum hope and dream.

The film was overall empathetic with the poor, at a time filled with poltiical hypocracy and utter lack of freedoms. The language is simple and genuine. The vision is clear.

There are clearly a number of shortcomings, like any film, even Award-winning ones. However, this is not the time or the place for them.

Hats off for a fine artist like Al-Batout, who brought new meanings to old stories.. For more on the director: http://ibrahimelbatout.com/

For more on the film: http://einshams.blogspot.com/

An angry sentiment!

I realized that we no longer see straight. Mediocre people do not know anymore that they are mediocre. Now why is that?

And I am not speaking humanity, I am specifically speaking about Egyptians, whether we like it or we will keep hiding in our cocoon of denial.

Let's assess our level of cultural sophistication...

• With cinema for instance: Get statistics of which films make the most money, you will know we are a mediocre nation. Limbi, 3okal, karkar, youth films, (even 3al2et moot did not completely fail!!!!!!!!!!!!). A lot of people still went. For a variety of reasons but they went. This is the end result, and this is what the box office calculations will put in consideration. Not why people went, but how many. (For none Egyptians, the films mentioned are commercial in nature, with no story, or even acting skills)
• Music: Which concerts are most popular and which singers........ No comment (Ba3roor, and Saad El Soghayar)
• Get to look at all the blogs (or even facebook notes) of anyone we know, and see the comments they receive, you will know we are a mediocre nation.
• Read a list of the bestselling novels and books in Egypt, versus England or even South Africa (which is relatively poor and filled with issues, such as racism, etc..), but you will know that still they are waaaaaaaaaay better. We still have people in their twenties and thirties reading Mickey Mouse for Crying out Loud, and it is not a joke, it is real. I heard it from many of the guys I know. Not as a side dish, noooo they ONLY read Mickey Mouse. I bet they still beleive in Santa Claus too.
• As part of my job, and on a daily basis, I read CVs of applicants for a number of jobs at our organziation. They are never accurate or even look good. A minority make it worth looking. And a sea of lies, such as: fluent in english (- not good or even very good, but fluent, like native -and then they cannot even write a two-sentences e-mail to say they are interested in a job), or vast experience with the internet (Not researching? the internet? what does that mean? So you know all about google and yahoo you mean, you can search for anything? Can't anyone with basic knoweldge of the internet?) They don't know what they are saying or what they want in life. They don't specify a job. But I don't blame them, I blame the educational system. BIG TIME.

I don't want to turn into cleanliness and hygiene, Cause I just went to the countryside to breathe some clean air and relax, and I came back with asthma, headache and further belief in the impossibility of change.

This is what I saw on the way there: The pollution (all the cars pump out tremendous amounts of a different kind of black smoke), the noise (even people's voices, let alone the endless car horns, weddings in the street from broad day light and until the evening is over, with gun shots and horrible songs), CLEANLINESS (I could write a book here- the channel was not visible because of the things thrown in it - plastic bags, paper, food remains, dead animals, tins, bottles, boxes, you name it- and then the visible parts included children bathing with their horses and donkeys and women washing everything in it- and then they wonder why they get hypatitis A, B, and C? There should be new types of hypatitis from D to Z just for them), etc...

I almost threw up many times, and hated me being there and not being able to change anything. Loving this country, yet hating one thousand zillion things in it that need decades, if not centuries, to change them, as well as strict and firm rulers who CARE!!!!!!!!

I work in the field of freedoms, so this is what I believe: People are free to read, eat, listen to, watch and do whatever they choose. But the thing is, sadly, what they do shapes our nation's success and level of civilization. I can't control them, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. If people don't feel the responsibility they bear of becoming better to push the whole country up with them (instead of the pig-hole we have turned into), then plain and simple FUCK THEM (and this the politest way i can possibly say it).

Slumdog Millionaire

S

L

U

M

D

O

G

MILLIONAIRE

In spite of a very few comments, that I am not even going to mention so as not to tarnish the beauty of the film, I would like to state out loud that Danny Boyle is one of the greatest directors of our time and his movie (Slumdog Millionaire) is one of the greatest in the history of film.

There can be hundreds of reasons for my well-deserved appreciation, which comes only rarely. I will try to brief them in the coming few points.
WHAT DANNY BOYLE HAD WAS:

1) Very limited financial resources,
2) A very crowded shooting locations (which can be a headache to any film crew, I can only imagine),
3) Untrained cast (most of the actors were not professional ones),
4) Linguistic barrier,
5) Certain thorny issues to deal with (religion, prostitution, national sensitivities, to name a few),
6) a very old subject that was dealt with repeatedly- so he had to twist it around and tackle it differently for authenticity and novelty, and
7) Had to match between the film being a Western production (the language mostly, as well as the nationalities of most of the filming crew) and the Indian print (the country, the actors, the story).

Give this to any director, and he/she will give you a mediocre film, however with good intentions. But no. Danny Boyle gave us 8 Oscars.

The way he used the flashback was phenomenal. There are scenes still lingering in my head as a result of the intensity of the film.
The way he got the best out of the young "actors"- especially the children (amaaazing kids- especially kid in the photo here).

The way the story was organized in such a way that keeps you on your toes with anticipation, empathy, disbelief (that there are people that live in such dire conditions) and amazement with the shooting angles and landscape (every single one of them meaningful). Superb cinematography indeed.

Just a reminder of who Danny Boyle is, his most memorable movies include The Beach and Trainspotting.

Anyway, I just thought Slumdog Millionaire is an EXPERIENCE in itself and has to be shared.