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"Yomeddine" | Engaging and tugs at your heartstrings

 21 Aug 2019 4:31 PM GMT  |  IANS

Engaging and tugs at your heartstrings

Debutante Director, A B Shawky’s Yomeddine is a simple film that has all the trappings of a familiar road film. It has an odd pair of protagonists, an appropriate combination of drama and melodrama that often leads to some chuckles and tugs at the heartstrings and the occasional dosage of social criticism that makes you reflect internally.

The narrative begins at a garbage dump on the outskirts of a town in North Egypt, where we get to see Beshay (Rady Gamal), a former leper with his deformed hands and fingers scavenging. He lives in a leper colony, eking out a living with his donkey Harby by selling the salvageable trash he collects. Though abandoned at the colony as a child, by his father, he is a happy-go-lucky man. But after the death of his mentally ill wife Ireny (Shoq Emara), when his mother-in-law visits him, he craves to seek out his own family in Qena which is far South from where he resides.

The plot does not contain any dramatic inciting moments and at times there are moments when the easy route is taken, thus leading the narrative to be predictable.The flashbacks as dream sequences appear jarring and forced. But it is the subject and their performances that keeps you glued to the screen. Mounted with moderate production values the visuals by Cinematographer Federico Cesca are seamlessly accompanied by Composer Omar Fadel’s glorious and full-bodied score. 

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