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If you’re a fan of deadpan humor, look no further. In The Magic Gloves, Martin Rejtman takes the mundane, everyday meetings and conversations that plague our lives and turns them into something to laugh at. There’s nothing special about any of the characters, they’re all regular people like us passing through life without much happening. They also don’t seem to be in control of what’s going on. Life just happens to them and they’re happy to follow where it leads them. When things do happen and their lives look like their going to turn into a success, their luck is quickly balanced out to humble them. But the film never feels heavy or depressing to watch as it makes fun of the trivialities and coincidences we give importance to in our lives. After all nothing really matters.
You might have seen Fellini’s La Dolce Vita or Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, two films that honor the city of Rome, but you probably haven’t seen In The Last Days of the City, Tamar El Said’s tribute to Cairo. Instead of a bombastic tour around thecity, In the Last Days of the City’s tribute is muted. Instead of a warm film about one man’s love for his home city, In the Last Days of the City charts the director’s growing disillusionment with his home city and the increasingly militant and fundamentalist place it’s becoming.
El Said wanders around Cairo trying to find a new apartment. He needs a new place to live as his current landlord is evicting him to demolish his apartment block for a new more profitable construction. In his search, he visits many parts of the city, becoming an observer of everything happening. Whilst he wanders the city, he doesn’t interfere with anything going on. He watches the changing city passively and allows us (the audience) to form our own opinions on what we see. He’s like our Virgil from Dante’s Inferno, his role is to guide us around the city and show us what is changing.
Through his eye, we start to see the growing militarization and fundamentalism of the city and the gradual loss of freedom. In terms of the militarization, we see more and more army trucks and soldiers patrolling the city, plain closed policemen chasing people, and policemen beating and arresting protestors. In terms of the growing fundamentalism, we see ‘Thou Shall Not Look at Women’ slogans stuck on walls in apartment blocks and hear prayers playing over loudspeakers in apartment elevators. Backed by a soundtrack with snippets from radio shows speaking to the growing divisions in the country, the future of the city looks bleak.
There’s a scene which serves as a warning of Cairo’s negative future. In the scene, we meet a group of the directors friends in a cafe lit by light and laughter. It’s a rare scene of laughter and happiness. Each one of the group is living in a different corner of the Arabic diaspora and represent the choices that El Said has. Two of the friends are from Baghdad. They represent the extreme direction that Cairo could take. One has left the city for Europe after seeing his home city crumble to ruins. The other can’t leave his roots despite the violence, and continues to live in fear. Both of them fail to recognize the homely city that they grew up in. The third friend from Beirut, represents the middle ground between Cairo and Baghdad. His growing disillusionment and antipathy at the changes in Beirut are conquering his happy memories. But he’s still managing to grasp onto the last remnants of the city he loved before it becomes unrecognizable like Baghdad. Each of their stories are warning signs for the direction of El Said’s Cairo. He can stay and watch the city fade or he can leave the country with some of his positive memories intact.
El Said’s indecision is reflected in his struggles to make the film. He wants to capture the city he loved, the warm city of his memory, but as he’s filming, all he can see is the cities inevitable demise. He slowly comes to realize that he will either watch the city he loved slowly disappear or leave the city and preserve the happy memories that still survive in him.
What to Watch Next
If you want to watch more films which honor the director’s home city, check out Fellini and Sorrentino’s respective odes to Rome: La Dolce Vita and The Great Beauty. You could also check out Thom Andersen’s documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, composed completely out of Hollywood films.
Or if you’re more interested in seeing towns and cities slowly disappear, check out Once Upon a Time in Venezuela and Kings of Nowhere; two documentaries of towns destroyed by nature. There’s also Cuban docu-drama, The Project of the Century featuring one town full of hope destroyed by international politics.
Lastly, for more films set in Arabic cities subject to increasing fundamentalism and war, watch The Square from Egypt, Freedom Fieldsfrom Libya and The Journeyfrom Iraq.
If you like heartwarming stories of communities coming together you’ll love Supa Modo. Happy tears are pretty much guaranteed.
Supa Modo focuses on Jo, a young girl with a terminal illness, who is brought home by her mother and sister from the daycare where she lives with other kids like her. The only problem is that at home, she’s far away from her friends at the daycare. Instead of watching her favorite Kung Fu movies with her friends, her mum keeps her locked up indoors and buried under blankets to keep her protected from the outside world. Jo’s situation is more heartbreaking because despite her young age, she’s acutely aware of her mortality (“we all leave someday”) and seems to sense that her end is nearer now that her mother has brought her home.
Luckily for Jo, her neighbors want to help her feel special for her last few weeks on earth. They come together to help turn her into a superhero. The stunts they pull are a lot like the real life heartwarming story of Batkid, where San Francisco came together to turn a young cancer patient into Batman for the day. It demonstrates the power of film – they help people to escape from whatever troubles their experiencing; to generate happiness; and to bring people together.
Supa Modo is also a welcome alternative to the typical African festival film that focuses on war, poverty, and aids. It’s a perfect example of the Afro-Bubblegum style (see Akasha and Rafiki): a style that expands the view of Africa and who Africans are internationally with films that make art that is fun, frivolous, and fierce.It’s also refreshing to see a young character with a terminal illness that isn’t a white American (see Fault in their Stars and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl); all young people around the world experience the same depressing illnesses. So if you’re looking for a new African film that presents a different ‘African’ story to the war, poverty, and aids stories that typically make the festival circuit, check out the heartbreaking but inspiring Supa Modo.
Kings of Nowhere feels like it could be a sequel to Once Upon a Time in Venezuela. Instead of showing a small town on the lake that is being destroyed by sediment like in Once Upon a Time in Venezuela, the town in Kings of Nowhere has already been consumed by water. The handful of people that have refused to move live on limited resources at threat from local bandits. It doesn’t look like a town that will last much longer as it tries to survive without the support of the government and other communities.
Kings of Nowhere starts with a man navigating a motor boat through a forest of dead tree trunks sticking out of the lake. A layer of mist sits on the lake, blocking our view of the shores or town. From the dead branches and mist, it feels like we’re being taken through a mythical underworld. Added to the clusters of half sunken buildings we see in the next scene and it’s apparent that this town isn’t one that should still be supporting human life. It has been almost completely consumed by the lake.
The director never reveals what happened to the town. Instead of hearing why it is the way it is and how people struggle to live in the town, the director allows the subjects to tell their own stories. Early on, a ferryman starts laughing as he recounts old happy memories of the town. Later, a middle aged couple talk about a sign from God which led them to start renovating the town church that had been forgotten when the people left the town. Both feel like they’re clinging onto a past that has disappeared instead of trying to start a new life elsewhere.
You also feel this in the tone of the documentary. The slow pace and lack of movement of the sequences embodies the desire of the characters to stay where they are. The languid shots of the town’s inhabitants also reveals their acceptance of the futility of life. The remaining residents lounge around, renovate churches without congregations, and boat across the lake to visit lost cows. All their actions seem pointless. Nothing they can do will bring back the town or attract new residents, which they seem to be aware of. Occupying the time they have left is all they can do to postpone the inevitable decay of the town.
Kings of Nowhere is a story of people refusing to die. Their town is the place where they’ve forged their lives and connection to their happy memories and past. Moving on would sever roots that have grown too strong and stiff. They show the stubbornness of people not willing to change at all costs – after all, home is home.
What to Watch Next
First of all you, should watch Once Upon a Time in Venezuela before or after watching Kings of Nowhere. Set in a town that is being slowly consumed by sediment from the lake, Once Upon a Time in Venezuela feels like it could be a prequel to Kings of Nowhere.
Or if you enjoy Mexican documentaries that drift through places listening to the inhabitants and their stories, check out Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto.
For more languid observational documentaries you should also check out Kazuhiro Soda’s Inland Sea and Peace.
Midnight Traveler is the ultimate first hand account of a family fleeing across Western Asia and Eastern Europe from death threats received in their home country Afghanistan. Because the filmmaker has made movies deemed immoral by the Taliban, he and his families safety is in danger. After having requests for asylum denied by Western countries, the Fazili family are forced to try their luck at migrating to the safety of Europe. However, little do they know that the the troubles and prejudices will increase when they hit Europe. Through the cell phone footage of their journey, you’ll get a idea for what it feels like to no longer have a home and to be criminalized for trying to escape death. If you’re a citizen of a country whose citizens don’t live in fear, consider yourself lucky, and spare a thought and 88 minutes to join the Fazili family in their quest for a normal life.
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