Bassam Al-Thawadi had made Bahrain's first feature film. The movie is his second effort after Hajiz, al- (1990) and this one is a production of Bahrain Cinema Company.
The movie stars Fatima Abdulrahim as Fatima, and she's trying her best to act here. Fatima has a vision hunting her for a long time. We get involved more and more with her while we get closer and closer to the story. The movie is about 87 min. which may be short but again it was maybe more than enough for the movie and the story to be told. Bassam Al-Thawadi's seems to be more of a nice storyteller than being a director. He wrote the story of the movie (as well as the script along with Fareed Ramadan) which is a good thing to have a movie written and directed by the same filmmaker.
Ali Al-Gurair plays the character of Ali, who is the ex-husband of Fatima and a work partner, as both works in the TV with the director Bassam Al-Thawadi giving a very nice cameo appearance as the boss of TV. Ali Al-Gurair was good as usual, funny as usual or maybe this time a little more above than that, and tried hard to stay in the character the whole time.
Ahmed Mubarak is a real highlight point in this movie, playing the character of Ahmed, as it shows he was the real supporting acting engine. He might have some over-the-top points, but along with the other performances, it made the movie so funny. You can't hold it not laughing at least few times during this movie, as my favorite joke involves the beautiful great actress Nicole Kidman!
The cast is very short to not mention, including some more cameos and few other actors like Ahmed Aqlan playing the character of Khalid, the brother of Ahmed. He gives a very average performance but his drug-addicted friend Ameen, played by Ameen Al-Sayiq, was an above average performance. I don't know enough about saving the best things for last, but that's what I'm about to do. Juma'an Al-Rowayai was the best performance in the movie. He's gifted and he proves it everytime he gets a chance lately.
The Cinematography was good in many ways, which Ahmed Al-Thawadi takes credit for, as it helped the movie to be more of a thriller. I definitely wished for better and costly cameras to give more to the movie, but that doesn't mean that this one was bad in anyway.
What was the main center of many conversations is that this movie used Dolby sound technology which helped giving the atmosphere to the movie.
The movie's highest point is probably the score done by Nawaf Kamal, I guess, if I remembered the credits correctly. It was a bit short, and most of the time the director depended on the silence and special sound effects instead of the music to develop his thriller.
Visitor (2004) means alot to every Bahraini. Maybe even so every Arabic filmmaker since it may give the green light for many other projects, or may mean more dieing hopes. I wouldn't like it much if compared to the best movies of the genre or the greatest movies of all time. But after all, this movie meant another positive step bringing us closer to our film dream, and that what it meant to me. So thank you Bassam Al-Thawadi.
5/10
