The Closed Doors: Exposing the Taboo

Atef Hetata's controversial Egyptian film The Closed Doors (Al Abwab Al Moghlaka) marks a moment in Egyptian cinema where the nation began to more openly acknowledge its tense cultural and religious problems, particulalry those concerning sexuality. The film follows the story of 13-year-old Mohamed, known as Hamada to his mother, as he comes of age and battles with urges he's been taught are wrong and the unsettling idea of his mother as a sexual being.

The film opens with an eye peering through a hole in a wall. The audience soon sees that the eye is gazing at a group of girls. As the image continues to grow, we see a young boy, Hamada, distracted in class by the passing girls. His teacher is quick to reprimend him and remind him that he is at school, not at the movies. Hamada is thrown out of class and after closing the classroom door behind him, he is approached by another teacher and told to go to the mosque to escape the hardships of school. Hamada sets off on a walk through his neighborhood, and images of an impoverished Cairo provide the backdrop for the film credits.

Before the credits roll, The Closed Doors, has already given audiences a lot to consider. The image of an eye through a hole in a wall suggests a voyeuristic quality to the film. The camera both stares back at the eye and assumes the eye's vantage point, thus building a twofold relationship between the eye's beholder and the audience. First, the audience is gazing at Hamada, observing and judging him. Next, the audience becomes Hamada, joining in his curiousity of the female form and seeing the world as his inexperienced eyes see it. This relationship persists throughout the film.

Next, there is the remark from the teacher, that this is a class, not a cinema. For Hamada, it is a class pretending to be a cinema, but for the audience, this is a cinema acting as a class. Hamada is being taught literature and writing, but not the things he wants to learn: sex and sexuality. For that, he uses his symbolic cinema in the form of the hole in the wall.

On the other hand, the audience comes to the cinema to experience the sensuality and pleasure of seeing images on the screen. There is a fascinating satisfaction gained from viewing human bodies, particularly beautiful bodies, on the theater screen. This is why movie stars are pressured to be so picture-perfect. However, The Closed Doors closes the door, in a manner of speaking, on this saught-after satisfaction and instead turns every image of beauty and sexuality into one of tension and discomfort. The human body is feared and uncertain in The Closed Doors, for this is the way Hamada interprets it.

Finally, in the opening sequence, Hamada closes the door behind him when he leaves his class. This act seperates him from the boys and teacher inside the room and leaves a void for another door to fill. When one door closes, another opens. In this case, the next door opens towards religion. Hamada closes the door on his education and takes another step towards the door to Islam. And this is where we meet him at the start of the film, and from this point on Hamada will bounce back and forth in his beliefs, struggling with his growing sexuality that has changed his perception of the world.

One way to read through The Closed Doors is to examine the role of doors, both literal and metaphorical. There are in fact many doors in the film that dictate the fate of Hamada and his mother.

As a metaphor, the door is an in-between place and a barrier. It can be used to hide behind or block others out, or it can be removed to bring people together. It can be the threshold for something great, or something devastating.

In that respect, the characters are constantly situated near doors in the home or at school or even car doors. The doors serve as either a separation between two types of people--man and woman, mother and son--or as a barrier to keep things hidden and safe.

For example, when Hamada accidently sees his mother changing in her room, he quickly closes the door to protect himself from seeing her and to protect her from being seen. The door is being used to hide and protect his mother, but at the same time, it was by accidently opening the door that Hamada caught a glimpse of her undressed. The door is neither friend nor foe for Hamada and it is clear that no door remains closed forever.

For the film itself, the door it opens is the one blocking any public discourse on sexual practices or issues, such as incest or extra-marital sex, both of which are major elements of The Closed Doors. Hetata opens the door with a shocking and riveting drama that is rich with metaphors and yet tragic in its realism.

Lemon Tree: Solitude in the Middle East

Eran Riklis's most recent film, Lemon Tree (Etz Limon), is a collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian creative forces that observes the strained relationship between these two peoples.

Salma (Hiam Abbass) is a widow who lives for her lemon grove, which she tends to with the help of her friend Abu Hussam (Tarik Kopty). However, after the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Navon (Doron Tavory) and his wife move in next door, her grove is declared a security risk and most be uprooted. Salma hires young lawyer Ziad (Ali Suliman) to sue the Israeli government for the right to keep her lemons.

The film is based on a true story and tackles the touchy subject of Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes. Riklis isn't new to controversy, having directed the critically acclaimed film The Syrian Bride (2004) about a family living in the disputed territory of the Golan Heights.

Riklis claimed that Lemon Tree would be his last say on the matter, so to speak, regarding the Middle East conflict. He definitely plays it safe in the film with characters that are all victims, and yet all villains at the same time. They are all wrong and all correct, with perhaps the exception of Salma, who is the innocent doe trapped in the midst of brutality.

Instead of pointing blame, Riklis rather contemplates the notion of loneliness. All his characters are lonely, having either built walls around themselves (both figuratively and literally) or had walls involuntarily built around them.

Salma lives alone with her lemon grove. A widow, her children are too busy or too far away and strict cultural tradition forbids her from associating with men, as demonstrated by the character Abu Kamal (Makram Khoury).

Her counterpart would be Mira, the wife of the Defense Minister. After moving to the border with her husband, she is left at home while he works, surrounded by guards and hardly able to look out her window without an official escort.

Over time, Mira learns to pity and empathize with Salma. Although the two only meet once and speak only a few words to each other, an unlikely bond forms between the two women, both bound by restrictions and loneliness.

Salma does not win her case, but the judge amends the orders so that only half her trees are chopped down. As Ziad points out, this is actually a great victory since it is the first time an Arab suing the Israeli government has managed to change anything at all. She may be a hero to all Palestinians fighting to keep their land and homes, but the stark image of a half- barren lemon grove feels more like the glass is half empty, not half full.

The Defense Minister himself is unaware of his loneliess, convincing himself throughout the film that he is justified to order the descruction of the lemon grove and ignoring the warning signs of his wife's growing isolation. By the end of the film, he is more alone than any other character: his wife has left him and the wall he was eager to have built around his home blocks any visitors, intruders or any signs of life.

So who is to blame for this perpetual unhappiness? It would be easiest to try and blame the Defense Minister, but was he not simply doing the job assigned to him? Salma seems like the most obvious victim, but her reluctance to compromise or negotiated is matched only by the Israeli government.

As it were, the biggest culprit here is a collective failure to communicate. It is as if Riklis wants us to acknowledge the suffering of all parties involved, from the hapless and young soldier keeping watch over the lemon grove to the widow about to lose her entire livelihood, as though these are all equal forms of suffering so that there is no right or wrong side to the conflict.

Frankly, this is a higly political and safe stance to assume. While at first it seems Riklis is being bold and controversial, Lemon Tree proves to be less explosive and more meager.

This is not to say Riklis has not made a good point. His characters have gotten so caught up in a history's worth of conflict and failed diplomacy that they have forgotten how to simply speak to each other. Indeed, the volatile Palestinian-Israeli confict could do with a mediator or two, but Lemon Tree only points out this fact and does not try and offer a solution.

In regard to aesthetics, Lemon Tree has Riklis's familiar romantic-realist style filled with long takes, location shooting and topped with a dreamy quality that laces certain scenes, such as in the court room where the camera revolves slowly to capture the poetic words of Abu Hussam.

Photo Caption: L to R Tarik Copty, Hiam Abbass and Ali Suliman in Lemon Tree

Photo courtesy of lemontreemovie.com