Talking About Trees | Little White Lies

Talk­ing About Trees

31 Jan 2020 / Released: 31 Jan 2020

Words by Maria Nae

Directed by Suhaib Gasmelbari

Starring Ibrahim Shaddad and Suhaib Gasmelbari

Camel and man seated in empty arena
Camel and man seated in empty arena
3

Anticipation.

Talking About Trees doesn’t sound very appealing.

4

Enjoyment.

Intoxicating passion, playfulness and intimacy drive this film from start to finish.

4

In Retrospect.

An honest, inspiring achievement.

Four local film­mak­ers attempt to revive cin­e­ma-going in Sudan in this play­ful, inspir­ing documentary.

A black­out in Khar­toum moti­vates a group of elder­ly ex-film­mak­ers to recre­ate a scene from Bil­ly Wilder’s Sun­set Blvd. in which Glo­ria Swan­son saun­ters down some stairs. Through a joy­ful­ness root­ed in pro­found affec­tion and knowl­edge, Ibrahim, Suleiman, Man­ar and Eltayeb demon­strate what it means to have film­mak­ing run­ning through your veins in Suhain Gasmelbari’s Talk­ing About Trees.

Some con­text: after the Islamist government’s mil­i­tary coup of 1989 in Sudan, polit­i­cal restric­tions led peo­ple to watch films at home, replac­ing the trea­sured cin­e­ma expe­ri­ence with a new lover” (dig­i­tal film). Decades lat­er, enthu­si­asm for a poten­tial rebirth of the phys­i­cal, com­mu­nal expe­ri­ence is clear, as some even admit to hav­ing nev­er seen a film on the big screen.

The direc­tor focus­es on four forcibly retired film­mak­ers bond­ed by their con­ta­gious pas­sion for film and gen­uine friend­ship which endured decades of sep­a­ra­tion, strug­gle and exile. They aim to reopen an old cin­e­ma for a free screen­ing, but Nation­al Secu­ri­ty stands in their way.

The title was inspired by a poem by Bertolt Brecht, which explores the author­i­ty of dic­ta­tor­ship and how shift­ing the dia­logue to monot­o­nous top­ics empha­sis­es that which can­not be spo­ken. Of course, films aren’t trees, but as films are often used to illus­trate a nation’s cul­ture and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, trees have sym­bol­ic impor­tance for eth­nic­i­ty and identity.

With glimpses into their time­worn idio­syn­crat­ic work, the film heav­i­ly implies an urgency for the return of cin­e­ma for our heroes. Their careers were end­ed, their tal­ents wast­ed and their voic­es mut­ed. This film reflects the lost oppor­tu­ni­ties of a coun­try full of poten­tial and many hun­gry for cre­ative self-expression.

The com­bi­na­tion of com­i­cal remarks, jokes and nos­tal­gia – emerg­ing from friends rem­i­nisc­ing about a sim­pler past – often con­ceals the seri­ous­ness of the issues explored, result­ing in a bit­ter­sweet under­tow that feels strange­ly relevant.

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