Ill-judged comedy
Hani Mustafa finds that Kalam fi Al-Hob falls between two stools
The title was once a clear marker of the content of a film. Now, though, titles appear to be a measure of distance. In titling films producers have no qualms about misleading the potential audience over the nature of the content of the film they are about to see, preferring instead to let the title slot the film into a genre that is perceived as marketable.
The film's title should serve as an introduction, putting the viewer in a state of mind relevant to the film he or she expects to watch. With regards to Kalam fi Al-Hob (Love Talk), directed by Ali Idriss, the title implies that it is a light romance, maybe even a romantic comedy. It is a genre that all but disappeared in Egypt in the 1990s. Romantic comedies were more popular in the 1980s, though many of them were little more than adaptations of American films.
The cinematic trend referred to as "new comdey", spearheaded by stars such as Mohamed Heneidi, Mohamed Saad and the late Alaa Walieddin, opened up the market. A black market for movie tickets appeared and cinemas started screening films beyond the midnight show, especially in the summer of 2002 when some cinemas included a screening at 2am or even later. After this success producers started looking out for new forms of commercial cinema, and it was almost inevitable that they would turn to a formula that had been tried and tested throughout the 1950s and '60s, the golden age of Egyptian cinema.
The recipe was relatively constant. Take one leading man -- handsome, and often a singer. Take one leading lady, to whom the leading man seeks to explain his feelings of love. Add a sidekick for the hero, often played by a comedian, and stir. It is a recipe that was perfected in the 1950s and 1960s, providing a huge number of vehicles for Farid El-Atrash, Mohamed Fawzi and Abdel-Halim Hafez in leading roles, and for comedians such as Ismail Yassin, Abdel-Salam El-Nabulsi and Fouad El-Mohandes.
In Love Talk director Idriss, and scriptwriter Zainab Aziz, strive to break the mould in which their film should slot by introducing a series of changes. Starting with the credits, love is clearly the main theme in the film. Nahed (Boushra), a young woman, is seeing a young man off at a train station. The scene is repeated several times in the course of the film, though each time with a different man: once he is a soldier off to his unit; another time a man travelling to work abroad. In the last scene Nahed is an older woman (played by Youssra). The film clearly attempts to underscore Nahed's complex relationship to love.
In the famous restaurant -- the name of which is repeated in the manner of a commercial -- where Nahed works she meets Salma (Hanan Turk), who has been dumped by the man she loves. The two become friends despite the difference in age that separates them.
Hassan (Amr Waked) is an assistant director and a regular customer at the restaurant where he usually meets with executive producer Ramzi (Talaat Zakaria). This couple comes very close to the format used in the 1950s and '60s, with Ramzi being to all intents and purposes the comic sidekick. Since the executive director is a comic figure, there is a concentration on his negative qualities. He is vulgar and speaks the language of business rather than of art. He is in control of the money and his stinginess is used as a kind of running joke. Zakaria plays the part with a great deal of skill.
But the director and the scriptwriter have rather more ambitions than to present a kind of insider comedy about the making of films. They introduce a subplot, focusing on the relationship between Salma and her former boyfriend, Nour, who leaves her and stops answering her calls. We later find out that he has travelled to his hometown -- he is a Nubian living in Alexandria. The script raises the subject of Nubians preferring to marry other Nubians only to let it drop. It is difficult to know why the topic is raised, then skirted around: presumably the director, who is himself Nubian, wanted to criticise the habit without going into much detail.
The script progresses along four main lines. First there is Nahed, and her remarkable propensity to lose every man with whom she falls in love, including her most recent boyfriend whom she calls and leaves a long message elucidating every detail of their relationship although he has travelled abroad. Then there is Salma and her Nubian boyfriend. The third strand of the plot concerns Hassan and his problems at work, and the fourth, which veers towards tragedy, centres on Ibrahim, played by Hisham Selim, whose only son is taken to the US by his American wife following a disagreement. This separation makes Ibrahim irritable and depressive.
The director and the scriptwriter attempt to lighten Ibrahim's basically unhappy story. His lawyer's wife -- the lawyer is played by Ahmed Kamal -- is an incorrigible chatterbox, a trait that drives her husband to spend much of his time in cafés, a classic comic backdrop where Ibrahim must seek him out in order to solicit legal advice. Ibrahim's neighbours also take over his house while they are trying to fix their satellite dish, forcing him in despair to throw them out. This scene is not only important in lightening the situation in which Ibrahim finds himself, it also advances the plot since it is Ibrahim's flat Nehad calls by mistake to leave her long message.
The film attempts to tie up these disparate strands through the burgeoning relationship between Hassan and Salma and Ibrahim and Nahed. The romances, though, can only progress by Hassan and Ibrahim solving the problems that beset their lives. Ibrahim overcomes his psychological problems when his lawyer finds a way for him to visit his son in the States, clearing the way for him to go in search of Nahed, who he tracks down at her place of work.
Idriss and Aziz unfortunately lack the lightness of touch so essential to a successful romantic comedy. They follow a stock formula -- they even introduce a singer, who wants to make a video clip that is directed by Hassan -- but overload it with heavy-handed satire. The filming of the video clip in Sharm El-Sheikh becomes the occasion for a clunking criticism of the genre, with the singer surrounded by dancing Russian blondes. In directing it, however, Hassan does at least gain the confidence to approach Salma. He presents her as a model in his video clip. The happy ending, though, has to wait until one or two other problems are ironed out. First Nahed finds out that Ibrahim is the new tenant in her ex-boyfriend's apartment, and has been listening to her recorded telephone complaints, while Hassan is very unhappy with the video -- as is the singer, who rejects it after editing.
The film ends simply, and without going into details. Ibrahim asks Nahed to marry him and the video clip is shown on television. All is well, one must suppose, that ends well. The pity is that it takes so long to get to this stock happy ending, and in the course of reaching it the film blows any lightness by touching on weighty issues that it then leaves unexplored. It fails to deliver on the promise of its title, spurning depth while at the same time misplacing any comic thrust.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/789/cu2.htm