“An El Esheq Wal Hawa a must-see
“An El Esheq Wal Hawa (“About Love and Affection )Director: Kamla Abu ZekryScriptwriter: Tamer HabibStars: Ahmed El Sakka, Mona Zaki, Menna Shalaby, Magdy Kamel, Tarek Lotfy, Ghada Abdel Razek, Boushra, Khaled Saleh
CAIRO: Love is a weird thing, I don t understand it, mutters Salma (Menna Shalaby) to drunken Omar (Ahmed El Sakka). Against a background of a lavish empty pub, he replies, It s a f—— liar who tells you that he understands what it is.
What he said is true; at least it applies to every character in the film “An El Esheq Wal Hawa (“About Love and Affection ). They don t understand what love is or how it works, but nonetheless they never stop trying to figure it out.
Sharing similar backgrounds, both Omar and Salma couldn’t be with the people they had loved and can’t make themselves love their current spouses, they cross paths. Together they cannot understand why they can’t reciprocate the love they are receiving from their spouses or relive the passion they had previously experienced.
In a story about first love, rebounds, second chances and love triangles, the film explores the lives of a couple after their dramatic breakup. For Omar and Aliaa (Mona Zaki), their relationship was their first experience of love. Having to break up due to social disapproval of their relationship, as he is from a wealthy high-class family and her sister is a waitress and prostitute, it seems that they never let go of the feelings they had for each other.
Even as life takes them apart and they meet other people and at times get committed to other relationships, their experience together looms over their lives. This experience also has its effects on the people they meet and their perception of love. Sometimes they fall in love with the wrong person at the worst time, or alternately they meet Mr. or Miss Perfect; sometimes it is destructive and at other times it means new optimistic beginnings.
The theme carries traces of Ehsan Abdel Quddous’s novel El Wesada El Khalia, a classic of Arabic modern literature that explores first love or rather the illusion of it, as Abdel Quddous put it in the book’s introduction. But in “El Esheq, scriptwriter Tamer Habib, who masterminded “Sahar El Layali (“Sleepless Nights ) with director Hany Khalifa, provides a fresh take on the issue, adding more depth and incorporating more themes.
The only drawback is the same criticism “Sahar El Layal received: the film focuses on the upper class at the expense of the less privileged masses that constitute the majority of society. Even those who represent the poorer segment mingle with their wealthier counterparts, something that, at times, undermines the sincerity of the depiction of their lives.
Nonetheless, Habib couldn’t have done a better job in portraying the entangled lives of the film’s characters or in penning the smooth and witty dialogue.
In fact, the story and the script are the true stars of the film. In second place comes director Kamla Abu Zekry (“Sana Ola Nasb (“First Year Con ) and “Malek We Ketaba (Heads and Tails)). Together with Habib, they carefully handled a gripping plotline, in which characters cross paths at turning points in their lives.
But the film wouldn’t have been complete without the A-list cast. The actresses outdid their male co-stars with Zaki and Shalaby in the lead. Ghada Abdel Razek, although in a small role, was equally captivating in portraying the changes in her character, Fatma. In a close second comes Bushra, who skillfully played Qismat, Omar’s aristocratic wife.
Although the male actors delivered convincing performances, Ahmed El Sakka brought the group down. In a change from the action genre, El Sakka plays a romantic character this time around. In a departure from his honest portrayal of the title character in “Tito, where the constant look of humility in his eyes and his subdued attitude throughout the film branded his performance as a landmark in his career, “El Eshq featured him in a bland performance. It could be that the character he was playing was bland, but his male colleagues were continuously outdoing his performance in spite of their relatively fewer scenes.
Tarek Lotfy, playing Omar’s brother, took the lead with his sympathy-inducing scenes, shining over El Sakka’s. Magdy Kamel, playing Ashraf the drug addict, also delivered a satisfactory performance. It was disappointing, however, to see Khaled Saleh playing such a small role. He was great as usual, but his role was unexpectedly limited, in both character depth and size.
Yet, the cast as a whole delivered a performance that was worthy of the talented script writing and direction. In the end, they complemented each other, making the film a must-see.
