Written by ;- Mamdough
Shalaby.
From the first moment while we explore a short feature film
entitled the bus, we realize that we are about a great film of a film veteran.
The film begins with a close shot to an o'clock and we
see a hand emerges to stop it, a few shots follow, each one lasts a second or
two, summarize our waking up habits, which we experience throughout our lives,
as entering of the bathroom and the tap's water and a cup of tea or coffee then
shutting the door behind us, all these daily rituals we know and memorize all
by heart, and shared by all people, whether in Germany or Italy or Japan or
Egypt or anywhere else.
The director Kareem Ibrahim (or kareem kandil) reduced
the time in these rituals of waking up by a few seconds and he has confidence
that the lengthening of these rituals would get his audiences tired.
From the first moment we are with a filmmaker aware of
his time and the traditions of watching and he understands well what is the
weak time - as a film term - and the strong time, that is what we will explore
via this director.
The director chooses the moment of shutting the door
to present the titles of the film, which we read word of bus in German and in
Arabic underneath, while we listen to the music of the film, which be played by
a guitar, and the same music will be
repeated throughout the film in a carefully chosen moments by Kareem.
Then we see the camera receives the heroine of the
film through the glass of the entrance of the house, we see her approaching and
then she opens the door that we see her face in a close up, and we amazed also because
of her good acting, which summarizes in one gesture a compensation of boredom
and despair, such feelings can not be represented in such simple and neat
approach except by a professional actress, then we listen to her voice from outside
the shot.
The film is presented in the narration way through the
heroine of the film, that her narration is integrating with the eloquent dialogue in this amazing film, as we
listen to her voice tells us (it's the seventh) and the director takes us on a wide
shot to see the heroine of the film passes the road in front of her house, to
appear in the next wide shot where someone's feet stands at the forefront of the shot at a bus stop, during the
continuation of the narration of the heroine to tell us (I won't bear such cold and dark morning any
more).
The camera continues to receive her until she reaches
near the man, the director then cut to another wide shot of the bus stop
where we see someone there beside the heroine.
The director in a few seconds establishes the time and
the place of his film and the psychological mode of the heroine, then he cuts
to the same place in the same angle, but it's coming closer, while we see the
heroine looks forward to the side of the road in anticipation and waiting for
the bus and look at her hand watch, and then we listen to her voice from
outside the scene ( it is exact seven o'clock in a cold winter day) and then the shot
changes into a shot represents the point of view of her companion who also waiting for the bus
while we listen to her voice ( the day is such as yesterday is such as
tomorrow).
Those words will remind us the absurd theater, but now
we're not at the moment of absurdity, it's a moment of a contemporary citizen
represents us and pronounces what is taking place in our souls, where the whole
film belongs to the strong time - in dramatic terminology - every detail, every
second is placed carefully to install the psychological state and a common humane
sense we all share.
And while the heroine continuing her narration, her
companion interrupts her asking for the time, we have been knowing this person
before in the wide shot therefore the director brings him directly in a close shot,
while the heroine continues its commentary, which makes us see what she sees, she
knows nothing about this man except he is just a person, now she knows how he
wears and what he holds in his hand and she expresses to us about her
impressions about him.
This eloquent filmic style can not be not made, but a
veteran director, who knows how to present the characters of the film in a perfect
time to shorten the bitter thinness and dwell that we are used to in the
Egyptian cinema, and sometimes in the international cinema.
We are now more familiar with this person but the
curiosity still exist as the heroine, in this way the film flows in skilled and
eloquent language.
The film starts from this moment, it is just a dialogue
between two persons, which is about the extraordinary experience of this man's
life, without containing those delusions that we learned in our study of the
dramatic film which must contains a crisis, the crisis turns into a conflict and
to keep developing to reach its summit until the triumph of one of the counterparts,
which often make us satisfied.
It is a modernism film, as an art theory had been
establishing during the new wave in France in the sixties of the twentieth
century which reaches the height of its luster in the movies of Abbas
Kiarostami, especially his Taste of cherry-which winning the golden Palme in 1997,
where the structure of the film shortens the life by the life itself to hit the
basics of traditional filmmaking.
The bus contains on the language of literary dialogue
seriously, especially in the monologue of the man who speaks of his career as a
former war photographer, and his former job and what happened to him and the
end of his work and then discharged from the work.
We may ask, is this man crazy? Although the director
reveals him to us when we see him goes back in panic and we discover later that
he saw nothing to fear about, he is quite crazy, but we do not accuse him, we
also do not deal with his madness as a disease because we are like him.
How can we dare to accuse the man who summarizes our
pain in this difficult time? The heroine herself does not consider him as a
madman.
Kareem Ibrahim wrote this script depending on a short
story written by him, to see a practical example of the director- author theory,
but this theory goes to a new level with Kareem Ibrahim, It a promised era where
any author can make his film, by investing this new media to enrich his
literary, because one picture equals a thousand word.
The modernism of the film and the literary and accurate
of the dialogue to expressing the characters and their modes, and the use of the
hand camera instead of the fix one, and employing the music with such dexterity
through one theme repeats continuously - Kareem is the one who composed and played
it himself - and presenting the film by these very short shots, which lasts
Seconds to summarize generously everything and express the two characters, and the
good narration.
All these touches present him as a first class
director, and we can not consider him as an amateur, he is very professional
has his tools and able to do all he wants eloquently and easily, we are about a
promised director, I wish him to continue and I am confident that he will able
to get what he deserves.
The director Kareem Ibrahim (or Kareem Kandil) is the
son of the Alexandrian stage actor Mohammad Ibrahim, he was born in Alexandria
in 1981, he obtained a bachelor of science from the University of Alexandria,
he has been involved in the Alexandrian theater movement since childhood, he
acted in a play for children starring Iman Elserafy, Ezzat Alemam and Jehan
Noor and directed by theater artistic director Sobhy Yosif.
He worked a period of time in graphics in Alexandria and then traveled to Germany
to continue his work in graphics; He is in Germany now working for a company
receives requests for foreign students.
He did not learn in a professional cinema institute but
the impact of Rainer Fassbinder, Godard, Abbas Kiarostami are shown completely
in his film which deserves to be praised.
You can see the film at the following link: -
I wrote this article in Arabic first and posted it in the two following links;-
All good wishes.
Mamdough Shalaby.
