Amman Filmmakers Cooperative

TV RAMADAN '03: THE STAGNATION OF INSTITUTIONAL ARAB MOVIEMAKING

By Hazim Bitar

TV Ramadan 2003 is a wonderful specimen of the state of institutional filmmaking in the Arab world. It's during this month of fasting that the best of the best in Arabic TV entertainment shines, clamoring for advertisers' money and for audiences starved for good entertainment, to help take their minds off their hunger.

New faces are judged and are either celebrated or dismissed; familiar faces, essential for continuity, are welcomed back into the living rooms; screenplays that show a measure of creativity and are delivered by capable actors win the audience's attention; other less fortunate musalsalat, if lucky, may air again after Ramadan in some remote village in the Arab world by a local TV channel with a makeshift antenna.

Many of Ramadan's musalsalat are considered "big budget" productions, by regional standards. Yet the gap between budget and quality of production proves that money isn't everything, so to speak.

Ironically, this lackluster performance for institutional filmmakers has always been welcome news for indie digital filmmakers, who maintained all along, using as evidence the dozen or so mediocre video musalsalat, that the size of a video camera and production budget does not produce better films.

Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg, co-founder of Dogme 95, has also shown that even a minimalist approach to filmmaking can produce brilliant films, given good directing, acting, and story. (see AFC's July 25, 2003 article "Dogma 95: the end of filmlook?")

If any, Ramadan musalsalat demonstrate that the journey ahead is still long for institutional Arab moviemaking and storytelling. There are of course a few proud exceptions.

The crisis of storytelling in Arab musalsalat has not lessened over the years. This crisis is not due to lack of Arab screenwriting talent but a crisis driven by fear of innovation, a fear that the viewership will shrink if a story is not flat enough to appeal to most tastes.

While innovative techniques are welcome in Arab moviemaking, there are boundaries within which a professional director must maneuver. Western European cinema sets the standard for screen esthetics. Best practices of cinematography today leave plenty of room for innovation and originality. Directors in general have overwhelmingly honored those boundaries.

A number of Ramadan musalsalat are overreaching in their quest to produce a new look; the results have been unflattering. From excessive camera blurs, to bizarre camera angles, whereby the camera squeezes the viewer behind a physical object on the set for a sneak look at the performers. Not to mention the runaway camera zooms. In principle, such techniques are not uncommon, yet the lack of moderation or purpose in applying those techniques has reached the point of absurdity this season.

Then we have performers who suffer serious attacks of frequent yelling and overacting. tasteless selection of wardrobe or poor application of makeup often accentuates the actor's flaws, with the help of poor lighting.

Surly we would have been tolerant had those production weaknesses been attributed to budgetary constraints; yet these musalsalat boast prominent actors and established directors backed by major studios.

TV Ramadan 2003 tells us that in some parts of the Arab world, notably Syria, there is a rising level of filmmaking sophistication, especially in comedy. Witty scripts and solid delivery by Syrian actors have become the talk of production circles. The Syrians have decides to write for the educated Arab (muthaqqaf). This is no easy feat given that this class of Arabs seems to be heading West or East, but not the Arab middle, for its daily ration of culture and entertainment. To win some of this audience back will be a major accomplishment for Arab filmmaking. Lest we become consumers of goods and values produced everywhere but indigenously.

Syrian productions tend to score high on most fronts. Camera work is good: angles are motivated, cuts appropriate to the scene business, and crane and tracking shots are used judiciously; audio quality surpasses other productions; there is a reasonable mix between internal and external shots; sets are appropriately designed-not overly saturated with or starved for props; lighting tends to follow, at a minimum, the back-key-fill system; the set is not flooded with intense light and avoids harsh light sources; the marriage between actor and dialog is successful; lines of dialog are believable for the roles and situations. It's reasonable to say that Syrian moviemaking tends to evolve technically and artistically over the years.

Egypt will always be the Hollywood of the Arab world no matter what. Egypt's offerings for TV Ramadan 2003, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. There are those Egyptian musalsalat that have demonstrated production excellence, but others fall victim to the weaknesses outlined earlier such as excessive blurs and zooms, overacting, light and audio issues. The wide appeal of Egyptian muslasalat can be attributed to their producers' ability to target the full spectrum of Arab demographics.

In Jordan, desert-bound musalsalt continue to be the steady production staple. Jordanian know-how in this genre has risen to prominence in the Arab world, after years of evolution. The application of state-of-the-art special effects to amass virtual armies and build 3D desert cities has matured to a respectable level. As for comedy or social drama, it seems Jordan is always on the brink of a breakthrough, waiting for something great to happen.

Efforts continue to evolve Jordanian musalsalat to be on par with others in the region. Even as these efforts stumble, the mere act of trying is critical to the growth of Jordan's movie production sector. This has become an issue of national pride for Jordanians, to be able to translate their creative potential into solid productions.

Other musalsalat produced throughout the Arab world are also striving to gain a wider audience. What matters most is to keep a constant effort to develop capacity and to keep local talents from fleeing elsewhere.

For the Arab indie filmmaker, the musalsalat look and feel is to be avoided at all cost. Indie filmmaking is by definition courageous, it seeks to continue from where institutional moviemaking has stopped. This is not to say musalsalat are not legitimate forms of entertainment, but the target audience sought by Arab indie filmmakers is experiencing plot fatigue. Formulaic film plots, produced by intellectually lethargic or overly cautious writers and directors, forces the younger generations to get their film kicks from somewhere else.

So why are we watching Ramadan musalsalat if all we have to do is switch to a Western movie satellite channel? In a way, Arab filmmakers are fortunate to have a forgiving audience. It's unwise to exploit this leniency to continue producing unimaginative musalsalat. Given the exponential growth of TV satellites and the widening generational gap, it's likely that institutional Arab filmmakers, if they fail to grow technically and artistically, will soon air to captive audiences in retirement homes.

What TV Ramadan 2003 tells us is that, despite incremental progress, the jury is still out on institutional Arab filmmaking. Expensive DigiBeta cameras, heavy-duty camera cranes and tracks, HMI lighting, and dedicated studios can produce film content that's not worth watching except to offer lessons on what not do.

We are proud of the few refreshing exceptions and salute those filmmakers who brought to the TV Ramadan 2003 lineup their solid productions, from script until credits.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hazim Bitar is founder and coordinator of the Amman Filmmakers Cooperative. For more information about the Cooperative visit http://JordanianFilms.com

Author can be contacted at: AmmanFilmmakers@alif.com

For more info on Dogma 95, visit http://www.dogme95.dk

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