Souad

A phone cam­era becomes a mir­ror for self-per­cep­tion in Ayten Amin’s Souad, named after its 19-year-old pro­tag­o­nist, played by Bas­sant Ahmed. Almost a social chameleon, she makes up sto­ries of fiancés and med­ical schools and fish­es for advice from whichev­er kind­ly ​“aun­ty” is sit­ting next to her on the bus. Her actu­al world is smaller.

In the Egypt­ian inner city of Zagazig, she lives at home, silent­ly serv­ing her par­ents along with her lit­tle sis­ter Rabab (Bas­mala Elghaiesh). She escapes through her phone screen, obses­sive­ly scrolling social media and reach­ing out to this almost unat­tain­able oth­er world. She starts rela­tion­ships with old­er men like Ahmed (Hus­sain Ghanem), who lives a shiny influ­encer life hours away in the glam­orous port­side city of Alexan­dria, send­ing him a tranche of voice mes­sages and pictures.

In only show­ing Souad’s side of this rela­tion­ship to begin with, Amin high­lights the anx­i­ety that comes with­out human prox­im­i­ty or the imme­di­a­cy of a response. Souad’s flirt­ing is painful to watch as she sits in the dark, lit by the unnat­ur­al blue glow, silent­ly cry­ing. There’s irony in her t‑shirt embla­zoned with ​‘GIRLS DON’T DRESS FOR GUYS’. With­out a sound­track or voiceover, Souad feels voyeuris­tic as the cam­era fol­lows its sub­ject inti­mate­ly, but there is a bar­ri­er of under­stand­ing, even when we hear her des­per­ate late night messages.

Con­ver­sa­tions with her friends intro­duce the thoughts of oth­er Egypt­ian teenagers, pre­sent­ing an intrigu­ing dichoto­my between faith and friv­o­li­ty, from judge­ments passed on oth­er Insta­gram pro­files to men­tion of Istikhara, a prayer for seek­ing answers about the future from God.

While the use of shit­ty mas­cara, and too-red, too-sticky lip gloss is a relat­able expe­ri­ence, one inci­sive scene shows the girls talk­ing about light­en­ing skin with lemon juice, high­light­ing the per­va­sive beau­ty ideals that indoc­tri­nate them with racism. How­ev­er, these lim­it­ed insights fade as Souad’s clos­est friends become stereo­types, like an angel and a demon on each shoul­der. One overt­ly flirt­ing and encour­ag­ing, the oth­er more reserved about relationships.

In its sec­ond half the film switch­es to Rabab’s per­spec­tive as she seeks out Ahmed. There is a real­i­sa­tion that the ter­ri­ble man on the oth­er side of the phone real­ly is just some guy, as lost as Souad, though old enough to know bet­ter. In her debut per­for­mance, Bas­mala Elghaiesh stands out. Despite her youth and unas­sum­ing pres­ence, Rabab is as smooth a liar as her sis­ter, and her casu­al decep­tions are star­tling. She par­rots every­thing from the scold­ing of her aunt to the pain of her sis­ter, and her con­fu­sion bursts out from oth­er­wise reserved dialogue.

Souad inter­ro­gates mod­ern Egypt­ian soci­ety with an over­ly mat­ter-of-fact tone that is only just saved by Elghaiesh’s emo­tive moments as a kid ques­tion­ing the val­ue of this ephemer­al adult world. As some­one with rel­e­vant first-hand expe­ri­ence of this world and these char­ac­ters, it all comes across as super­fi­cial and sour – with­out the coun­ter­bal­ance of hope. Though it may feel more rev­e­la­to­ry to those nav­i­gat­ing this milieu for the first time.