Le Chaos

Egyptian film-director Yussef Shahin is –without a doubt- the most famous Arab director, at least in the Arab world. His latest movie “Le Chaos” is funded by French production, many Arab films have been receiving such funding, in order to produce films that –supposedly- have some artistic value, but Arab producers wouldn’t be willing to make them, fearing that they won’t achieve proper profits at the box office.
The film discusses the corruption in Egypt that increased drastically over the few past decades, especially among the police. The film doesn’t only display a corrupt police officer, but also the methodical police brutality inside police stations, torturing political prisoners and political corruption in the ruling party that’s been in authority for 25 years.
Other than the character “Baheya” -which Shahin used many times as a symbol of Egypt itself- the film is very direct and obvious, perhaps the director intended to give up on using metaphors and thought that it’s time to talk freely and openly, which affected the plot of the film by making it straight-forwarded and perhaps a little shallow and obvious.
The film is about a corrupted police officer “Hatem” –beautifully done by Khaled Saleh- in his forties. This policeman runs a whole network of bribery and mutual interests. He knows how to win his bosses, either by pretending to be a straight officer or by obeying the orders he receives off the record, to imprison and torture the youth that is caught while protesting the degenerated government.
“Hatem” is in love with a teacher –“Nour”- that lives across the hall with her mother “Baheya”. “Nour” keeps rejecting “Hatem” who tries to connect sexually with her picture, clothes and by peeking on her while showering, not knowing that she loves her headmistress’s son “Sharif”, the district attorney who is engaged to another girl.
“Sharif’s” relation –and then breakup- with his fiancée wasn’t needed in the film, and caused only distraction and discontinuity to the events, this space should’ve been used to focus on issues more important and related to the core of the problems the film tries to discuss.
Finally, when “Hatem” knows that “Nour” is about to get engaged to “Sharif”, he kidnaps her and rapes her in a boathouse. The rape scene wasn’t very long, but disturbing enough. In the end, “Hatem” shows how rotten the system has grown when he was able to get an alibi from higher officers that use him and need him. “Sharif” finally breaks into the police station and finds a witness that was being hidden; at the same time the people living nearby –fed up with “Hatem” bullying them for so long- march into the police station and break the gates in a huge scene.
The film doesn’t discuss the characters deeply, which makes them one-dimensional, with hardly any background, dreams or complex emotions.
The actors give remarkable performances, young Minna Shalbi is as good as ever in her role as “Nour”, and both Hala Sidqi and Hala Fakher give their best performance. But the outstanding performance was that of Mr. Saleh in his first leading role, being given secondary parts up until now, Saleh proves himself to be a first class actor, giving a solid performance.
Other than that, the film was only good when compared to commercial Arab films that are usually poor when discussed artistically. The photography, lighting, cinematography and sound were all average.