Arabic Film Reviews

Welcome to the AFP Film Review page. Here, AFP students provide their honest thoughts and sentiments about recent Arabic Films they have viewed. We invite you to read through these to guide you in your next selection of which Arabic film to watch. Not only will these films aid in our language learning but they are quite entertaining too. Enjoy!

Caramel

Directed by Nadine Labaki, Sukkar Banaat (2007)
Rating: PG
Running Time: 96 minutes

In Beirut, five women meet regularly in a beauty salon, a colorful and sensual microcosm of the city where several generations come into contact, talk and confide in each other. In the salon, their intimate and liberated conversations revolve around men and motherhood between haircuts and sugar waxing with caramel. Over 40 countries have released Caramel easily making it the most internationally acclaimed and exposed Lebanese film to date.

Student Review by Caitlin Eaves

Salon gossip, secret romances, and heartbreaks saturate this Lebanese “chick-flick,” and I am not ashamed to say I have seen it at least five times. While Layale becomes obsessed with her lover’s wife, who he refuses to leave, Rima becomes attracted to a mysterious and beautiful woman who frequents the salon; Jamale fakes her period to convince the younger women at an audition that she is not old, and my favorite character,  the shy handsome young policemen who fancies Layale from afar. However, in the midst of all of this salon gossip and romance, many characters have to make hugely transformative life decisions, and while most things end well not all storylines are completed or end how you may like.

Rana's Wedding

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad, Palestinian director of the Oscar-nominated 2005 film, "Paradise Now" (al-janna al-aan), Al-Quds fi Youm Akhar (2002)
Rating: Not rated
Running Time: 90 minutes

Hany Abu-Assad's somber film ''Rana's Wedding'' builds considerable suspense as it follows the quest of Rana (Clara Khoury), a feisty young Palestinian woman living in Jerusalem, to marry her boyfriend, Khalil (Khalifa Natour), by a certain time or be forced to return to Egypt with her father. But on a deeper level the movie is really a meditation on the frustrating experience of living under a state of siege and the difficulty of carrying on the semblance of normal life in such circumstances.

Student Review by Caitlin Eaves

Rana’s  heart wrenching and utterly frustrating search for her boyfriend in Jerusalem is hard to watch at times as the clock is ticking and Khalil is not answering his phone. While this love story is unique, what makes it so is the director’s choice to depict Jerusalem the way he did—as an impossibly dangerous place where things like free-movement do not exist. The focus is on how much more difficult every-day life is under siege. Although it is difficult to imagine their eventual freedom in such a war-scarred setting the movie ends with a poem by a famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish calling for peace and understanding.

The Band’s Visit

Directed by Israeli writer and director Eran Kolirin, 2007
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 86 minutes

Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin's debut feature, The Band’s Visit, is a subtle, heartfelt, and humane work that goes a long way toward dissolving the incredibly complex cultural divide that continues to plague the Middle East. When the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra flies from Egypt to Israel to perform at the opening of an Arab culture center, they are left stranded at the airport. Their leader, Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai), orders the handsome violinist, Khaled (Saleh Bakri), to solve their predicament, but it turns out that he's gotten the wrong information. By that time, it's too late. All eight members are left standing alone in a quiet desert town far from their intended destination with no way to get where they need to go. Tired, hungry, and confused, they find shelter at a restaurant run by the pretty but brash Dina (Ronit Elkabetz).

Student Review by Bruce Martin

The Band’s Visit is a thought-provoking and funny movie illustrating how it is possible for great relationships to develop from the strangest of situations. The formal maestro and the colorful restaurant owner, along with the charming violinist and his socially awkward host form relationships based on a human culture that crosses all borders. In its entertaining dialogue, The Band’s Visit shows how cultural misunderstandings do not always result in conflict but, rather, in laughter.

Nasser 56

Directed by Mohamed Fadel, 1996
Running Time: 142 minutes

This Egyptian classic, starring the mega movie star Ahmad Zaki, dramatically renders a monumentally important event in modern Arab history: the nationalization of the Suez Canal. This campaign was led by the charismatic Egyptian president, Gamal Abd El-Nasser, who spearheaded the 1952 republican revolution and then served as president from 1956 until his death in 1970. Remembered not only as the face and voice of Arab Nationalism, Nasser is considered a pioneering leader of the world-wide anti-colonial resistance movements witnessed in the post-WWII Third World. This film features many of Nasser's most famous speeches.

Student Review by Bruce Martin

Nasser 56 details the personal struggles and desires of the man behind one of the most important events in Arab history. Though its length runs long and its nostalgic indulgence is made to patriotically glorify Egypt’s Nasser. As a student of Arabic, Nasser 56 is of great importance in the understanding of historical and modern relationships between Egypt and old colonial world powers, and in understanding Egypt’s complex relationship with the Middle East. It greatly benefitted me to be given a glimpse of the rhetorical power of fuSHa used in Nasser’s speeches on the topic of the nationalization of the Suez Canal. However, be prepared to see about 30 minutes worth of Nasser smoking cigarettes behind his desk and thinking hard. On the whole, this is a movie that is only 15 years old and has already become a classic.

Summer in La Goulette

Directed by Ferid Boughedir, 1995
Running Time: 100 minutes

Set in a Tunisian melting-pot town in 1967 and loosely based on the reminiscences of filmmaker Ferid Boughedir, this bittersweet comedy-drama tells the tale of how the secret conspiracy between three teen girls to find lovers wreaks havoc on the lives and friendships between their disparate families. The fathers have known each other many years, but underneath their friendship lies a silent but strong undercurrent of tension that relates to their different religions and ethnic origins. One family is Muslim, one is Jewish and the last is Roman Catholic. The trouble erupts because each of the girls chooses to dally with men outside their religions. (Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide)

Student Review by Bruce Martin

Summer in La Goulette is a great film from the Maghreb with an entertaining plot that details the experiences of three girls, and their protective fathers, as they find teenage love in their coastal Tunisian city. The movie also shows an interesting portrait of the varied perspectives of many of the towns’ inhabitants concerning their religions, their Tunisian home and its relation to Europe and the Middle East. The best experience of the movie is the exposure to Moroccan Arabic. It is a smooth and beautiful dialect takes many pronunciations from French. As we are not exposed to this dialect in class this movie is a great opportunity to widen your colloquial knowledge.