A couple of nights ago I accidentally ended up at an event at the Royal Film Commission because my friend who was hanging out with me at the time wanted to go and the affair sounded interesting so we went together. There was a screening of three short Jordanian movies by local talents, and we watched all three standing up because there were more people present than chairs. The films were: Al Balkooneh, Hara 13, and Bitter Pineapples. Unfortunately, I don’t have the names of the directors.
The open-air event was well organized and I generally liked it, but I noticed the following things about the films themselves:
1- All three of them were set up in old Ammani neighborhoods, with a touch of romantic poverty.
2- All three of them featured lower-middle class to lower-class characters struggling either in love or family relations.
3- All three films’ scripts did not come across as convincing to me. There were Bedouin characters in one film where the setting was an Ammani neighborhood, and dialog in all three scripts was not true to life. For example, in two of the three movies there were “zo3ran” characters who really did not sound the part to me. I am guessing that because there is a significant class distance between the films’ staffs and the characters in these films that this was so. Plus, I know too much street language to be convinced with anything that distant from the real thing.
4- The stories, although set in lower-middle class neighborhoods and featuring fit characters, carried with them the controversies and concerns of their upper-middle and upper class makers. As such, there were some gaps in the stories which rendered them untrue to their settings.
Overall, however, I was impressed with the motivation these young film makers had and with the quality of their work. It’s so refreshing to feel that there is a cultural renaissance in the making here in Jordan, but for it to really be representative of us all as Jordanians and Arabs, it has to involve people from all classes and not just privileged upper class talents who can afford to realize their artistic visions.
I didn’t watch these filsm and probably never will, but it’s good to know that someone is trying to address these issues. Movies rarely offer a true solution to such problems but they draw people’s attention to them and that’s good enough
Hey Tololy,
As you observed, the 3 films had the setting/mood in common.
As not every viewer may know, all 3 films were produced in the same neighbourhood in the same restricted time period as part of a very demanding workshop with a challengingly tight budget. I think the fact that there’s a theme running throughout the evening as you’re watching is a good thing :) Especially in this age of fragmented shuffle-ing.
Of course, I’m a subjective crew member (composer of the ‘Bitter Pineapples’ soundtrack), so I’m biased by default…but I also have a tiny bit of insight I thought might be of some value.
Hi Zeina,
It’s wonderful that you as a person who worked on one of the films left me a comment. It’s always good to exchange opinions and yours as an “insider’s account” is very valuable.