Souad (2021)

Impressive portrayal of teenage life in conservative Egypt - Souad review by PD

There are two gods in “Souad,” Allah and smart phones, but in a battle between the two it’s clear who’ll be the winner. Ayten Amin’s bold second feature is very much alive to the contradictions of teenage life in conservative Egypt, where the pressures of social media clash with traditional religious strictures, leading to schizophrenic lives of acute unease. The film is remarkable not just for its sharp, non-judgmental insight, which captures lives and environment with a neorealist sensibility, but also for the nuanced performances making each character rounded yet ultimately unknowable.

From the start, Amin grabs our attention, signalling how she’ll be taking normal situations and giving them a twist. Souad pleasantly chats with the conservatively dressed older fellow bus passenger beside her, conveying the image of a good god-fearing young woman excited about medical school and her fiancé, but in the next shot and still in a hijab, she projects a very different personality as she chews gum and talks with a contemporary beside her in a far harsher manner and with a completely different story. Back-to-back, the two bus scenes give us an unexpected, conflicting image of the protagonist, trying on different personalities to adapt herself to how she wants others to perceive her. Souad is clearly uneasily trapped between conflicting modes of comportment, and the immediate world around her is very limiting.

Souad lives in Zagazig, a nondescript city north of Cairo full of unauthorised constructions which she sees from the balcony of her lower-middle-class family’s apartment. She’s in school yet her life is circumscribed by the expectations of her social class, which means she’s required to spend much of her time sharing household chores with her mother Nagwa. She and younger sister Rabab (Basmala Elghaiesh - fabulous throughout) have a strong yet typically volatile sibling bond, while their father Abdallah barely interacts with the family. Contact with boys is possible only through her mobile, which is the most important item connected to her body (far more than her hijab). The mobile phone is her confidante, window and mirror: she sees herself solely through it, to an even greater degree than her friends (it's also one of those rare films which really engages with online existence and social media, yet without needing to flash up tweets and texts as onscreen graphics in the way most do).

Souad wears a T-shirt with the slogan “Girls Do Not Dress for Boys,” but while she’d give lip service to that, the truth is she longs for the male gaze and yearns to dress in a way that attracts it. She sends streams of suggestive photos and messages to the guy she considers her boyfriend, Ahmed, a content creator for social media living in Alexandria who’s older and clearly far less invested in the relationship. Then 40 minutes in, an unforeseen event upends the storyline (and cleverly alters traditional narrative expectations) and brings Rabab to the fore, as she takes a day trip to Alexandria to meet Ahmed.

Amin captures the salient differences between Zagazig and cosmopolitan Alexandria, where the latter appears to grant a more relaxed atmosphere yet where the dictates of controlling conservatism are still present. One of the many strengths of “Souad” is the way it manages to subtly encapsulate each milieu, building a complex picture of Egypt today that’s both loving and critical. Most of all, the film offers insight into the impossible space so many young Egyptian women inhabit, where what’s forbidden by religion is so commonly available virtually, and the hypocrisy of it all creates an untenable tension that crushes the spirit. Amin’s choice of intensely workshopping scenes with unknown actors pays off in spades, ensuring flowing dialogue that feels unscripted and true. Beyond words though, the actors convey knotty inner lives, caught by a roaming camera that makes the viewer very much a part of this world. Impressive stuff.