Noura Al Zaben: Critical Paper 2 " Captain Abu Raed"

"Captain Abu Raed" is a Jordanian Film directed and written by Amin Matalqa. Matalqa Grew up in Jordan until he was 13 when he immigrated with his family to the US in 1989. he wanted to make movies since he was a little boy. After a five-year career selling technology solutions to corporate America, he moved to Los Angeles and started a new chapter making movies. After 25 short films and an MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute, he made his first feature film, Captain Abu Raed, which went on to win the Sundance World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic. For Captain Abu Raed, Amin also won Best Director at the Seattle International Film Festival, Best First Feature at Durban Internatioanl Film Festival in South Africa, Best Feature - World Cinema at Maui Film Festival, Best of the Fest at Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival, and the Audience Award at Traverse City Film Festival.

Many of the movie's open scenes are set on the well-known Roman ruins high above Amman, on Jabal al-Qal'a. The "Making of Captain Abu Raed" on the Western release of the DVD points out that although the movie takes place entirely in Amman and the airport, the neighborhood surrounding Abu Raed's home was shot in the neighboring old city of Salt.

The movie basically talks about Abu Raed, an old airport janitor who has always dreamed of seeing the world but has never been able to afford to travel. One day a group of children in his poor neighborhood assume he is a pilot and beg him to share stories of the world outside of Amman, Jordan. Through imaginary tales a friendship forms and he finds the grim realities of the children's home life. He takes it upon himself to make a difference.

Although the date of the movie is never specified by any notes or characters, the usage of the Eastern Arabic numerals on vehicles' license plates implies that the movie takes place in the past, as a recollection from youth by the adult Captain Murad. Jordan switched from the Eastern Arabic numeral system to standard Arabic numerals in the 1990's.With such an original story, truly moving picture and convincing acting you just want it to be bit more fast-paced actually. Since there are lots of subplots in the movie, during almost more than half of the movie you just wonder which set of events or people will be regarded less important. Whose story will be developed? The story of Nour (Rana Sultan), a female pilot whose wealthy father poorly tries to find her a husband or the story of the local kid Tareq (Udey Al-Qiddissi)who is forced into child labor by his father instead of going to school? In the end, Amin Matalqa chooses to tell the story of Abu Murad whose mother constantly gets beaten by his abusive father. Though you can't tell everyone's story in a feature length movie, Mataqa's finalizing all these subplots in a finale in the last twenty minutes leaves a half-baked flavor in your cinematic enjoyment and you wish it were a better-paced and better-edited movie but that doesn't mean Abu Raed is not a movie that's worth every minute of your time.It is purely humanitarian,truly moving movie which somehow gets to you.

 Overall,This movie is a great one on several levels: 1- It depicts the life in Amman Jordan in a very real way: the difference between the poor (eastern) and rich (western) sides of the city very well. The nostalgic aspects of Amman downtown - the roman ruins everywhere, the stairs, the groups of kids running around ... This is one aspect never found in any previous Jordanian movies.


2- The movie has very capable actors - very expressive faces. The kids in the movie are supposedly 1st time actors, gathered from refugee camps in Jordan. That is AMAZING. They truly acted so natural.

3- amazing soundtrack - the music score adds so much to the emotional scenes - yet, it remains transparent. Perfect combination.

4- the story is very nice, global, humanistic, 3rd world concerns (child employment, family violence, poverty, class segregation, etc.) I think the story could have been better: I wish it had more depth, I wish the problems presented are not so "cliche". Child employment and familial violence are problems that usually 1st world people "project" on 3rd world countries. However, if you ask 3rd world people about it, chances are they are at the bottom of the list. Not because they are not important, but because there are so many other more pressing problems, AND, because they often tend to be symptoms of poverty & ignorance.

Great movie from a talented director/writer, wothy of watching.

Awards Won:


2007 Dubai International Film Festival

Muhr Award - Best Actor: Nadim Sawalha[4]

2008 Durban International Film Festival

Best First Feature Film[5]

2008 Heartland Film Festival

Crystal Heart Award - Feature Film[6]

Grand Prize for Dramatic Feature[6]

2008 Newport Beach Film Festival

Jury Award - Best Actor - Nadim Sawalha[7]

Jury Award - Best Actress - Rana Sultan[7]

2008 Seattle International Film Festival

Best Director Golden Space Needle Award - Amin Matalqa[8]

2008 Sundance Film Festival

Audience Award - World Cinema - Dramatic[9]

Nominated

2008 Sundance Film Festival

Grand Jury Prize - World Cinema - Dramatic