Myths and icons are usually considered as untouchable or unreachable entities: you can try and tell their stories, but there is always something about them that will be left unsaid or will be shrouded in mystery.
The tangible proof of this truism is represented by the film Looking for Oum Kulthum, directed by Shirin Neshat and Shojat Azari. Currently on a short tour in Italian museums and cultural institutions, the film will be screened tonight at Bologna's Cinema Lumiere and tomorrow at Milan's La Triennale.
Despite its title, the movie does not tell the story of Oum Kulthum, but focuses on an Iranian director, Mitra, who's trying to shoot a film about the legendary Egyptian singer.
Born Fāṭima Ibrāhīm al-Biltāgī either in 1898 or 1904 (depending on the source), in the village of Tamay e-Zahayra in the Nile Delta, Oum Kulthum first started singing for her family ensemble dressed as a boy (in the film the scene is recreated by young Nour Kamar, a Tunisian girl with a larger-than-life voice). Mohamed Aboul Ela, a modestly famous singer, taught her the old classical Arab repertoire and, as the years passed, she became known and loved in the Middle East and North Africa for her melancholic and dramatic voice.
Her concerts featured an orchestra and revolved around a few songs centred on themes like love, longing and loss: usually the concerts would only include two or three songs, but they lasted for hours as Oum Kulthum would repeat a line, improvising it or altering the intensity of a note, a technique that often reduced her audience to tears.
Poet Ahmad Rami wrote 137 songs for her, while in the mid-'60s she collaborated with composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab. Their first track together - "Enta Omri" (You are my life") - became one of her most famous and loved songs.
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who became the president of Egypt, was a fan and his speeches and messages were often broadcast after Oum Kulthum's monthly radio concerts that took place on the first Thursday of every month.
Known as "Kawkab al-Sharq" (Star of the East), Oum Kulthum died in 1975 and her funeral procession became a national event, with around 4 million Egyptians mourning her in the streets.
If you're interested in finding stories about Oum Kulthum's life in Neshat and Azari's film, you will be greatly disappointed as this is definitely not a documentary about the singer.
The two Iranian directors employ indeed the formula of the "film within a film" to analyse a metaphor: their movie follows a contemporary director, Iranian Mitra (Neda Rahmanian), who is working on a biopic on the Egyptian singer.
After finding the main actress for the film, Ghada (Yasmin Raeis) an unassuming school teacher with a beautiful voice, Mitra starts shooting and begins finding obstacles on her path.
Some members of Mitra's team feel that, being Iranian and not speaking Arabic she is a foreigner and therefore she is not fit to do a film about legendary Oum Kulthum. And while one actor doesn't seem to show any respect to Mitra because she is a woman, the filmmaker is also living a dramatic personal situation. She is indeed haunted by the ghost of her son, now an angry teenager, whom she left behind in Iran when he was 7 years old.
Little by little, Oum Kulthum becomes an elusive ghost that Mitra can't grasp and capture, while the film shifts its focus from a myth and a legend to look at the condition of women and at the price they have to pay to follow their dreams and career.
In Mitra's film Oum Kulthum seems to have a magnificent career while Egyptian women are fighting for their rights just like Mitra herself who is only superficially liberated since she still has to overcome the barriers set by her (male) producers with their commercial requests or live with her guilt, a feeling amplified by her resentful husband and son's phone calls and messages.
Both women aim for greatness and both find barriers, reacting in their own ways, giving up a part of themselves to let their dream live: Oum Kulthum seemed capable of juggling private life and career (the former remained a mystery and no gossip ever circulated about her), while Mitra's public and successful career gets instead destroyed when her family life falls apart.
Mitra sacrifices her family life and her son in particular; Oum Kulthum may have sacrificed family, romance and the possibility (and joy) of being imperfect and even vulnerable: in Mitra's film she's always immaculately dressed in her long evening gowns accessorised with a matching scarf held for a dramatic touch in one her hands as she sings; her hair is perfectly sculpted and at times her eyes are hidden away behind her trademark sunglasses (this could actually be a good movie for a fashion film festival...).
Resenting the flawless singer, Mitra tries to sabotage the performance of her career, a concert for Egyptian President Nasser, in which she attempts to portray her as failing, but eventually loses all the passion she had for her project.
Despite its rather inconclusive ending Looking for Oum Kulthum doesn't hurt the status of the famous Egyptian singer (though it would have been even better to see archival footage incorporated in the film) who transforms from legend to symbol and artistic metaphor.
The film works at its best when we are shown clips from Mitra's biopic, with Oum Kulthum being introduced to the king or becoming a favourite of President of Nasser (but don't take the historical references as correct: critics highlighted how the women's protest showed in the movie actually took place in 1919 and not in 1914 while the home town village of Oum Kalthoum is presented here as relocated in fable-like ancient times); the story loses its rhythm instead when it looks at the life of Mitra, who gradually turns into an alienated character and it is not developed as much as she should.
Screened last year at the Venice Film Festival, Looking for Oum Kulthum remains for its continuous alternations between cinema and metacinema, one of those movies best enjoyed at art events rather than in proper film theatres. After all you need time to elaborate its themes and find the answer to the film main question - was it worth it for Mitra and Oum Kulthum sacrificing their private lives and family for their dreams and careers? The members of the audience will decide the answer after seeing the final confrontation between the two characters - Mitra and an older version of Oum Kulthum (Najia Skalli) - left looking at the horizon, silently contemplating their successes and failures.
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