Dantilla

Shot in (my beloved) Alexandria, "Dantelle" (Lace) was one of the movies showed in Egyptian Film Festival 2002 in Hong Kong. Some info reflects that the film was produced in 1997 or 1998.

An attractive and very feminine blonde always clad in European designer clothing, Inas Al Degheidy is dubbed "feminist director" in the Arab world. She is famous/notorious for her taking bold steps to make films dealing with controversial issues that may rock the Arab world: sexual equality, women's social status etc. After seeing this one, I am impatient to look for Mothakerat morahkah (Diaries of a Teenage Girl) telling a story how mothers help their daughters to medically repair their hymen in black market before marriage for Egyptian men do suppose their wives are virgins when they get married. The movie has caused sensation and the movie was sent to court yet the case nullified later.

"Dantelle" is a movie full of excitement with Youssra and Ilham Shaheen as the two main protagonists. In the story, Y and IS are two best friends since childhood. Y is vivacious, she loves dancing and singing while IS is from a well-educated middle class family whose life has been arranged by her family: to be a lawyer. Once they meet a police officer (Mahmoud Hemida) and both of them fall in love with him. Y gets grip of her own emotion, thinking that friendship is very important and wants IS to take the man. However, IS, not very accomplished in her legal career and so by family decision, gets married with a man and follows him to Montreal, Canada, a place where she can never adjust to no matter how hard she tries and divorce is the obvious consequence.

When IS returns to Alexandria, she finds that Y is enjoying great fame as a singer. (Youssra is actually acting her own self because in reality she has established a long and popular household name in the Arab world as a singer and actress.) And the competition for the police officer starts. Since polygamy is allowed for Muslim men to marry up to four wives in Egypt, both Y and IS are married to him and the crazy antics on winning the heart of the man ensue. For example, Monday and Wednesday are days for Y and some other days for IS. These "marriage rivals" would be behaving as wicked as possible to wreck the day of their enemy. The man needs to deal with two women so he becomes very exhausted when he works. Once he supervisor gave me a brief lesson that he should take good care of his health and body. Subsequently, at one time, he yells to the two wives, "Today is my own day. Neither of you should bother me!" At the end, the two good friends decide they would be better off pairing up with each other to bring up a child one of them has from him with their husband's involvement. (It comes off something like advocating same-sex couples' right to raise children!)

It is always said that most men embrace polygamy, it may not be true. A Turkish man has told me that more women and more children will cause more troubles and so more and more Muslim guys tend to take only one wife. The movie is fun to see as it tells the reality of modern day polygamy in more open Arab world. "Raise the Red Lantern" illustrates polygamy in old Chinese society. Compared with this Egyptian one, "Raise" is atrocious, male-chauvinist and more unfair to women. "Dantelle" tells a polygamy story in light and civilized tone.

On the technicality, there is much room for improvement, the first is the make-up skills. Most Egyptian women put on thick and unnatural make-up. If this is improved, the actresses will look far better, now their faces are coloured like pancake.