Decided to go to a movie with my wife today. For the first time in months, I agreed to go to Marina Mall on a Thursday. It actually started off fine, parked my car, went to the crescent side, had my daily dose of starbucks. So far so good!

Then we decided to check out what movies r playing, to me it was the perfect way to spend some time with my wife in a way, and avoid the total anarchy in the jungle that is marina mall. Usually I book in advance, but since this wasnt planned, we got there and had a choice between ’shark attack3′, ‘Laws of Attraction’, and ‘Alexandria New York’. Please note that both my wife and I are not big fans of Arabic movies, but we said its Yousif Shaheen, at least its something deep and serious.

We lasted exactly 35 mins and left! Nothing against the film itself, it was actually interesting. There were 2 reasons we left the movie -

  1. It was censored beyond reason. There was a dance scene with 2 kisses, one passed the censors, the other didnt (go figure!). A ballet dancer being carried was censored, we’re talking ballet, one of the finest classical arts in the world! Of course a ballet dancer’s tutu is a million times worse than having a sword go through someone’s eye then from there down to their neck and then grabbing their intestines and eating them!
  2. This is the more annoying reason. Nearly half the crowd was laughing throughout the film, and please remember this is a serious film. What really pissed me off was people laughing loudly especially during any ballet scene, and worse, when the main character was posing as Hamlet in an acting class, talking in classical Arabic and getting emotional and into the character he was playing, with screams and tears. The reaction of the crowd was sarcastic comments loudly and laughter. It really is a sad time we live in.

I told my wife that I would much rather wait until this comes out on DVD and watch it, than sit through this! She totally agreed. It was disgraceful. This is art, about art, and all it recieved throughout was laughter and sarcasm.

My wife and I were discussing the situation after we left. How did we reach this level of lack of appreciation of anything artistic. This reminded me of a show I saw on Discovery a couple of days ago, about the director John Woo (”Face/Off”, “Mission Impossible II”). The documentary was about his procession as a director. He is Chinese, and started directing in the late 60’s in Hong Kong. At the time, according to him, all he was allowed to do was comedies. He talks about how the producers would not let him do anything else, noone would finance it, noone would watch it if it wasnt comedy. When he decided that he cannot do any more comedies, he switched to another production company, which also forced him into comedies. He calls that the dark ages of Chinese cinema.

This brings me back to our movie experience, we tried to come up with one drama Arabic movie in the past few years, not including Yousif Shaheen’s films. We couldnt think of a single film, but then again we are not experts in Arabic films. Compare that to the black and white era, with all the classic drama and romance films that everybody still remembers.

So, in the end, we agreed it wasnt the crowd’s fault, its much bigger than that. Most of them probably expected a comedy, and were disappointed.

  • Is it the film industry’s fault? Treating people like cattle and producing anything that pleases the herds only!
  • Is it society’s fault? We refuse to appreciate art in all its forms and we are in fact only part of a simple minded herd?
  • Or is it that most Arabs who watch these films live in miserable conditions that all they want is a break from life to laugh?

Please remember that Al Limby is probably the most successful Arabic film in recent history, a film about an idiot who is constantly high going through life.

Anyway, we decided to leave marina mall and go somewhere quiet, on a Thursday night! hah! Guess where we ended up? In Yarmouk co-op! We took a tour there, saw the bookstore there, which is actually impressive, found out they had a Noodles restaurant there, got something from the excellent BreadTalk, walked around, bought a bar of chocolate, actually had a very pleasant time there! Shouldve gone there from the beginning!