Microphone: A comedy? Documentary? Fiction? Non-Fiction? Feature Film? All or none or "All and None"?
It was a treat to get to watch the Egyptian movie, Microphone, last night at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon as a part of the 23rd Cascade Festival of African Films (http://www.africanfilmfestival.org/). This is a month long film series that takes place annually in Portland, Oregon, USA, and where one can watch all kinds of African movies, documentaries and feature films- which otherwise one would not get to see in mainstream US American theaters.
The movie is about the underground arts scene in Alexandria, Egypt and it was filmed before the Egyptian revolution. It gives one a window into the lives of the people in Alexandria, Egypt, with great street photography and cinematic skill. The political music of the bands portrayed in the movie, with subtitled lyrics, is fantastic- for both their political musical content.
Last night, following the movie, the audience had a skype conversation with Ahmad Abdalla
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Abdalla) about his movie.
It was an interesting conversation with the director who was showing us how to pull off a night-out. He had been filming the night before, and had not slept through the night in order to make it for the 7:00AM local skype call with us on the west coast of the USA at 9pm. Through the conversation, it emerged that the director was an active blogger in the 2000s, and one day while he was surfing the web, he saw some pictures of graffiti taken by a fellow blogger in Alexandria. He was drawn to the art, and wanted to find out more about the artist. He found out to his surprise that the gripping work was by a 17 year old woman named Aya from Alexandria- with fantastic art work and mature political content- something that was ahead of graffiti in New York, Berlin or London. He added that graffiti was new in Egypt at that time, and he knew of only 4 artists in all of Egypt. Now there are many more artists.
He decided to make a documentary about this woman. As he started working on this project, he found out about her friends, who were in a band that played music and sang in English. He decided to include their story in his project. One of the woman's parents did not know that their daughter was in the music scene, and she would have been forbidden to perform if they knew this. The band-members would thus paint their faces with heavy mascara so that they could not be identified. The girl's parents found out about their daughter after the movie was released, and now they are OK with her playing music.
This band is called : Massive Scar Era. or MASCARA
http://www.myspace.com/massivescarera
The director, Ahmad Adalla, came to know about the underground music scene in Alexandria with 30 odd bands and decided to include this in his documentary project. When, he was asked by an audience member during the question and answer session to name his favourite American hip-hop artist, he gave a surprising answer- he was not really into hip-hop, and personally did not like it; however, he did not let his personal music taste influence his choice of bands for the movie. He did not ask any band to compose any music specifically for the movie, but recorded their music.
During the film-making process, he was questioning the idea of making a boring documentary with talking heads, and decided to make a full length fictional feature film, with incidents from the real life of the people on and off the camera. The director was open to new ideas during the filming, and in the interview he mentions how one of the singers in the movie was more used to a religious setting where he sang songs based on traditional music accompanied by traditional oriental instruments. The singer was not comfortable singing with the rock-guitar and drums, but he was asked to sing with a rock band as an experiment: he practiced with them once, and the next time they shot him singing with the band - a which made the editor's cut. In the scene in the movie, he sings a traditional song, which might have been Sufi in its origin, a powerful song blending Love for one's Lover with love for GOD, a common sleight of hand in Sufi songs, with the rock band in an apartment- and this made it one of the many epic scenes in the movie.
The director blended the real life incidents of his life and that of the main actor into the movie: themes of returning to one's hometown after years of living abroad and breaking up with a partner. He used that to showcase that some things are quite different for men and women in Egypt- simple things that men take for granted need not be true for women. The director said he wanted to portray this because this is something that is in one's face everyday. As a way of an example from real life, he related, how a week ago, his sister who is also a film maker, was questioned by the police and taking in for interrogation: the police were surprised how a single woman could be living in an apartment all by herself without a male relative- and doing something objectionable like taking still photos with her mobile camera.
He also wanted to portray the minorities in the cinema- but not just minorities in a demographic sense- based on socially constructed markers like religion or race- but based on self-identities like a musician, a graffiti artist, a skater or a hip-hop rapper. He wanted to show how people wanted to build a new identity for themselves that was not a direct copy of the past- sometime that means having to transcend things that you love like the music of the Umm Kulthum and her era. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Kulthum). He knew that many people in the East and the West had a nostalgia for Alexandria as a place where many minorities used to live in harmony,which was portrayed in the book, the Alexandria Quarted, by Laurence Durrell, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alexandria_Quartet)- but what he wanted to portray was his generation. In the interview he refused to call himself a part of the New Wave of Egpytian/and/or African cinema- but said that every person was a new wave, and there was not one New Wave but many multiplicities that we need to be cognizant of. He did not hope for one genre of things to succeed but hoped that there be place for all kinds of music in the future in Egypt and the world- whether it be rock, hip-hop or traditional music.
I felt that the director was successful in blending in music with real life - something that is not done adroitly in a majority of Bollywood movies; where a sudden song can be jarring to the flow of story. I liked how the movie begins with just scenes depicting the characters: they are not introduced by a narrator, and that the audience has to work to make sense of the characters. Some of the scenes are comic like the woman who is the "camera-man" for the movie, telling the director that it is a bullshit idea to film her in front of the camera- he should stop philosophizing and stop shooting her- but her bored look while smoking a cigarette with a superman t-shirt is priceless- with the catch that when this scene comes on in the movie you have no way of knowing if she is going to be a major character or not. It also makes one question the notion of using the term "camera-man", and how we might have implicitly assumed that the unseen person operating the camera is a man.
I was also amazed to learn that the film-editor took nearly 8 months to edit the raw footage- this movie was a product of months of hard work by so many people; it is so much easier to consume art than to produce it.
The director mentioned another coincidence that affected the movie- the movie was released on Jan 25, 2010 (?), the day the Egyptian revolution started. According to the director Egyptians, love movies, and attend movies in droves on national and religious holidays, but after the revolution started, it was not safe for people to go to theaters- till 2-3 month later, and so the movie was not a commercial success- despised being released with 25 copies of the movie out of the roughly 400 theaters in Egypt.. It is popular now when it is shown on cable-TV and other TV broadcasts. He said that many people do not want independent movies to succeed, even ones with a chance for commercial success like his movie, because they feel that they will harm mainstream Egyptian commercial cinema, and try to work behind the scenes to stop the screening of these movies.
What this meant was that the plan he had in mind, to release a CD with many of the bands featured in the movie, never came to fruition because the movie did not make enough money to fund this project. The tacit understanding with the bands had been that he would use their music for free in the movie but produce a CD promoting their music after the movie.
This film also raises question about immigration: some of the characters in the movie want to go abroad, some are returning to Egypt after spending time abroad, some to get a Phd, others to have a working class life at a hot-dog stand.
I felt it was a delight for me to be present in the audience and listen to this informed and intelligent Egyptian- he was answering for me some of the questions I have in my own life about which themes to choose and how to go about exploring them. I really feel lucky to have found out more about keeping a receptive mind and letting things guide you as they come to you- one may not know where one is going, but one must be aware that there is a possibility for something new and exciting around the corner.
Link to the movie website: http://www.microphone-film.com/
 |
| From: http://www.microphone-film.com/ |
It was a treat to get to watch the Egyptian movie, Microphone, last night at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon as a part of the 23rd Cascade Festival of African Films (http://www.africanfilmfestival.org/). This is a month long film series that takes place annually in Portland, Oregon, USA, and where one can watch all kinds of African movies, documentaries and feature films- which otherwise one would not get to see in mainstream US American theaters.
The movie is about the underground arts scene in Alexandria, Egypt and it was filmed before the Egyptian revolution. It gives one a window into the lives of the people in Alexandria, Egypt, with great street photography and cinematic skill. The political music of the bands portrayed in the movie, with subtitled lyrics, is fantastic- for both their political musical content.
Last night, following the movie, the audience had a skype conversation with Ahmad Abdalla
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Abdalla) about his movie.
 |
| Graffiti on the wall: a scene from the movie. Pictures from the download section of http://www.microphone-film.com/ |
It was an interesting conversation with the director who was showing us how to pull off a night-out. He had been filming the night before, and had not slept through the night in order to make it for the 7:00AM local skype call with us on the west coast of the USA at 9pm. Through the conversation, it emerged that the director was an active blogger in the 2000s, and one day while he was surfing the web, he saw some pictures of graffiti taken by a fellow blogger in Alexandria. He was drawn to the art, and wanted to find out more about the artist. He found out to his surprise that the gripping work was by a 17 year old woman named Aya from Alexandria- with fantastic art work and mature political content- something that was ahead of graffiti in New York, Berlin or London. He added that graffiti was new in Egypt at that time, and he knew of only 4 artists in all of Egypt. Now there are many more artists.
 |
| Graffiti Artist Aya on the left- with co-artist in a scene from the movie Pictures from the download section of http://www.microphone-film.com/ |
He decided to make a documentary about this woman. As he started working on this project, he found out about her friends, who were in a band that played music and sang in English. He decided to include their story in his project. One of the woman's parents did not know that their daughter was in the music scene, and she would have been forbidden to perform if they knew this. The band-members would thus paint their faces with heavy mascara so that they could not be identified. The girl's parents found out about their daughter after the movie was released, and now they are OK with her playing music.
This band is called : Massive Scar Era. or MASCARA
http://www.myspace.com/massivescarera
The director, Ahmad Adalla, came to know about the underground music scene in Alexandria with 30 odd bands and decided to include this in his documentary project. When, he was asked by an audience member during the question and answer session to name his favourite American hip-hop artist, he gave a surprising answer- he was not really into hip-hop, and personally did not like it; however, he did not let his personal music taste influence his choice of bands for the movie. He did not ask any band to compose any music specifically for the movie, but recorded their music.
During the film-making process, he was questioning the idea of making a boring documentary with talking heads, and decided to make a full length fictional feature film, with incidents from the real life of the people on and off the camera. The director was open to new ideas during the filming, and in the interview he mentions how one of the singers in the movie was more used to a religious setting where he sang songs based on traditional music accompanied by traditional oriental instruments. The singer was not comfortable singing with the rock-guitar and drums, but he was asked to sing with a rock band as an experiment: he practiced with them once, and the next time they shot him singing with the band - a which made the editor's cut. In the scene in the movie, he sings a traditional song, which might have been Sufi in its origin, a powerful song blending Love for one's Lover with love for GOD, a common sleight of hand in Sufi songs, with the rock band in an apartment- and this made it one of the many epic scenes in the movie.
The director blended the real life incidents of his life and that of the main actor into the movie: themes of returning to one's hometown after years of living abroad and breaking up with a partner. He used that to showcase that some things are quite different for men and women in Egypt- simple things that men take for granted need not be true for women. The director said he wanted to portray this because this is something that is in one's face everyday. As a way of an example from real life, he related, how a week ago, his sister who is also a film maker, was questioned by the police and taking in for interrogation: the police were surprised how a single woman could be living in an apartment all by herself without a male relative- and doing something objectionable like taking still photos with her mobile camera.
He also wanted to portray the minorities in the cinema- but not just minorities in a demographic sense- based on socially constructed markers like religion or race- but based on self-identities like a musician, a graffiti artist, a skater or a hip-hop rapper. He wanted to show how people wanted to build a new identity for themselves that was not a direct copy of the past- sometime that means having to transcend things that you love like the music of the Umm Kulthum and her era. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Kulthum). He knew that many people in the East and the West had a nostalgia for Alexandria as a place where many minorities used to live in harmony,which was portrayed in the book, the Alexandria Quarted, by Laurence Durrell, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alexandria_Quartet)- but what he wanted to portray was his generation. In the interview he refused to call himself a part of the New Wave of Egpytian/and/or African cinema- but said that every person was a new wave, and there was not one New Wave but many multiplicities that we need to be cognizant of. He did not hope for one genre of things to succeed but hoped that there be place for all kinds of music in the future in Egypt and the world- whether it be rock, hip-hop or traditional music.
I felt that the director was successful in blending in music with real life - something that is not done adroitly in a majority of Bollywood movies; where a sudden song can be jarring to the flow of story. I liked how the movie begins with just scenes depicting the characters: they are not introduced by a narrator, and that the audience has to work to make sense of the characters. Some of the scenes are comic like the woman who is the "camera-man" for the movie, telling the director that it is a bullshit idea to film her in front of the camera- he should stop philosophizing and stop shooting her- but her bored look while smoking a cigarette with a superman t-shirt is priceless- with the catch that when this scene comes on in the movie you have no way of knowing if she is going to be a major character or not. It also makes one question the notion of using the term "camera-man", and how we might have implicitly assumed that the unseen person operating the camera is a man.
The director also used innovative techniques like a person remember an event- but not chronologically- in bits and pieces- like a person would in real life. Many of the themes were depicted with a mixture of comedy and tragedy, comic timing, coincidences and with a lot of poetic undercurrents- which is a fantastic achievement in my book. This leads to a gripping movie- which blurs all the genres: comedy, tragedy, documentary, fiction, non-fiction, feature film, and a meta-film.
I was also amazed to learn that the film-editor took nearly 8 months to edit the raw footage- this movie was a product of months of hard work by so many people; it is so much easier to consume art than to produce it.
The director mentioned another coincidence that affected the movie- the movie was released on Jan 25, 2010 (?), the day the Egyptian revolution started. According to the director Egyptians, love movies, and attend movies in droves on national and religious holidays, but after the revolution started, it was not safe for people to go to theaters- till 2-3 month later, and so the movie was not a commercial success- despised being released with 25 copies of the movie out of the roughly 400 theaters in Egypt.. It is popular now when it is shown on cable-TV and other TV broadcasts. He said that many people do not want independent movies to succeed, even ones with a chance for commercial success like his movie, because they feel that they will harm mainstream Egyptian commercial cinema, and try to work behind the scenes to stop the screening of these movies.
What this meant was that the plan he had in mind, to release a CD with many of the bands featured in the movie, never came to fruition because the movie did not make enough money to fund this project. The tacit understanding with the bands had been that he would use their music for free in the movie but produce a CD promoting their music after the movie.
This film also raises question about immigration: some of the characters in the movie want to go abroad, some are returning to Egypt after spending time abroad, some to get a Phd, others to have a working class life at a hot-dog stand.
I felt it was a delight for me to be present in the audience and listen to this informed and intelligent Egyptian- he was answering for me some of the questions I have in my own life about which themes to choose and how to go about exploring them. I really feel lucky to have found out more about keeping a receptive mind and letting things guide you as they come to you- one may not know where one is going, but one must be aware that there is a possibility for something new and exciting around the corner.
 |
| Still from the movie, Microphone. Pictures from the download section of http://www.microphone-film.com/ |
Link to the movie website: http://www.microphone-film.com/
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