“Awqat Faragh (Leisure Time) Director: Mohamed MostafaStory and Script: Mohamed Moqbel and Amr GamalActors: Randa El Beheiry, Ahmed Hatem, Safa, Karim Qassem, Ahmed Haddad, Amr Abed CAIRO: After buying a cigarette from a kiosk, Ahmed asks his friend about what to do. Gradually the conversation flows to their relationships and sexual conquests. In the same casual manner, the camera moves to Hazem, complaining about a recent fight with his moody girlfriend; and then we meet their third friend, Amr, as he watches a pornographic film on the screen of his home computer.
Later, Menna, Hazem s girlfriend, appears, holding a prayer mat, explaining the reason behind her newly adopted conservative life and demands. Then Mai is introduced as Ahmed s serious girlfriend who keeps pushing him to be more responsible.
Together, they continuously face the lack of answers to the question Ahmed had posed at the beginning: what to do? Hence the film s title, “Awqat Faragh (“Leisure Time is their plight and the backdrop for the film s story.
But the film doesn t try to answer the question or provide a solution to the implications of the unavailability of an answer. It only exposes the problem from a fresh, usually ignored perspective, that of the teenagers living it.
Throughout the history of local mainstream cinema, the lives of teenagers have only been shown from an outsider s point of view. Their problems are conveyed the way adults see them. If teenagers are the focus of a story, then they are played by actors in their 20s or even 30s. The dialogue they use on screen always sounds as if a 40-something writer spent a week with a couple of teenagers and decided to use certain vocabulary to demonstrate his efforts at research.
But in “Awqat Faragh, the actors look like teenagers and, most importantly, there s no outsider view. The film is a window open to viewers to peek into the lives of teenagers and college students, without any opinionated interference.
Part of the success of the increasingly popular film is the emphasis on real life rather than fictional drama. For “Awqat Faragh, reality provides all the conflicts, story peaks and drama a cinematic plot needs.
Clichés are almost non-existent. Even with the interaction of friends from upper, upper-middle and middle classes, financial differences are not over emphasized, something that most writers and directors tend to do to add dramatic depth to their films. The trend has persisted in Egyptian cinema since Atef Salem introduced “Ehna El Talmtha (We are the Students) in 1959.
If it were not for the perfectly appropriate differences in the decor of their houses or a couple of casual remarks about not having enough money to go on a trip, these financial gaps wouldn t have been noticed.
Even the cinematography emphasizes the same reality concept; there are no unnecessary close-ups or use of slow motion. The plot just flows naturally and smoothly, whether in terms of script, directing or cinematography.
The actors also play a major role in stressing the natural, non-artificial plot flow. Probably because the cast is a list of unknown faces, the actors were completely engrossed in the characters they were playing. No one tried to impose his or her own character on the film, a staple for all established actors. They all demonstrated a type of effortless acting that made the film even more believable.
This honest and believable real life depiction of teenage problems could be the result of many things. It could be because they were acting out scenes that anyone could relate to or that they have directly experienced similar incidents. It could be because of the well-written script or the skillful directing. Or it could be because they are simply good actors, except for a few scenes here and there.
The only drawback is the film’s score, which was the sole reminder that the screen is showing a film not a documentary of the viewers lives. Marawan Khory s song that plays as the final credits roll makes up for this deficiency at the very end. And even if it didn t, the film s quality, and consequently its popularity, remains unscathed; viewers don t care about the score if it is associated with such quality filmmaking.
