Poisonous Roses: A Film with Almost No Events or Acting?

CAIRO, Dec. 13 (SEE)- It is not an entirely new experience when you log into a film theater and feel that the events are very slow and the sound minimal. After all, there’s a general direction of heading towards less exaggerated sound effects and no hyperbolic drama particularly in independent films.

But how far should this go, and should we forget that films,especially those shown in theaters, are mainly about entertainment and – if the term entertainment may be controversial – an intriguing presentation of reality? So, what’s the point in showing an understated and too focused view of reality in a 80-min film? Life is not so mono-rhythmic.

Suppressed sexuality and the escaping the confines of poverty may be the theme of Poisonous Roses, directed by Ahmed Fawzy Saleh, but we see too little of that, pretty much the same scenes repeated over and over. Every day, the heroine Tahiya, acted by MerihanMagdy, an actress of great potential which they invested very little of – walks through the sewage-filled alleys to visit the guy who more than halfway through the film turns out to be her brother and brings him lunch in a multilayered pot.

They made good to show her with no makeup; it was a new way of seeing Merihan but I waited for her to actually act. The same goes for the mother, acted by the great Safaa El-Toukhy, or the brother, Ibrahim El-Nagari. Nothing except for a hint from the wizard acted by Mahmoud Hemida. We probably got to see more actors from secondary characters at the brother’s various workplaces.

Such a loss to see great actors but very little expression.And with such minimal plot and characters, the film hardly qualifies for long play, maybe a short film.

Upon finishing the film, a friend and I discussed which characters may be taken out of the film and the story would lose its anchor. We agreed that they could all be done without, including the heroine. The only aspect we would miss much was actually the food pot!