Director: Sally El Hosaini
Cast: James Floyd, Fady Elsayed, Saïd Taghmaoui
Running time: 111 mins
Plot: The tale of two young arabic brothers, Rachid and Mo, who must deal with the prejudices of others, as well as those they harbour themselves, if they are to find inner tranquility on a council estate in Hackney.
A winner of the LFF First Feature Film competition, El Hosaini’s gritty coming of age drama grounds itself in the surroundings of a poverty-stricken council estate; an area of London synonymous with gang activity. Despite this setting, which fans of British cinema will be overly familiar with, the personably detailed storytelling prevails.
Several of the main themes El Hosaini purports through her work have been touched upon before in the urban genre, including the perpetual oppression of the working classes, and the virtually impossible task ahead for those who try to break down society’s conditioning, in order to successfully emerge from the ghetto. However, they are primarily dealt with within the subtext, which is far more effective and less didactic than so many before it.
El Hosaini successfully shows how difficult it is for Mo and Rachid to make the right choices, and be true to their nature, in what is an extremely toxic environment. She subtly adopts visual metaphors to show the restraints inflicted upon the characters, and the cyclical nature of detrimental life decisions their habitat often thrives on.
She also raises two issues that have not been dealt with so frequently in the past. Firstly, homosexuality amongst young muslims, and secondly, the fact that there is often a coherent context for a murder, even the gangland killings londoners frequently read about, except you don’t usually hear about the complex intricacies of the events that lead up to it.
This excellent debut feature film is a thoughtful depiction of modern existentialism, and although it is a bleak drama, it is well punctuated by moments of buoyancy for temporary relief, without letting you forget what is at the heart of the creator’s intentions.
Check out the rest of our LFF coverage here.
