AND THE LAST WILL BECOME FIRST

programmed by: Maha Maamoun

Fallen Angel’s Paradise, Directed by: Oussama Fawzi, 2000, 77’ Arabic; English and Turkish subtitles

Speak Mouthless, Directed by: Tony Chakar, 2012, 5’ English; Turkish subtitles

This programme brings together two films that are very different in form and language but that share a subtle assertion; the world is flawed and what has been broken cannot be mended again. The perception of the world and its problems through the same dualities that have shaped our knowledge for centuries has become defunct. There is no prescribed alternative, only a gaping reality, an inherent disorder, and a throbbing dissent.

‘Why do you want to know?’ is the question that is asked repeatedly in Speak Mouthless by Tony Chakar. ‘Who is this “you” anyway and why does it feel itself so different from “me”? Why does it feel the need to scrutinise me? Or more particularly, what’s the purpose of you knowing about my situation? What will result from this knowledge?’ The world is flawed and the structures of knowledge created in its image are equally flawed. Speak Mouthless, because words are dead, and those who have not shall have, and the last will become first.

Fallen Angel’s Paradise was commercially released in Egyptian cinemas in the year 2000 to critical applause and box-office failure. This ghoulish satire, loosely adapted from Jorge Amado’s The Double Death of Quincas Wateryell, irreverently pokes holes in the societal constructs delineating life and death, morality and immorality, humor and bad-taste. The main character, a corpse, accompanied by his three rowdy friends take us on a night journey through the highs and lows of societal moral and class norms.

OUSSAMA FAWZI

Fallen Angel’s Paradise

A homeless man dies from an overdose. His pals reject the idea of not being able to see him alive. Tabl –’drum’– is his nickname. Leaving his luxurious life, his job and family, he chose a life of anarchy and madness among a band of lost souls. ‘Mounir Rasmi’, his original identity, was only ten years ago an ideal father, a good husband, and a normal human being.

A game with death begins. What is truer than death? This other life is so true, although immobile.

Tabl is there, all through this underground story, illustrating a hallucinogenic illogical present, facing a past of welfare and easy life.

The present tense is always used and the pals do all what is in their power to postpone the separation. A movie where discipline becomes anarchy and chaos, reality; and where the fallen angels create their own paradise, imposing their laws, norms, pleasure, and desires. A film where Cairo is the city of nowhere.

TONY CHAKAR

Speak Mouthless