Hollywoodgate reveals much more about Taliban-ruled Afghanistan than they may have thought was possible (Film review)

  

Director-cinematographer-co-producer Ibrahim Nash'at and 

co-editor Atanas Georgiev at the post-screening Q&A

 

Hollywoodgate (Germany-U.S.A., 2023)

- Ibrahim Nash'at, director, cinematographer and co-producer

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Documentary Competition program

 

In recent years, film censorship has become more of a thing in Hong Kong than previously was the case.  Probably not coincidentally, we've seen a decrease in the number of Hong Kong films screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.  (After all, I can think of a number of Hong Kong films that, while screened overseas, no longer can be screened in Hong Kong -- including one that had its world premiere at Cannes in 2021.)      

 

At the same time, many films (still) can be screened in Hong Kong that can't be screened in the countries that their filmmakers hail from and/or they were shot.  I think of offerings by such as Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi (two of which -- This Is Not a Film (2012) and Closed Curtain (2013) -- I viewed at previous editions of the Hong Kong International Film Festival); and, among those screened this year, the likes of Tatami, and this documentary work by Egyptian director-cinematographer Ibrahim Nash'at chronicling daily life in Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power there.

 

Hollywoodgate takes its name from a complex on the outskirts of Kabul previously occupied by the American military (or, it is speculated, CIA operatives).  Soon after the last American forces left Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban go in to see what's there -- and do so accompanied by Ibrahim Nash'at and his camera.

 

Granted permission to film in Afghanistan, albeit on pretty restricted terms, Ibrahim Nash'at's camera is officially trained for the most part on Mawlawi Mansour, a bushy-bearded Taliban commander who gets named as the Commander of the country's air force.  At great risk to his personal safety (threats to kill him if he misbehaves can be heard being issued by more than one Taliban member), Hollywoodgate's director-cinematographer also manages to capture a lot of other subjects in his frame.

 

Amazingly, Ibrahim Nash'at ended up managing to stay and film for a year in Afghanistan.  Over this time, one is able to see the Taliban evolve from guerillas to a more conventional military force; thanks in no small part to their reappropriation of an estimated US$7 billion worth of military equipment and supplie that the American forces left behind at complexes like Hollywood Gate.  (And while attempts were made to destroy equipment by the Americans, quite a bit of it were found to be repairable by the Afghans, including a rather alarming number of pretty impressive military aircraft -- transport helicopters, fighter jets, bombers, etc.)

 

Somewhere along the way, Ibrahim Nash'at also gained permission to film one of Mawlawi Mansour's junior soldiers, an officer named M.J. Mukhtar who, if anything, appears to have a stronger thirst for violence than his commander.  And also a looser cannon.  Yet the Egyptian documentary filmmaker stuck to spent time with him, including when M. J. Mukhtar drives around Kabul.  In so doing, he manages to film scenes from the car of everyday scenes, such as of people going about marketing -- which may be among the most chilling segments of Hollywoodgate thanks to the glimpses one gets of the terrible lot of women in the Taliban-controlled land.   

A the post-screening Q&A, Ibrahim Nash'at was asked if the Taliban had seen his documentary.  He replied that they had expressed no interest in doing so.  So the chances are that Hollywoodgate will never be screened in Afghanistan, and that probably is for the best.  As I could well imagine some members of the Taliban regretting his having been granted as much access as he was to film -- for what he managed to do is reveal a lot, a good bulk of which is chilling and also tragic indeed.

 

My rating for this film: 8.0.

The Dupes is a classic of Arab cinema that is a painful but important watch (Film review)

  

One of a number of pro-Palestinian stickers spotted 

in Hong Kong in recent months

 

The Dupes (Syria, 1972) 

- Tewfik Saleh, director and co-scriptwriter (with Ghassan Kanafani)

- Starring: Mohamed Kheir-Halouani, Abderrahman Alrahy, Bassan Lotfi Abou-Ghazala, Saleh Kholoki 

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Restored Classics program

 

Going into the screening of this (restored in 2023) classic of Arab cinema, I knew that -- as per the title of the fourth segment of 2019 Hong Kong film Memories to Choke On, Drinks To Wash Them Down -- It's Not Going to Be Fun.  And, actually, in view of what's been happening in Gaza for some six months now, The Dupes may be an even more upsetting watch in early 2024 because this 1972 film shows how much, and longer, Palestinians have been suffering than many people realize. 

 

Set in Iraq but actually shot in Syria by Egyptian director Tewfik Saleh, The Dupes had its world premiere at Tunisia's Carthage Film Festival in the same year that its co-scriptwriter, Palestinian author-politician Ghassan Fayiz Kanafan, was assassinated, in Beirut.  Kanafan also wrote Men in the Sun, the 1962 novel that The Dupes' story is adapted from.  And both the novel and the film tell the story of three Palestinian refugees seeking to travel from the refugee camps in Iraq, where they cannot find work, to Kuwait, where they hope to make the kind of money it is impossible for them to do in the refugee camps.  

 

The oldest and first of the three to be introduced in The Dupes is Abou Keïss (portrayed by Mohamed Kheir-Halouani), an illiterate farmer who went through the 1948 Nakba (ethnic cleansing of Palestinians) and still pines for the olive trees he once had in his home village.  A generation younger than him, 16-year-old Marwan (essayed by Saleh Kholoki) nonetheless feels the pressure to provide for his family -- now rather than after, as he had hoped, he had finished his schooling.  And in between the two of them in age is Assad (played by Bassan Lofti Abou-Ghazala), a young activist who has had run-ins with the authorities and thinks it would be better for him to flee before he gets arrested and thrown into jail. 

 

After each of them individually fail to agree terms with Iraqi smugglers, all three Palestinians decide to entrust their fate to Abul Al Khaizran (portrayed by Abderrahman Alrahy), a fellow Palestinian who said he would smuggle them on board a truck he would drive across the desert to Kuwait -- for a fee, but less than what the Iraqis said they charged.  (For the record, the bulk of The Dupes focuses on Palestinian individuals and their interactions with one anothers; with such as Zionists barely having any screentime.) 

 

Before they meet one another's acquaintance, Abou Keïss, Assad and Marwan are shown to have already experienced (more than) their (fair) share of deprivations and frustrations.  But while Abul Al Khaizran appears to be in a better position than the desperate trio, it turns out that he, too, has a tragic past; one that has made him actually even more embittered than his fellow Palestinians -- who, unaware of this, decide to trust him with their lives primarily because he hails from the same homeland as them.

A detached observer viewing what transpires in The Dupes will look at Abou Keïss, Assad and Marwan as easily identifiable, as per the film's title, dupes for trusting Abul Al Khaizran with their very lives.  And this especially when one beholds the old truck he drives and hears his plan, which involves hiding the desperate trio for a part of what was already a pretty dangerous journey inside its water tank -- in hellishly hot conditions, given that they would be making their trip in August (the height of summer).  

But the fact of the matter is that Abou Keïss, Assad and Marwan are pretty much in a "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" situation and it's really a case of dying a slow or quick, extremely painful or still painful, death for all of them.  The sorry fate of Palestinians, refugees, and Palestinian refugees, it seems.  

 

At the same time, there's some hope dangled in front of our trio of protagonists -- and the fact of the matter is that sometimes, it's the hope that can kill you.  To repeat: The Dupes is not a film one goes into a screening of assuming that it'll be a fun watch.  But credit to Tewfik Salleh and co for making it engrossing, involving, cruelly tense and painfully heart-tugging -- and for making this (re)viewer want so much better for the work's (anti-)heroes, against what really are overwhelming odds.

 

My rating for the film: 8.0

Death in Ancient Egypt and over at the Hong Kong Science Museum

One of six mummies on (temporary) display at

the Hong Kong Science Museum

 

What looks like a stained striped t-shirt but really is not!

 

Some 200 Ancient Egyptian artifacts on (temporary) loan

from the British Museum here in Hong Kong

 

Until I went to the Hong Kong Science Museum earlier this week to check out its Eternal Life: Exploring Ancient Egypt special exhibition (which runs through to the 18th of next month), I had only ever been inside its lecture hall (which hosts Hong Kong International Film Festival screenings  and also is a venue for a number of other special film screenings) and public toilet (usually before or after a film screening at its lecture hall!).  One reason is because descriptions of its exhibitions tend to make them sound more geared for children than adults.  

 

In addition, this particular museological establishment is one of the most popular in Hong Kong, so my vision of it includes crowded, noisy exhibition halls.  But whereas the areas of the museum where the temporary special exhibition about death and life in Ancient Egypt had been installed were indeed full of busy on the afternoon that I visited it, I guess I can at least count myself fortunate that the crowd actually wasn't as full of chatty and loud individuals as it could have been (especially given the young age of some of its visitors)!

 

Given the superstitious fears that many Hong Kongers have, I was rather surprised that this particular exhibition appears to be so well attended (with a local friend who had been to see it earlier than me having described the exhibition area as being "as crowded as Mongkok")!  Actually, I also was pretty taken aback to find that this particular exhibition that's jointly presented and organized by the British Museum and the Hong Kong Science Museum is an official event commemorating the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's Handover to China by the British.

 

To be sure, it's a bumper exhibition alright.  But let's face it: even with its title emphasizing life, it really is about death -- with the visitors not only being surrounded while in the display areas by artifacts associated with people who are very much dead but also were found in their tombs and such!  Put another way: it does seem much less a celebration of life per se than an examination of how people (who lived thousands of year ago as well as thousands of miles away) dealt with death and the dead.  

 

Furthermore, among the artefacts -- and, indeed, the exhibition's highlighted items -- are six mummies of deceased individuals who may have died as well as lived between 3,000 and 1,800 years ago but still are as human as you and I.  And if one somehow managed to be unaware that this was indeed the case, numerous digital visualizations appear on various screens in the exhibition areas of those mummies' skeletons and such, complete with identified pathological conditions.

 

The point about our common humanity particularly struck home when I found myself gazing at a piece of clothing that looked like a stained striped t-shirt.  It turns out that it's a striped tunic from the Coptic Period and more than a 1,000 years old.  But I really could very easily imagine it being worn by a  young boy (or girl) living today! 

 

As someone who has long been interested in Ancient Egypt, I figured I'd find the Eternal Life: Exploring Ancient Egypt exhibition to be worth the HK$30 (~US$3.84) admission fee (despite it being HK$10 (~US$1.28) more than the usual Hong Kong Science Museum entry fee).  What I hadn't banked on was that I'd actually end up spending close to three hours at the museum, some of whose permanent displays I also got lured into checking out!  Put another way: I continue to think that Hong Kong museums are a real bargain price-wise since they often do offer up pretty good museum-going experiences. :)

Clash's picture of a bitterly divided society is one that people in too many parts of the world can relate to (film review)

Looking forward already to next year's edition

of the Hong Kong International Film Festival!

Clash (Egypt-France, 2016)

- Screening as part of the HKIFF's Global Vision program

- Mohamed Diab, director and co-scriptwriter (along with Khaled Diab)

- Starring: Nelly Karim, Hani Adel, Mai El Ghaity 

One and a half weeks after the 41st Hong Kong International Film Festival drew to a close, its opening film is already playing in local cinemas.  And while a number of other HKIFF entries (including The Sleep Curse and Personal Shopper) are scheduled to follow Love Off the Cuff into Hong Kong multiplexes, that won't be the case with any of the three offerings from the African continent that I saw at the this year's fest.

Although I can see that Mimosas might seem too art house to play in a commercial theater and Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy's subject matter would seem too far removed for most Hong Kongers to care about, I actually think that Egypt's Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee would resonate with certain sectors of local society.  In addition, director Mohamed Diab and his crew (chiefly cinematographer Ahmed Gabr, stunt coordinator Andrew McKenzie and editor Ahmed Hafez) deliver a technical masterclass -- involving both the impressive staging and shooting of much action in a small space, and incredible riot scenes that I had trouble believing were not real -- that most any filmmaker, especially those with limited budgets, surely would love to be able to emulate, if not replicate.

Set a couple of years after the Arab Spring, Clash shows a country that continues to be in turmoil and deeply divided between clashing factions of society whose members passionately believe that their side is in the right and will (eventually) prevail.  With military rule in effect, it's hard for foreign onlookers to discern if the uniformed men charged with upholding order in the streets are from the army or police.  And it seems just as difficult for those soldier types to distinguish whether someone is a bona fide journalist or foreign spy, and between friend and foe.  

Thus it came to be that, in short order, an Egyptian-American Associated Press journalist (Hani Adel) and his photographer (Mohamed El Sebaey), pro-military demonstrators (including a head-covering-less female nurse (Nelly Karim), her husband and teenaged son) and members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood (including a modestly attired 14-year-old girl-woman (Mai El Ghaity) and her frail-looking father) all get locked up inside an 8-square-meter police truck whose barred windows are open enough to give people glimpses of what's happening outside but, especially in the hotter parts of the day, threaten to not be able to let in enough air for everyone stuck inside the truck to breathe.  

While it's difficult to remember all their names, it's amazing how distinct many of the characters stuck in that police truck do end up being; and how they collectively come to represent a diverse as well as vivid portrait of Egyptian society capable of emotionally bonding over certain things one minute but also clashing aggressively over something else the next (and vice versa).  As expected, political, religious and gender differences rear their heads.  But further layers of complexity are added to the picture when such as a normally privileged resident from a gated community and a homeless man are placed in the same small space, and an American-born ethnic Egyptian who tells of his late father's love-hate relationship with his native land sees that the listening Egyptians clearly can relate with those mixed feelings.  

Among the tragedies that Clash lays bare is how it is that divergent political views can tear families apart and that the road to what looks to be a hell on earth can be paved with idealism and good intentions.  As for whether the film is in effect a cautionary tale against political rebellion and revolution: there are those who will come away from a viewing of it feeling that “I never want my country/city/etc. to descend to this type of political chaos and insanity”; but I think it may well be the case that there are others who will optimistically decide that "it's darkest before dawn" and that out of chaos and clashes will eventually come a better tomorrow.

My rating for this film: 8.0

Viewing Han Dynasty treasures at the Hong Kong Museum of History's The Rise of the Celestial Empire exhibition

A jade suit sewn with gold thread on display at

the Hong Kong Museum of History

There are many things to see at the museum's The Rise of the

Celestial Empire exhibition which runs through to October 5

 This tile-end from Changan dates back to around 190 BCE! :O

Along with the fiction books written by English author Enid Blyton, my favorite reading when I was a child included non-fiction in the form of volumes of Tell Me Why books, books from Ladybird's Learnabout series and issues of Look and Learn magazine.  And it was from one of the latter that I first learnt of the existence of burial suits made out of jade that encased the corpses of Han Dynasty aristocrats.   

As morbid as it may sound, those jade burial suits and the mummies of ancient Egypt thoroughly fascinated me and played parts in my having dreams of becoming an archaeologist at one point in my life.  But although I saw mummies on exhibit at the British Museum at an early age, I only got up close to a Han Dynasty jade burial suit for the first time a few weeks ago at the Hong Kong Museum of History, courtesy of its special exhibition on consolidation and cultural exchange in the Han Dynasty.  

Held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the Lei Cheng Uk Han tomb in Hong Kong, The Rise of the Celestial Empire exhibition has more than 160 Han Dynasty-era artefacts on display.  Bringing together items on loan from around 40 cultural institutions located in different parts of mainland China, it represents a rare opportunity to see these historical treasures -- a good bulk of which are over 2,000 years old -- in one place.  

Interestingly, on the afternoon that I went to the history museum, there were far more visitors from the mainland than from Hong Kong or anywhere else checking out the exhibition.  I hope for their sake that the Chinese version of the exhibition text was a good deal better written than the dry, over-lengthy English language version.  Honestly, I wasn't able to get through the text on most of the introductory panels for a variety of sections of the exhibition.

Happily, however, many of the artefacts on exhibition -- including ceramic models of granary houses whose details included such as human figures going about their business, clay and wooden figurines of musicians, acrobats and other humans, and intricately designed gold imperial seals -- were interesting to look at on their own.  And when one adds their ancient age into the equation, the sight of these objects -- particularly the jade burial suit that resembled armor for the afterlife -- often filled me with awe.

The longest reigning of China's dynasties, the Han Dynasty gave its name to the ethnic group that make up the majority of the population of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.  All in all, it's amazing to think that 19% of the world's population have at least a nomenclature link with an imperial dynasty that was established back in 206 BCE, and came to an end in 220 CE (way before, say, the reign of Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who founded Constantinople)!

A Tale of Two Tombs at Ueno Park

The Tomb of Shogitai Warriors in Ueno Park

Publicity for the Tutankhamun exhibition on show at 

the Ueno Royal Museum that's also located in Ueno Park

When I was a good deal younger than I am now, I dreamnt of becoming an archeologist and going to Egypt and doing such as discovering the final resting place of an Egyptian pharoah like Tutankhamun or Hatshepsut.  Although those dreams have been long since abandoned, I have retained a fascination with Ancient Egypt -- and continue to yearn to visit Egypt (in particular the Valley of the Kings and Cairo's Museum of Egyptian Antiquities) some day.

Meantime, although it may seem like a poor substitute to those who have had the good fortune to go to those legendary locations, I've also treasured the visits I've made to those museological institutions that are rich in ancient Egyptian material culture such as the British Museum (which is home to the Rosetta Stone) and Berlin's Egyptian Museum (which is home to a beautiful bust of Nefertiti).  Still, if truth be told, my Holy Grail -- so to speak -- actually was the famous tomb treasures of Tutankhamun that Howard Carter discovered in the Valley of Tombs one November day in 1922.  

So imagine my excitement upon discovering on my recent Japan visit that the Ueno Royal Museum was playing host to the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs exhibition of more than 120 artefacts from Pharoanic tombs, including 50 from the tomb of Tutanhkamun himself!  And of course I had to go check out the exhibition -- even if the price of admission to it was a whopping 2,700 Yen -- frankly, the most I've paid to visit any exhibition or museum ever!!

Upon arriving at the museum in Ueno, I found that many other people were undeterred by the high admission price and, frankly, worried that it'd be a zoo inside the Tokyo museum the way it had been in a couple of the galleries of the Picasso exhibition at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.  Fortunately, things were quite a bit better organized; so even while there were a lot of people intent on viewing the exhibition, the exhibition area was not uncomfortably over-crowded.

I also was impressed by the way that the objects on exhibit were arranged, and the general thematic structure of the exhibition.  At the same time, it's true too that the stars of the shows were the items on display themselves -- all of which were thousands of years old and some of which appeared to be in amazingly good condition, considering their age.  And while the glittering gold artefacts obviously grabbed people's attention, I found myself intrigued once again -- like I had been as a child visiting the British Museum -- by how it was that people who lived thousands of years ago availed themselves of such as perfume (as witnessed by a polychrome perfume bottle that was on display as part of the exhibition).

More than incidentally, while waiting in line (and what a long line it was) to enter the Ueno Royal Museum to view the ancient Egyptian tomb treasures, I found myself at one point near what a sign pointed out was the Tomb of the Shogitai Warriors who had perished in a battle fought in 1868 in the very area where Ueno Park now lies.  Although physically quite impressive, that particular tomb didn't seem to merit more than a glance, if that, as far as most people in the queue for the Tutankhamun exhibition were concerned.   

Still, my curiosity was aroused and after I had toured the Tutankhamun exhibition, I went over to the Tomb of the Shogitai Warriors to take a closer look at it.  While doing so, I came across a plaque put up in the vicinity that stated that the Shogitai were a Shogunate army that had been organized to fight against the Emperor at the end of the Edo period (1608-1807) and that many of its members had died in a battle so fierce that many temples and pagodas that previously had stood in the area where the fighting had taken place were destroyed with little trace.  I also learnt that there actually were two tombstones erected: one by a temple priest one year after the Battle of Ueno and another by a survivor of that battle.

Thus it was that I went to Ueno Park to view treasures from a tomb halfway across the world from Japan -- and, along the way, came to know about another, much less heralded tomb; one with an interesting story of its own -- involving those who perished in a battle and whose side lost the war won by the forces of none other than Emperor Meiji, the ruler credited with having brought Japan into the modern age and set it on its way to becoming a major world power.