Sharaf - A Critique. When reality betrays memory!

That was an interesting experience ..

I'm not saying it was an interesting film .. the film itself wasn't what I expected .. but the whole experience was something different: lots of nostalgia and lots of memories that brought to the forefront a myriad web of feelings .. oh dear!

The novel was written by one of my teenage and early twenties heroes, Sonallah Ibrahim, who the last time I read for was 1999! After that, my bratty shit disturbing spirit was respectful to his rejection of the state award .. which gave the romantic in me some hope that there still exists some people who could stand up to their reputation and keep upholding some ideals.

His writings were classically fascinated with the style of historizing the developments of the era he was documenting through news clippings between which he builds a drama with a well-documented social context. He used the same style to voice an anti-colonial & anti-globalist position that also challenged the capitalist narrative. His signature methodology was very vivid in "August Star", "Zaat", "The Committee" and "Sharaf".

At the 10th Calgary Arab Film Nights Festival, "Sharaf" was among lineup .. and I was so stoked to enjoy a nostalgic trip down the memory lane. I braced myself to recall these emotions .. and was also excited to the fact that the European production used non-Egyptian actors to do an Egyptian context and dialect!

Some Egyptians, especially from the expatriate community, would not be impressed that non-Egyptians would play Egyptian roles. I would understand that - it is something between nostalgia and superiority-bordering-racism! If they are sticking too much to "the proper" and are against experimenting (especially in the arts) .. they wouldn't be too much different from those who stand at bay from political correctness ..

F**k you both .. time has changed .. sorry not sorry!

I attended "The Merchant of Venice" few years ago, and Shylock was a woman .. AND I LOVED IT!

I am having this exact creative dilemma as we speak .. with my play "Interrogation" .. as I can't find enough Egyptian actors .. but I trust in the creativity of my artistic director!

This brings me to Samir Nasr, the director of "Sharaf". I don't know why I got the impression that it was a low budget film. Despite the richness of Sonallah Ibrahim's novel, and the richness of the joint co-production from Germany, France and Luxembourg, the end result seemed like an experimental film. The investment seemed only in the details of the prison bathrooms, the metal water faucets, pipes and the Turkish bathrooms. This is funny despite the interesting inventions that I saw with my own eyes inside, involving the plastic barrels with holes from which water comes out through syringes. It is very complicated but it highlights the need for creativity and agency, usually starting at the prisoners need level, then adopted by the institution. The same is said about the arrival's "welcome party" for newcomers .. who need to be totally broken and subdued. The elements were there .. the human resources, the dogs, the sticks, the scary sound effects .. all these were available and the director could've created a more aesthetically realistic scene. The same goes to the torture scenes before they got the confessions of "Sharaf"!

That's why I felt the director didn't do justice to the novel despite the fact that Sonallah Ibrahim himself had participated in the process of adaptation of the novel to suit the screen!

Back to Ibrahim, I remember reading the novel in 1999 and enjoying the detailed account of both smuggling stuff through hiding stuff in the prisoner's rectum. If the European production couldn't depict that, then what makes it different from the Egyptian, which wasn't there because of censorship of any artistic product that is critical of the corrective or punitive establishment?! The only answer to that is what I fear, either self censorship or lack of creativity at the director's end!

The most striking theme that I didn't see, which despite the aforementioned weaknesses ruined the whole film, was the sexual lust that was prevalent in the novel. "Sharaf", the name of our protagonist, the Arabic word for "honour", was deliberately chosen to reflect the lack of it at all levels. Here, according to the novel, "Sharaf" was sentenced to prison term because he had killed the Australian foreigner who wanted to take away his honour by sexually advancing towards him! Inside the prison, the Kafkan theme of reduction and metamorphosis hit him as lack of honour affect him throughout the different stages of imprisonment. This keeps reducing him till he normalizes with the idea, step by step, till the ironic reality forces him to part ways with what he was originally imprisoned trying to defend! The good thing the director did was the symbolic use of the razor, Made in Egypt, used by "Sharaf" to remove his body hair on his quest for survival. Nevertheless, I see this as a patriarchal portrayal that basically contradicts the many scenes the director used to highlight the involvement of a women in the male-dominant correctional establishment!

Speaking of which, the critique offered in the novel to the religious figure was original, coming from the progressive/leftist Sonallah Ibrahim. But the portrayal of the director made the religious critique, or shall I say critique of the religious, lose its original depth and add instead a funny theme of a mediocre crook with beard!

Again, the two competing establishments, the police state and theocracy, are no different in corruption, patriarchy and mediocrity. But this was not captured by Samir Nasr!

Written October 2023