Genainat el-Asmak (2008) User Reviews

Non-evolving characters doom Egyptian societal critique

[Turfseer · 5/10 · 25 April 2008]

I saw this last night at the Tribeca Film Festival. For those who are unfamiliar with the Egyptian cinema (and I'm included in that category), it is refreshing to get a glimpse of modern middle-class life in Egypt from the point of view of the director, who is pro-Democracy and critical of the repressive nature of the government.

The Aquarium gives us a feel for what's going on in Egypt today from the anti-Corruption movement to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. The cinematography is excellent and some of the images very aesthetically pleasing.

That said, 'The Aquarium' falls down in the area of plot and character development. The film basically follows the lives of two characters: Youssef, an anesthesiologist who works at two jobs (including an illegal abortion clinic in the evening) and Laila, a radio talk show host who is an Egyptian "Dr. Laura", dispensing advice to the lovelorn over the airwaves. Both characters are supposed to represent a certain malaise or feeling of alienation amongst middle-class Egyptians today.

The problem with Youssef's character arc is that it never evolves--he remains repressed and unhappy throughout the film and he misses an opportunity to bond with his father who is dying of cancer. Laila also feels emotionally disconnected and protects herself through vicarious bondings with her talk show listeners. She too changes little, although a bit more than Youssef, as she is 'considering' moving out of her mother's apartment at the end of the film.

Youssef first 'meets' Laila when he calls into her talk show. In the film's denouement, chance brings the two together but their relationship is never explored as Laila runs away from Youssef who she perceives as some sort of control freak. The secondary characters in the film often step out of their character roles and address the audience directly. This technique has mixed results: on one hand, the actors provide needed exposition which makes the overall atmosphere more realistic but on the other, it undercuts the dramatic interplay.

The Aquarium reminds me of Antonioni's 'Blowup'. The characters are not meant to be fleshed out people but rather 'types' that represent society's shortcomings. Had the writers made their protagonist a little more likable and interesting (balancing out the bad foibles with the good), created a central antagonist and defined a central crisis point, then this film would have ended up more compelling than it turned out to be.

Night people, a teeming city, and camel's liver for breakfast

[Chris Knipp · 8/10 · 26 April 2008]

A man falls asleep in his car and wakes up to find twenty men in galabiyyas and a camel looking in the windows at him. This could only happen in Egypt. And why did he come here to wait till dawn? To have fresh sautéed camel's liver for breakfast. This is just one moment in The Aquarium's ambitious 48-hour ramble through Cairo focused on two detached observers of life, Youssef (Amr Waked) the camel's liver devotee and an anesthesiologist, and Leila (Hend Sabri), a late-night radio Miss Lonelyhearts who lives with her mother and sister. These two lost souls run into each other towards the end, but any storyline takes second place to the film's meandering examinations of this and that with an emphasis on Cairo life and its repressions, sexual and political.

Included is a woman (Samah Anwar), who would be glad to rent her apartment to Leila if the latter moves out on her own. She, like various others, addresses a monologue to the camera about her character, chiefly focused on the dangers of being a Christian woman living alone in a Muslim neighborhood. Leila's studio assistant Zaki does the same for his character; so does one of Youssef's young patients and Leila's married sister, who points out how detached Leila is, how unwilling to actually go out and help people who most need it. These monologues are an interesting way of opening up secret lives and they enrich the film's human panorama considerably. But of course they don't advance the action; they stop it.

Outside during the daytime, there's a big demonstration in the streets with placards calling for an end to all sorts of things, hunger and poverty for a start. Perhaps Leila's thoughts of an apartment and Youssef's homelessness (he won't move in with his divorced girlfriend and lives in his car rather than his own flat) are gestures toward Cairo housing problems; but unlike last year's 'Yacoubian Building' (Marwan Hamed), 'The Aquarium' barely glances at the urban poor and is mainly concerned with the better-off middle class. Going to a nightclub, Youssef winds up driving with a member of the secret police, who says it's natural--they're the only people you can't escape. Leila has to deal with state censorship of her program, in the person of a veiled lady who thinks a caller with AIDS should be reported.

As there is a lack of privacy in Cairo, there is an omnipresence of drama and life. Youssef and an older friend walk along the Nile Corniche and every piece of bridge has lovers, every car is a little theater whose scenes we see and hear snatches of. The ambient sounds, conversations, songs, radio news, are pungent and never-ending, and there's also a very creditable hip-hop group that performs midway and at film's end, as well as an imaginary silent film in black and white in which Leila acts out a children's story she's thought up about a woman in love with a pigeon. Perhaps most awesome visually are simply some long shots of Cairo streets at the outset, teeming multitudes moving in all directions. But the camera's, and the filmmaker's, readiness to look at things leads to occasional stoppages. As Peter Scarlet wrote in a comment for the Tribeca festival, "Nasrallah shoots 'The Aquarium' in long and glacial takes, imbuing the movie" (at times, I would qualify) "with a stillness that borders on the inert." Both Leila and Youssef are night people. Her program, recorded earlier, is broadcast in the wee hours, when she may go out and party with her older boyfriend, or dance suggestively with the rap band. He visits his aged father, dying of cancer in a hospital. And as she listens to night secrets, he enjoys hearing the twilight zone mumblings of patients he's putting under. At night, he works a second job assisting a gynecologist who performs illegal abortions and sews up raped women so they pass as virgins.

When Youssef calls Leila's talk show, as he inevitably does, he confesses to a recurrent fantasy of the "Garden of the Fish" (Genenat al asmak, the film's title), an elaborate concrete garden and aquarium he fears if he once goes in, he may never leave. The symbolism, of the garden being a voyeur's paradise and of Cairo at the same time being a fishbowl, is a little obvious; this is a movie that oscillates between occasional poetry and self-conscious significance. It's true as some have said that Nasser Abdel-Rahmane's all-encompassing screenplay may have looked better on paper, and there may be too much telling and not enough showing. But the images and sound of 'The Aquarium' are often pleasing, and the picture of contemporary Cairo is a rich and naturalistic one, despite the free indulgence in surrealism and self-reflexiveness. Hend Sabri is voluptuous and believable as a sweet but self-centered young woman. Amr Waked, however, comes across as rather a cold fish, and when he laughs, that fish becomes a shark. If this were Rome and the Sixties and Fellini were at the helm his part would go to Marcello Mastroianni, and the lonesome anesthesiologist would carry the sick soul of Europe.

'The Aquarium,' shown as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, was shown at the Berlinale, got its North American premiere at Tribeca this week, and is also scheduled for festivals in Taormina and Abu Dhabi.

A Failed Experimentation With Realism

[MohamedFawzy · 8/10 · 23 March 2008]

I was one of the "fortunate" people that got the chance to watch this movie on its premier last night...

The main reason why I checked this movie out, despite my lack of fondness towards most of its actors, was to see what Nasrallah had to offer after the fantastic "Bab el-shams", and also to see if he had changed his old ways of weirdness and incomprehensible "artistic views". Also I wanted to see what Abdel-Rahmane is made of after watching his previous works, Chahine's mediocre "Heya fawda" and Khaled's dreadfully terrible "Heena maysara", knowing how these directors slaughter his scripts, I was trying to locate his true identity among the three movies, and I think I found a little glimpse of his potential among them that could blossom if he were to stop being bullied by the directors and made them stick to his original script.

This movie takes a stab at realism with some elements of expressionism, with long useless scenes and silences with some "artistic views" and hidden messages within the details, a blend that quite frankly, didn't work out quite well...

This movie is not for everyone, it will definitely flop at the box office for 2 reasons, one is the cast of the film, non of them appeals to the public, non of them would make you leave the comfort of your couch to go watch it at the theaters, the second reason being the film's quality itself, I doubt anyone who'd watch this movie would go out and recommend it to others, after all, Nasrallah himself said, and I'm quoting, that this film was not made to be comprehended in this lifetime, it'll be appreciated 20 year from now...

The only good thing about this film was the cinematography, which wasn't exactly mind blowing, but it was decent, plus the effort put into trying something new gives it some extra points for the adventurous spirit of the film's crew, and for the obvious skills of Nasrallah as a director.