27 May 2011

Revolution movies:18 days.

In the revolutionary spirit of the day, I decided to write about the movie "18 days" or "Tamantashar youm" which was screened during the Cannes film festival.
The movie is actually 10 short movies by 10 different directors, each adding a piece to the puzzle that is the revolution.
I wanted to like the movie(s), to love them. I really did. But I didn't.
I thought it was premature, it was raw. It had the potential to be a lot more than it turned out to be. 
My problem with the movies were that they were too shallow, they didn't dig deep enough, they took some very powerful emotions and treated them very softly. Too softly actually.
I liked some of them very much, though.
I though Kamla Abu Zikry's "God's creation" was the deepest, and the less obvious one. She took a very simple story and actually worked on it, adding depth to her characters. 
Also, "Curfew" and "Revolution cookies" were very nicely done.
To tell the truth, I was a bit dissapointed by the whole thing, I expected more.
But maybe it's too early to make movies about the revolution. I am quite sure it is indeed too early. The revolution is not over yet for us to start telling it's stories. 
We need more time, more space in order to see the revolution, to actually observe it enough to be able to write and tell it to the rest of the world. 
The movie was too "made up" to be a documentary and too obvious to be a feature.

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