The first Jordanian Feature film in fifty years, Captain Abu Raed has been creating some echoes around the Jordanian media; newspapers and blogs, and some Arabic and international media for some time now. It's only natural that this film captures much attention in a country that recently started to discover its hunger for culture and art and its need for a cultural identity. But the question that wanders around in my head is: Is this buzz all good ? do we need to set the bar that high, and then hold hands and pray that the film makes the jump ?
There are numerous examples for films, some good and some not as much, that were killed by anticipation. I can remember Waterworld, The Da Vinci Code, and most recently a film that can be compared to our film; the first saudi feature film "Keef El-Hal". I admit they weren't top notch but the overflowing anticipation in international media had the bigger hand in all the negative reviews these films received after they hit theaters.
I know Amin Matalqa is a good director, I have seen more than a handful of his short films and I think he is really talented, but unfortunately that is not the only ingredient in the recipe for success. Success requires hard work, collaboration, creativity, experience, luck among others. I wish the film makers had put enough of that to match the expectations, but let's not make this harder for Amin by expecting a film of high-caliber, and let the movie speak and decide for itself, and more importantly let's all triumph, for we have reached Sundance, DIFF, and God-willingly The Globes and The Oscar, Who knows ?
2 comments:
Its like you said, there are many factors that contribute to the formula, We wish Amin the best of luck of course, and hope that the movie will be a success, but at the end we're just going to have to watch it and see.
Naturally you can't compare Captain Abu Raed with movies such as waterworld and da vinci code, in terms of budget and promotion and all, but for a Jordanian movie, the work and resources that have been put into it, would surely qualify it to be of a very high standard, and as you said would surely raise the bar.
Bakkouz
http://bakkouz.net
Bakkouz : indeed best luck for Amin and the film ... If it succeeds it will open a lot of doors ... thanks for stopping by
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