When space becomes the real protagonist!

The problems that the villagers of Meir face are related to the deterioration of space.

In an atmosphere of very calm and very soothing spirituality, the film opens Min Meir Ila Meir (from Meir to Meir) on filmmaker Maggie Morgan putting black and white photos in order. Motivated by the stories of her grandmother, she expresses her decision to visit the predominantly Christian village of Meir, located in Upper Egypt. His grandparents spent their childhood and youth there before getting married and leaving for Alexandria. And this, like most of the large families who left the village in search of a better life in the capital or even abroad. Despite the passage of time and the space that separates them, these people still remember sweet memories of the village. ” How many people are free to choose their trips? Who can decide when to leave or when to return? Or even choose where to go? “. With this series of questions, Maggie begins her journey for Meir, which began in 2008.

She thus gradually weaves the relationship between the place and the people. Morgan adopts a style close to direct cinema, which includes both an approach to the theme and to the protagonists. And this, by filming ordinary people and providing them with a space for expression. Through this, she seeks to achieve the standards of auteur cinema and a certain degree of authenticity. It also shows decisive moments in the life of certain characters such as the marriage of a couple, the joy of a young woman who has just won the lottery and who will be able to join her brother in the United States.

The director takes the viewer on a double journey. On the one hand, she makes him visit the places mentioned by his grandmother, including the market, the houses of certain families, allows him to attend the Mouled Al-Adra (fairground to celebrate the Virgin) and another tradition of chopping onions on doorsteps on Easter Sunday. And on the other hand, she shares the memories told by elderly members of the great families who were born in the village, but left it to settle elsewhere such as the Behman, Khanagra and Losa families.

Laugh at misery

During the first trip, Maggie Morgan is always accompanied by Abdel-Tawwab’s family, consisting of three children: the two boys Romany and Kirolos, and the daughter Mariam. Their father, Abdel-Tawwab, is a day laborer who sometimes works as a farmer on other people’s land, sometimes as a labourer. This family, like the other families in the village, is steeped in misery, however, they never stop laughing and smiling. A kind of mask that camouflages a misery that is difficult to describe. However, a simple question posed by the filmmaker to Romany puts balm in the heart. ” What would you like to be when you grow up? “. ” I would like to go to Kuwait “, replied Romany to Maggie who pushed her questions a little further: “ Wouldn’t you like to be an engineer or a doctor? “. The hidden melancholic side is revealed by his answer: ” I would like to be rich. It’s the money that counts “.

The melancholy is also unveiled by the camera which gives the impression of struggling to find enough space and light to frame the protagonists caught in their small rooms.

Maggie meets an old lady who criticizes the action of some young people in the village who, depressed, opt for suicide. Romany, meanwhile, infiltrates the conversation to rebel against the elderly who hold on to life. A response-slap from a boy whose age does not exceed twelve years.

Suicide becomes a real phenomenon in this macabre village. An old man, Am Samir, insists on recording all events in the village, including death, in his records, as his ancestors did.

Through the juxtaposition of stories, visual and thematic links between the subjects are built. The tangle of histories and the blurred borders between spaces show that the problems that the population has to face are interrelated. Poverty leads to despair, and sometimes even to suicide.

Maggie leaves the village to explore it again, twelve years later, in order to highlight the changes that have taken place: women who have been filmed before refuse to be filmed this time; some inhabitants have emigrated, Am Samir is dead, Mariam dreams of leaving for France and Romany, to whom the hearts of the spectators are attached, is also dead, because of blood poisoning. A twist that leads viewers to think about it for a while.

Beyond the emphasis on the social strata of certain protagonists (well-to-do families from Meir vs. the villagers of Meir), the underlying theme of the film mostly relates to the relationship between men and women. ‘space. The subjects chosen reveal that all the problems they face are linked to the deterioration of the space they occupy, or even that they really cannot manage to occupy. Space therefore becomes a source of several problems. The filmmaker discovers a village, contrary to the stories of her grandmother, miserable, that everyone tries to leave.

She brilliantly succeeded in revealing how lives and destinies are subordinate to places.

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When space becomes the real protagonist! – Arts – Culture