Maksoum: A Delightful Movie From A Different Female perspective

 

After watching “Maksoum” movie  the first thing that will pop-up into your mind is that it is a delightful movie from a different female perspective.

 

 

An intimate cinematic experience that houses a mixture of soft feminine emotions.

 

 30 years after their successful music band has split-up, the Amici Band’s three female singers are invited by film director Abu ( Amr Wahba) to hold a concert in Aswan, after their old disputes lead to freezing the band's activity. 

 

The director assistant (Sara Abdel Rahman) discovered the disputes between the band members so she resorts to a trick by inviting them to sing at a party in Aswan in the same hotel that witnessed their previous success.

 

The movie highlights how the three signers who were glowing with their band in the 1990s end up in three completely different paths. Hend (Laila Elwi), who lives alone with her dog and searches for a groom online, and Amy (Sherine Reda), who is obsessed with plastic surgeries and imposes her conditions on everyone around her, including her daughter (Hajar Al-Sarraj) and her husband (Mohamed Shaheen) and Rania (Samaa Ibrahim), who got married to Hend ex-husband ( Sayed Ragab) and devoted herself to her children and grandchildren.

 

 

The trio embarks on a musical adventure that ends in what feels like a rebirth for their friendship.

 

Choosing Aswan as the movie’s main location allowed filming captivating scenes of the Nile and other touristic sites, and the design of the clothes relied on bright colors to present a joyful atmosphere suitable for a lovely family movie.

 

 

Leila Elwi Aka Hend conveyed brilliantly a mixture of different and contradictory emotions. Hend who truly misses her two lifetime friends and is angry with them, who loves them and hates them at the same time and finally the emotions of a lonely woman who is searching for love but at the same time she is harsh and tough in all her dates because of the emotional trauma she suffers from when her husband abandoned her to marry her lifetime friend Rania.

 

Despite that Amy character or the diva role in general is not a new role for her, Shereen Reda performance was both emotive and empathetic. This role proved that Reda now is in the peak of her maturity stage so her acting performance is so smooth and natural.

 

Being a theatrical actress in the first place helped Samaa Ibrahim to embody Rania character in an evocative way. Her credible performance conveyed to us brilliantly to what extent she is torn between her family and her feeling of guilt over marrying her friend husband.

 

 

Amr Wahba added a lovely comedy touch to the movie. Wahba has excelled in both comedy and drama which proved his range as an actor. 

 

 

 

The title of the movie reflects its musical theme but we can’t say it is a purely musical film. The word Maksoum carries a double meaning, as it refers to a rhythm in oriental music, and also means contentment with fate and I think the screenwriter Haitham Dabbour intended to deliver the two meanings.

 

The all female leads Maksoum automatically invites comparison with the all male leads movie “Wa’fet Regala” because both are scripted by Dabbour but the question here did Dabbour discuss the female issues as deep as male issues? The answer is yes to a great extent despite that the formation of the two scripts are totally different. 

 

If we continue to compare Maksoum with Wa’fet Regala we find that the latter often took us from intense joy to greater sadness due to the lack of cohesion in the script while “Maksoum” places the difficulties facing the characters in a context that allows the work to adhere to the general funny atmosphere.

“Maksoum” is the first feature film for director Kawthar Younis, whose previous short films “A Gift from the Past” and “My Friend” achieved remarkable success.

 Younis was able to deal with the emotional moments with great care so that they appear convincing and poignant without straying from the original playful tone of the film.

Both Younis and Dabbour brilliantly presented the nostalgia of the 1990s as a general framework for the film which was an attractive factor. But the details of the three characters and their dramatic structure are the most attractive. Each of the trio has its own details, personality traits with its psychological conflicts and softness, as well as its strengths and weaknesses.

The soundtrack by Khaled El Kamar was palpable in every sense of the word. The soundtrack suits the details of every character as if Khaled was narrating with his music the state of the film characters and the transformation they have achieved.

A delightful movie is one in which one has his eyes glues to screen trying to connect every reel scene with a personal real scene and this is the case in “Maksoum” movie.