Gulf Voices Vol. 1: Short Films (Various, 2009)

[madali]

Gulf Voices Vol. 1: Short Films (Various, 2009)

I admit I have a sick fascination with short films from the gulf. The few times I have seen them, they have been so bad that it would amuse me. I went to this five film screening with very low expectations for its quality and high expectations for its terribleness to entertaining.




Amal’s Cloud (Rawia Abdullah)

The director, Rawia Abdullah, started the film by proudly proclaiming that her film had won a prize. And it made me wonder at which festival? At her high school? Circle of friends? It just made me try to imagine the level of films where hers was the best. It would probably have been really a bad collection, because Rawia succeeded in making a film that made me wish I could invent time travel, go back in time, and punch myself in the face, thus preventing myself form going through it.

1/5




The Half Heart (Bilal Abdullah)

The best way to watch “The Health Heart” would be with your eyes closed and listening to music on your MP3 player. The only way that this film was better than “Amal’s Cloud” is that it is amusingly bad, with amateurish loud music, terrible acting, and a directing experience that is slightly better than what I used to film as an eleven year old boy. It deals with some taboo subject, but handled so badly, that its message laughable.

2/5




Naked Human [Mujarad Ensan]

A black and white animated film that would have been above average if it was sixty seconds and shown as a flash animation on some website from the 90s.

2/5




Banana [Mouz] (Meqdad Al Kout) (Omar Al-Masab)

The only good film in this collection. And I don’t mean good film as compared to the rest, but an actual, no-bullshit, really good film that I would have loved even if it was part of an international collection of shorts. Director Meqdad Al Kout really deserves to be in a collection of shorts better than this one. This surreal Kuwaiti film is about a man’s sexual fetishes towards…land. I think. It’s one of those films that are more about the visual imagery than a story. I’m keeping my eyes open for Meqdad (and I don’t mean that sexually).

4/5




The Good Omen [Al-Bashara] (Mohammed R. Bu-Ali)

Gulf directors are mainly interested in looking at their nations through a nostalgic lens. While this can work in other countries, to the gulf, when they show me images of old streets and houses, it seems ingenious to me and a sort of need for a cultural history that does not seem to exist. Directors need to challenge themselves by trying to study the complexities that exist in mainstream gulf life. Or something, I don’t know, I’m not the director, I’m just the guy that says these directors’s suck. It’s an easier job, and way more fulfilling.

2/5

[shariqq]

This was a mixed bag — but that’s how these things come. Fortunately, two of the shorts were better-than-average, and that made the assortment worth the bad ones.


#1
Amal’s Cloud
Rawia Abdullah | UAE | 2009
9 mins

It starts with Amal’s Cloud, an over-thought under-shot movie that probably made sense to a few from the crew only. The movie has arbitrary shots threaded together in some unintelligible way and is akin to reading 4 random pages from a 40-page book. But it does have the advantage of being a short though.


#2
The Half Heart (Nesf Galb)
Bilal Abdullah | U.A.E. | 2009
9 mins

Described as a “daring” movie, The Half Heart that attempts to present the prohibited topic of ex-marital pregnancy. But not as “groundbreaking” as the director probably intended it to be. He puts his toe in a taboo pool expecting a splash of questions and discussions.


#3
Naked Human (Mujarad Ensan)
Omar Al-Masab | Kuwait | 2009
12 mins

Next is Naked Human, a sketch-animation of a high-concept that is interestingly visualized.  It does provoke questions though. Fortunately, it ends with a note that it is a prologue to a trilogy – like a lengthy trailer to what seems an interesting movie.


#4
Banana (Mouz)
Meqdad Al Kout | Kuwait | 2009
25 mins

The best of the lot! This delirious film by Kuwaiti director Meqdad Al Kout is an eccentric telling of one man’s fetish with land, and his floating thoughts populated with equally absurd versions of events taking place around him. A truly daring movie that was banned in its home country Kuwait, Banana does not shy away from clever displays of the principal’s sexual obsessions or random meaningless ciphers that admittedly stand for nothing but effect. A true Lynchian effort, Banana is perfectly at home at indie festival circuits.


#5
The Good Omen (Al-Bashara)
Mohammed R. Bu-Ali | Bahrain | 2009
26 mins

The last of the collection was the Bahraini movie The Good Omen. A slow moving piece about the older generation that worked on the construction of an important bridge in the city, it overstays its welcome even for its short runtime of 26 minutes.


All-in-all, a less than stellar effort for the wonderful opportunity three of these directors were given. It’s only Naked Human, and the wonderful Banana that makes this collection worth the watch.

[fizz]

Its good to see Meqdad Al Kout getting love on this site. His short film, Paradoxes played at last years fest and was covered on the site (review and interview). I think ak has a copy of it.