Saturday, March 29, 2008

AFI Dallas movie review and filmmaker interview: Captain Abu Raed

Believe in your dreams and you might find yourself achieving them.

By John P. Meyer

After watching Amin Matalqa's narrative feature film debut, Captain Abu Raed, it's easy to see why filmgoers at Sundance voted it the Audience Award for World Cinema (in the dramatic category). The movie sneaks up on you, catches you up in the spell of its humanity and then delivers a good kick in the pants.

Abu Raed finds his hat

The story sounds simple enough: Abu Raed (Nadim Sawalha), an aging widower, works as a janitor in the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. One day he finds - while emptying the waste bin - a discarded airline pilot's cap, and decides to wear it home. Upon leaving his bus and beginning the long climb to his flat (in a time-worn, modest-means neighborhood), Raed is spotted by a kid who sees him wearing the cap and refuses to be disabused of the notion that the old man is a real pilot.

Abu Raed - sensing a need in young Tareq (and the other neighborhood kids he interests in the newfound local "celebrity") - decides to play along, and assumes the mantle of epic world traveler, regaling the youngsters with tales of globe-spanning adventure. Fortunately, Abu Raed is a well-read man (whose personal library houses some 2,000 volumes, we discover) and thus his charade bears up well under childish scrutiny. He can even explain the basics of aerodynamics to a gaggle of inquisitive youngsters - a feat that might strain the abilities of quite a few actual pilots.

Tareq and his friends crave a glimpse of the world beyond their own doorsteps; they're looking for escape, and Abu Raed's story-spinning provides just that. For his part, Abu Raed finds new purpose in sharing his worldly wisdom (grounded though it may be) with such eager listeners.

The real pilot meets the pretend one

Meanwhile, Nour (Rana Sultan) - a lovely young woman who is, in fact, an actual airline pilot - is having problems of her own living up to the social expectations of her rich and conservative parents. Her father is constantly introducing her to prospective suitors, but Nour is presently more interested in finding her own place in the grand scheme of things than attempting to fill a niche in somebody else's. (And given the charm factor demonstrated by several of the would-be matches her family selects for her, I dare you to blame her: informed that she's an airline pilot, a clueless chap named Samer states: "I like pilots." When it's revealed that she wanted to fly since she was a little girl, he pronounces: "I like little girls." Oh, man...)

When Nour and Abu Raed meet on the bus traveling home from the airport (her Mercedes has broken down), they strike up an unlikely friendship based on shared respect which ends up enriching both their lives in unexpected ways.

Complication: a neighborhood lad named Murad (Hussine Al-Souse) has seen Abu Raed working his real job at the airport, and eventually succeeds in convincing the other kids that their heroic globe-trotting captain is nothing but a "scrubber of toilets," as Murad puts it. Murad is compelled to tear down the heroic facade because of his own issues involving familial abuse at the hands of an alcoholic father. (And here we establish a major theme of the film: misery and cruelty breed misery and cruelty, while kindness and generosity lead to more of the same.)

So who's this guy? I'm not saying, but you'll likely cry when you find out.

But nothing is cut and dried in Matalqa's film: there are no sugar-coated solutions to problems or fairy tale endings. Take what happens when Abu Raed tries to help Tareq get back to school: the boy's father has posted him on a street corner with a box of candy and pastries, enlisting the kid's aid in creating some much needed income for the family. After trying unsuccessfully to explain the long-term importance of education to Tareq's father, Abu Raed begins simply buying the entire box of treats from the boy early each day, freeing him to attend classes. But his father - sensing an ace salesman in the making - short circuits further studies by sending him off to work at his older brother's merchant stall.

At another dramatic turn, Abu Raed makes a stab at taking the Jodi Foster/Charles Bronson route to free Murad from his vicious cycle of family violence, but of course he fails to carry through with such a soul-blighting solution (as we knew he would).

In final analysis, Captain Abu Raed holds that life without purpose amounts to nothing more than taking up space, while the strength to dream - combined with acts of generosity and courage - leads to redemption.

UNIVERSAL TRUTH: "Sometimes things happen in life that turn you down a different path." - Abu Raed to Nour, re. why he ended up being a janitor

CAN'T SAY I BLAME HER: "Excuse me, I have to go shoot myself." - Nour to father and the prospective suitor to whom she's just been introduced.

TALL ORDER?: "Live the way you want, not the way society wants you to." - Abu Raed to Nour, sipping tea on the terrace above his flat, overlooking the sun-drenched evening landscape of Amman

Interview with Amin Matalqa

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We invited filmmaker (writer, director, co-producer) Amin Matalqa to visit Pegasus News World Headquarters to talk about his film. It had premiered it at AFI the previous evening (March 28), and it will screen again on Sunday (March 30) and Tuesday (April 1).

The interview runs a bit long at almost 35 minutes - but so be it. I learned a great deal about both the making of the movie and the unique experiences of a visionary filmmaker who moved from Jordan to Ohio when he was 13, established a successful career in telecommunications and then chucked it all to move to Los Angeles and enter film school.

WARNING: this audio interview is replete with plot spoilers, so listen - before seeing the film - at your own risk.

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• Pegasus News Week in View: Dallas tells AFI, “That’s a wrap!” (April 3, 2008)

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