Mohamed Malas is perhaps Syria's most well-known, though certainly not only, filmmaker. Despite his status, his films have proven rather difficult to track down. The only one available with English subtitles, is this one, Passion, his first feature after a decade-long hiatus. In Passion, Malas tells the story of a young woman named Imene who re-discovers her love for music when her husband buys her a tape of Oum Kalthoum's. Imene's re-discovered passion for the musical arts brings joy and life to her house and marriage, and she befriends an elderly woman who was at one time Aleppo's most famous chanteuse. But Imene's family life is also fractured. Her beloved brother is a political prisoner, who has languished for a decade behind bars for his democratic activism. The rest of her family is very pious and conservative, especially her Uncle Abou Sobhi, a retired colonel, who keeps an iron grip over his extended family, and especially loathes any kind of progressive self-expression. Imene's life begins to unravel when Abou Sobhi takes her niece out of her care, and begins to send his nephews to spy on Imene's activities, convinced she is leading a life of sin. Imene's husband, Adnan, a cab driver, is more concerned with his own political activism, and is blissfully unaware of Abou Sobhi's attempts to control Imene's personal life. Perhaps what is most eerie about Passion, is the clarity with which Malas depicts a society that is quickly unraveling at the seams, and on the verge of implosion. The deadly cocktail of the personal and political are is all too apparent here, and given the developments in Syria over the past few years, take on a chilling weight. (Malas's new film, Ladder to Damascus, filmed in secret, explores these themes even further.) But his cinematic world is also an ethereal one; his visual style is luminous, making use of soft colors, graceful camerawork, inventive angles, shots through mirrors and other reflective surfaces; at times it has the feeling of a pleasant dream. Malas certainly does not pull any punches in his criticism of contemporary Syrian society, very few of the characters are pleasant or redeemable in any way, but there is a deft humanity to his storytelling. Still, I could help but feel that this is one of his weaker films, despite having not seen his others. He did not quite achieve the balance between the personal and the political that he was going for, and the film could be shorter than it is. But this is still an enthralling and hauntingly beautiful work.
Comments
Post a Comment