Horst_In_Translation Review of Looking for Oum Kulthum

Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017)

Lacks in crucial manner at all its key points

[4/10 · 20 July 2018]

"Looking for Oum Kulthum" is a new 1.5-hour film, a collaboration between many countries and the outcome is unsurprisingly in several languages too. This was written and directed by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari and it is the story of a female filmmaker, her current project and the people entering her life in the process. And of course about singer Oum Kulthum and her legacy as well as impact on the people several decades ago. I read that she was as big a star in her region as Maria Callas is for us, but yeah fiven thatg popularity I am still a bit surprise I have not heard about her at all. My loss I guess. Sadly, this film never really made enough of an impact for me to really take a deeper look in her career. The main character is played by Neda Rahmanian and her role as a filmmaker includes most of all struggles, such as finding the right actors for her big project, giving the project the right approach, overcoming anti-female discrimination and eventually struggling with the disappearance of her son and as a consequence getting severe doubts about the project's existence. But sadly, hardly any of these fields felt executed with sufficient talent and attention to detail. Lets start with the casting. We only find out about one casting decision, the one in the center of it all and that would have been tolerable if only they had not tried to convince us that it#s right to make this decision in favor of somebody with virtually no acting experience, just the singing, and still she is supposed to be enough. I don't know. It also isn't helping much how the project, not at one point during filming, seems to have a script that has a lot to do with Kulthum's life, but is merely fictitious for the most part while still using her big name to attract audiences. And finally, when the main character says there is one day of shooting left and she changed the entire script in a crucial manner that it's all good. It's really unprofessional to me and what may or may not have happened to her son never feels like sufficient explanation. By the way, why is she not going to look for him in a way you'd expect a good mother to do. Or at least immediately retiring from the project, I am sure everybody would have understood. The changes in her mind about the film are maybe the biggest problem of the actual film because absolutely none of what is leading to these decision was elaborated on for the audience in a sufficiently convincing manner that we could follow through and understand her thinking process. So yeah, there are many flaws in this film unfortunately. It may seem deep significant to the untrained eye with its references about gender equality, several areas of art, motherhood, creative conflict and more and the geographical area where it is set, what it is about may trick some awards bodies too into thinking this is a quality movie. But it is not. It could have been, but the execution just isn't there and the ways in which it tries to hide the lack of a convincing plot behind seemingly meaningful metaphors and symbolisms feel embarrassing. Watch something else instead.