Excuse My French

I liked the film, it was super artsy and enjoyable, except for a couple of bits that felt cheesy (even with the context of satire). The musical choices and soundtrack were honestly exhausting and repetitive and had a very generic vibe, like stock music (I was very surprised to find out it was original).

I really liked the art directing and the cinematography, but the editing fell a little short for me, because some scenes felt dull (maybe it was the lack of music or intentional), but they kinda drag and bored me.

The final sound mixing of the film made it very uncomfortable to watch on a big screen. The sound levels were off and the general quality was poor (I understand it's an indie production but still).

Overall it was a nice experience and the storytelling was decent.

La Moakhzaa is a movie which tackles controversial issues in the Egyptian society starting from religion, class distinction, and public schools education to harassment. The impressive dialog as well as the effectively employed music kept the audience on the edge of their seats as they were drawn in the movie right away. The plot starts by the death of the main character's father. Hany AbdAllah an upper middle class Christian boy and his widowed mother face trouble as they inherit nothing but debt.

After his father's death, his mother is obliged to transfer him from an international private school to a public boys-only school. The new school is where his struggle begins, forced either to mingle or to be treated as an outcast. Being from a different background, Hany faces trouble trying to fit in. However, it turns out to be not as easy as thought. All his trials to belong go in vain which leads to his loss of identity being treated as an outcast. Eventually, he hides his true religion to prevent himself from being twice alienated.

The public school serves as a minuscule to the local society which is governed by ignorance, dogmas, intolerance and discrimination. Hany then realizes that he's not the only one who is trying to conform, he finds his teachers, Nelly and Amin- who was once his friend. It surprises him that Amin acts as a totally different person in that society. However later on, he could not vent his anger and fight for virtues which make no sense in such society.

In addition, Hany relates to his science teacher, Nelly because she somehow looked like his mother or resembled the background he came from. He could not understand why other boys viewed her in a different sense only because she did not look like them. He attempts to warn her from the other boys' plan to harass her but his attempt is in vain. Later on when he meets her once again in church, he is startled to discover that she's a Muslim which states that normal moderate Muslim tolerant people do exist somewhere is this fragmented society apart from hate speech and nonsense clichés.

At the end, Hany AbdAllah deforms into a schizophrenic double-standard character having to deal with both societies; that which he comes from and the other which he has found himself in.

Despite the movie's minor shortcomings, La Moakhza is a creative movie shedding light on serious issues in the Egyptian society through a comic scenario. It is well worth a few hours of your time for it will certainly give you a good laugh.

One thing I like about watching countries where there is a dominant belieft system is seeing how much remains the same even under various forms of ideological oppression. This reminds me of a Persian film where the presence of the mullahs is clear, yet most fo the problems of the main couple would be very familiar to Americans. Here we see a kid from a minority culture "passing" for a long time and the varied reactions of those around him, some rooted in predictable prejudice, some in embarassing good intentions, some universal to students everywhere. The film does have touches of quirk that justify the comparisons here to Wes Andersen, but it can also be read as a parable for any country where a minority must live - even sometimes chooses to live - within a dominant and even oppresive majority. It has a certain amount of humor and more than a little that is serious. It will probably upset some Americans' ideas of what Egypt is like (if they even have any), but it also has touches of "Karate Kid" and general coming of age movies. A bit drawn-out at times but unpredictable and even touching at others.

You will laugh, cry, and feel every emotion in between.

Wonderfully entertaining. The acting was great as well, especially the boy who played Hang.

One of my biggest regrets of attending last year's London Film Festival is skipping out on Excuse My French when it was my next screening. It's always refreshing to find rare films as an inflight movie. Despite the circumstances, Excuse My French is still a film with a great rhythmic energy, reminiscent of the auteur work of Wes Anderson and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. While this pace is kept up throughout the whole film, it's disappointing that it doesn't implement enough quirk or edge into its content. It brushes over clichés, albeit utilising them well, but not exploring them beyond archetypal necessity. Films that dive into school environments with such immersion and heightened fantasy are usually hit-and-miss for me, and this is both at the same time. Perhaps if I understood or related more to the Muslim/Christian tension in Egypt then the film's political themes could've resonated more, but it's entertaining and empathetic at the very least. Being different and pushed around is easy to relate to in any form and well executed here. With his idiosyncratic style, Amr Salama could easily give us a couple of great commercials before breaking through with a mainstream movie if he wished to do so.

7/10