Facing death with a kiss that shook the Arab entity… Reflections on “The Last Breakfast”
The title of the film “The Last Breakfast” by director Abd al-Latif Abd al-Hamid, which is his latest film, must remind of the Last Supper of Christ and his disciples, where the table is the last thing that brings together beloved souls who are in harmony or love. But in “The Last Breakfast”, maybe love will die in a random mortar shell, one rainy day in the diary of the Syrian capital, as many other similar days have witnessed. Perhaps this time love will be the one that will hang on the cross of war and waiting and let the cries of loss through the air. On the other hand, if there is a resurrection, then it must be the resurrection of this land itself, as it became imperative to rise from the dead, and among the ruins war is reborn after long years of destruction and waiting.
About loss as an experience
The film is about loss as an experience, but not an ordinary loss, but a tragic loss with its tragic and emotional undertones, since from the beginning of the first scene, Randa (Kinada Hanna), a beautiful and dreamy woman, foresees her death while she is at the breakfast table with her husband, where she prepared the table with love and elegance, without tears, but with emotional orders for her man to marry another woman, “Jumana” (Rama Issa), their friend who had an old love for her husband, looking for him with her with the seriousness of marrying her after her death, announcing his feeling that today is her last day, as she felt that she would die because of the intensity of the shelling that day, the exact date of which we do not know, from the long years of war.
“Sami” (Abdel Moneim Amayri), a skilled tailor and master of his work, says goodbye to his wife with an emotional kiss, that is, she initiates a kiss on his mouth, as if she wants to taste love for the last time, but Sami did not care much for his wife’s words about death and so on, despite the fact that a certain disturbance began to pass through his body, and he prepared to go to his work, as he had done all the days of his life. He wasn’t sure that his wife was serious about her feelings, and maybe her certainty that her death was near, and that she was approaching death to the closest degree, and it really happened when her prophecy was fulfilled and a shell fell near her while she was preparing lunch for her husband, perhaps hoping that death will pass her by and give her another day or so.. Second near the man you love.
On an ordinary day raining shells from the diary of the Syrian capital, the wife prophesies her own death and recommends that the husband marry another woman. Her prophecy comes true, and a shell falls near her as she prepares lunch for her husband, leaving him to the worst fate, to face her absence alone… The Last Breakfast Movie
But death does not wait, so she falls covered in her own blood, and her husband falls covered in shock and silence, when he hastily returns home, after a failed attempt to contact his wife who fell on the kitchen floor, leaving him with the most difficult fate, to face I am by her absence, because he is the one who finds her everywhere. And in every detail of his life, and in every corner of their home.
Faced with a cruel departure
This is the broad line of the film, so the husband’s battles begin with her between wakefulness and imagination, or between waking and dreaming, to face this difficult departure, while her image completely takes over his thought to the point that he begins to see fantasy as reality; His wife, whom he buried in the morning, finds her at home at night, asks him why he was late and where he spent all that time, and then sees her in every room, in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom in front of the mirror, until assure her of her presence and that she will not leave. No one else hears or sees it, but it surrounds his whole life, until it pursues him everywhere; When he decides to leave the house and sleeps in a hotel, he finds her on the bed in the same hotel and in the same room, asking to come home together, and when he decides to go change clothes with his father, a friend who works in the office of a high official, based on his advice, in to that beautiful quiet village, she is next to him, on the seat of the car, discussing the aesthetics of traveling with him, to become fully a woman applied to his life.
In a film attributed to the “godfather of Syrian cinema”, as some like to call the Syrian director Abdel Latif Abdel Hamid, owner of films such as “Oral Messages” starring Fayez Kazak, “Qumran and Zaytoun” and “The Breeze of the Spirit” starring Bassam Kouss, The Unforgettable Movie and many other movies, it has nice comedy and a light touch that does not harm the meaning or the text, especially when the director introduces himself in the movie a movie with several beautiful scenes, when Sami (Abdel Moneim Amairi) visits at his estate (Abu Youssef’s estate). .
He is the only old man, but he has a light shade and a gentle spirit in that village where there is beautiful nature, water, trees and peace that is not disturbed by anything except the occasional projectile that falls into that village from time to time, and sometimes by chance those shells fall near Abu Youssef’s house, where Sami went for recreation and relief from the troubles of the last days, then some missiles or shells fall, as the director shows a little humor, maybe to reduce the tragedy of the film, so he (Abu Youssef in the film) says a few words and pleasant laughter, and much scorn Dying and underestimating those shells that fall from time to time.
Sami returns from his voluntary recovery, determined to propose to Jumana on the advice of a man (Al-Daaji) to marry and have children, which he does after several attempts, so Sami actually marries and decides to carry out his wife’s will, with scenes which are not devoid of humor and kisses that caused the anger of a large part of the audience.
The image of a woman takes over her husband’s mind so completely that he sees fantasy as reality; So his wife, whom he buried in the morning, finds her at home at night, asking him the reason for the delay, and then starts seeing her in every room, in the living room, in the kitchen and in the bedroom. in front of the mirror, until he is convinced of her presence and that she will not leave.
The life of Sami Al-Khayyat, or Tailor Clerk, who never hesitated to help his neighbors and the people of the neighborhood where he lives, ends with a time bomb planted in his car, one night after his second marriage, when his car explodes moments after driving, so that all the neighbors rushed to try to put out his car that caught fire.
It is a beautiful and touching scene when Jumana, his new wife, with a bucket of water in her hand, in a red nightgown, runs to save her husband who has moved to the other world, the world where he found his wife. and his first love, Randa, is waiting for him at the table.
There are no political statements in the direct sense of the film, but small references, when talking about militants who took up arms against the state, and in the mysterious explosion of Sami’s car, which can only be linked to his neighbor who could not help his well-informed relative on many charges , despite Sami’s attempts to help.
The film attracts attention with beautiful images and bright colors, the first scene that amazes with its beauty, a picturesque scene of nature in the village of Abu Youssef, with a graceful movement of the camera that comforts the sight and senses. of the text, as well as the outstanding performance of Canada Hanna and Abdel Moneim Amayri. However, some of his criticisms, in my personal opinion, are some boredom in repeating the same events in the first quarter of an hour, and showing the intellectual “Nabil” (Karam Al-Shaarani) with an appearance that is not devoid of stupidity and naivety. Comedy at the expense of the value of the recipient’s image. .
Kissing on the mouth is almost forbidden
And as usual, a large part of the public, in recent years, who trembles before a kiss scene or an emotional scene in any Arab drama, after kissing on the mouth has become almost forbidden (dramatically and cinematically) in the Arab world, especially in Egypt. , After an Egyptian film was not without a kiss (as described in bold), either inside or at the end of the film, as is the custom of many black and white films, and even films of the seventies and eighties, the kiss has become the rage of many Arab audiences today , and that’s exactly what happened in the movie “Breakfast.” Last”, and by that we mean the Canadian kiss. Hanna to Abdel Moneim Amayri, or vice versa, and this prompted the artist Amayri to respond to those voices that left all the messages of the film, which was only provoked by the kiss of the wife to her husband, while she felt that she would see him for the last time.
Abdel Moneim Amairi commented that this scene was dramatically necessary. And added: “Why didn’t she make a fuss about a kiss in the cinema, for example, in the seventies?” Referring to social networks, with the possibility of expressing opinions, he continued: I cannot give up my ideas and I cannot only do what suits the mood of the viewers. I work according to my beliefs and not according to the audience’s taste, because art is elegant and has no boundaries, respects and sends messages, and art cannot be presented without a space of freedom. As for Canada, Hanna commented that she didn’t expect all the fuss that was beyond imagination surrounding the kiss.
