There's something thrilling about seeing the classically American Horatio Alger story transported into a repressive society—just ask the bountifully blessed team behind the immensely popular and critically lauded Slumdog Millionaire. Jordanian writer/director Amin Matalqa aims at the same magic with Captain Abu Raed, where street kids know better than to dream of growing up to fly a plane, and where even the most successful women are defined by marital status.
Abu Raed (Nadim Sawalha) is a simple airport janitor who has never questioned his lot in life. A widower, he still takes two cups of tea to his roof each evening, where he converses with his late wife as he looks out over his spectacular view of the city of Amman. It's never occurred to him to dream of anything greater, but when he finds a captain's hat casually tossed into a trash can, Abu Raed picks it up, an impulsive act that transforms his outlook on life.
Now calling himself Captain, Abu Raed seeks out a group of kids who play soccer in the dust and dirt. He entrances them with fabricated stories about all the cities he visits, his goal to bring joy to their otherwise drab lives. But one boy holds himself aloof—Murad (Hussein Al-Sous), Abu Raed's downstairs neighbor, whom Abu Raed hears at night enduring beatings from his father. Murad wants to shatter Abu Raed's illusion, because he knows that no one from their neighborhood could ever end up a pilot.
Nadim Sawalha as Abu Raed
The one character who has achieved what Abu Raed and Murad can only dream about is Nour (Rana Sultan), a thirtysomething woman from a wealthy family who has a career as a pilot, but not the husband and children that would bring her father glory. Her path crosses with Abu Raed's, and the two forge an unlikely but honest friendship that may end up Murad's salvation.
Matalqa's Jordan is a markedly apolitical place. He evinces little interest in social realism, offering up clichés in place of character, particularly with the women. Nour has little to do besides feistily scorn the suitors her father introduces to her, and Murad's abused mother cowers under her head covering without the will to dream of freedom. These stereotypes of the Arab world don't shed any new light upon the real dilemmas of women living in a country so strongly dominated by fundamentalist Islam.
Even more glaring is the omission of any allusion to the violence that dominates the region. Matalqa gives his characters no ethnic, political, or social specificities, unlike Slumdog Millionaire which set its characters amid the particularly Indian world of call centers and ethnic unrest. There's no nod to culture in Captain Abu Raed, nothing to mark the movie as being of a definite time and place.
The trouble is that the story requires this specificity, because it's largely about the twin issues of aspiration and destiny. For the women in this story, it's culture that imprisons them. Murad's mother, Um Murad, is following the path laid out for her by her religion, covering her head and submitting to her husband because that is the life she's been given. On the other hand, Nour finds the courage to resist cultural expectations for women and remain single in order to pursue her dream of becoming a pilot. But there's nothing in Captain Abu Raed to explain why Nour is able to resist where Um Murad can't. Is it education? Affluence? Strength of character? Secularism? Because the film offers no larger context, these women remain ciphers.
By the same token, Murad's anger over his lot in life feels more like a dramatic device than the locus of a character arc. Someone needs to burst Abu Raed's bubble and remind the kids that they're never going to be anything but poor. But since we see another character—Nour—transcend culture, his hopelessness doesn't feel so hollow. He's intelligent, shows initiative, and isn't afraid to buck the majority; if anyone's going to make good despite his horror show of a home life, it'll be Murad. His complaints about Abu Raed just end up feeling mean-spirited, because we don't know why he doesn't just pull himself up by his bootstraps like an American would. We don't know why he needs a savior.
Hussein Al-Sous as Murad
Despite the film's flaws, there's something winsome about Abu Raed in his captain's hat, entertaining kids with visits to cities that exist only in his imagination. In the middle of the movie there's a wonderful scene between Abu Raed and a French tourist. Abu Raed finds this man's lost suitcase, and in the course of thanking him the tourist realizes that Abu Raed speaks French. It's a marvelous exchange that embodies the spirit of the film, that affection can be kindled in an instant and cross age, gender, class and cultural lines.
When two people take the risk and allow friendship to bloom from affection, the results can be life-changing, not just for the two, but for all who come into their lives. The brief conversation between Abu Raed and the French tourist leads to an act of kindness that makes the film's triumphant climax possible. This powerful message trumps the film's weaknesses, at least for anyone with a heart.
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The film is opening in limited release on July 3, but will expand to more cities in the months ahead. Click here for more information.
Talk About It
Discussion starters
Murad feels that his lot in life is set in stone, and as a result he's angry at the world. In what ways do you blame your unhappiness on things you cannot control? What's a more biblical response to disappointment?
Hope is a big theme in the film. How has hope been a part of your spiritual journey?
Abu Raed chooses to get involved in the lives of his neighbors, and ends up changing them for the better. Do you know your actual next-door neighbors, or do you only consider as neighbors those people you like to spend time with? How can you bring the light of the gospel into their lives?
The Family Corner
For parents to consider
Captain Abu Raed is not rated by the MPAA. There are intimations of domestic violence, but that violence occurs off-screen, overheard but not seen.
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