Film Review: Everything Changed Since "Black Box" Opened

The "Black Box" film started to be screened locally a few days ago. The screening time of the film is somehow critical as it comes amid the breakout of COVID-19 second wave.

However, the Black Box film gains reached 3 million LE. till now. It is starring Mona Zaki, Mohamed Farrag, Mostafa Khater, Sherief Salama, and Asmaa Galal. It is written and directed by Ahmed Kamel.

In a nutshell, the story of the film revolves around a celebrated lawyer (Sherif Salama) whose wife Yasmin (Mona Zaki) is expecting a new baby and she is working for celebrating her birthday. Then, 2 thieves: Sayed (Mohamed Farrag) and Hadi (Mostafa Khater) decided to break into the house for getting some secret-files from her husband's private office.

The Black Box film starts with a very cheerful event which is a romantic video call between the mentioned couple and a nice birthday celebration.

The events take place in only one day and mainly in one place which is Yasmin's house. Choosing a short time period of the events creates a sense of excitement and thrill, the organisers make sure that the events are taking place quickly and continuously.

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The setting is characterized by the luxury of furniture and prestigious decorations which is marking a change in the mood of reality films that reflects the misery of the society.

More than 30 minutes of the Black Box film focuses on Yasmin's daily pre-bedtime routine such as doing exercises, taking medicines, talking to her baby, and many many minor details were removed.

The movement of the camera and the way the shots were taken imitate the sights of an observer, they give the audience this uncomfortable sense of being watched without notice, just the feeling of being watched.

Furthermore, a lot of violence, harassment, and abuse are involved which makes it unsuitable for -18 people, in addition to many sexual phrases.

The Black Box's plot should be improved more than that as the film is only some conversations between "Sayed" and "Hadi who wants to get the files to receive money from Yasmin's husband's enemies to save his father on one hand, and Yasmin who is trying to save herself and her baby from those dangerous thieves.

The turning point of the Black Box film lies in Yasmin running to a secret room in the house, well locked and contains her husband's private and mysterious secrets such as the deals he held, his relationships with other women, and bags of foreign currencies.

Those scenes mark an outstanding performance by Zaki as she beautifully reflected the feelings of fear, shock, and resistance. Her life won't be the same again, her life was a fraud.

Her life is turned upside down especially when she sympathizes with Hadi and helped him in having the required files to save his father as a kind of revenge from her husband.

To sum up, as it is mentioned above the story is somehow poor, however, the process of the production is figurative, the images, the landscape, the employed sound effects are harmoniously organized. Farrag and Khater don't show anything new about their performance skills, unlike Zaki who performed one of her strongest roles.