El Mamar: Between Patriotism and Wars of Attrition

By: Mohamed Youssef

@MAboussef

El Mamar (The Passage) is the first blockbuster war movie released in local cinemas since 1993’s Al-tareeq ila Eilat (The Road to Eilat) showcasing an Egyptian military ‘behind enemy lines’ operation during the War of Attrition 1967-1973.

Starring the Egyptian actor Ahmed Ezz as Lieutenant Nour, commander of the task force carrying out the mission, El-Mamar’s high production value and engaging war sequences kept viewers on the edge of their seats.

The explosive action throughout the movie was very well coordinated and successfully engaged viewers.   

But the recurring cliches were impossible to overlook.

Throughout the film, the characters repeatedly engaged in nationalistic monologues that weren’t particularly detrimental to the overall experience of the film but were explicit and awkwardly placed. 

When the dialogue wasn’t overly charged with patriotic speeches, it was used to spoon-feed the audience background information on Egyptian history to contextualize the events in the film. This gave the impression that the film was short on time, as it did not invest in revealing the context by way of the plot as is usually the case. 

As a result, this contextualization felt abrupt and was easily forgettable as it was bluntly explained rather than being left to the audience’s conception through their own interpretation of events.    

The patriotic angle the movie is trying to assume is understandable and totally acceptable, but some scenes are poorly constructed and fail to convincingly propagate this message.

The film tries to show how a broken Egypt rose again after the bitter 1967 defeat at the hands of the Israelis – what history now refers to as the naksa.

But through cliche and predictable scenes such as the one where an Israeli soldier is smirking as he shoots retreating Egyptian soldiers, the film loses any form of immersion it had already established.  

The film introduces the characters by giving us a glimpse of their back stories like Ehsan, a journalist who decides to do something meaningful after working for two belly-dancers.

Although the story was informative enough and helped bring the characters to life, it was quite brief and did not dive deep enough to make the audience connect or sympathise with them.

While Ehsan was a likable character, his story was very shallow and was presented in a comical manner inconsistent with the war-time tensions the film pre-established.   

The film included many characters in commander Nour’s task force, each supposedly bringing something different to the bunch. Unfortunately, some characters felt imposed, with little importance to the plotline and no interesting background.  

For example, the character of Ahmed played by Mohamed Al Sharnouby came off as ill fitting to the group with only one scene that comes close to validating his significance to the task force – and the plot. 

He was not engaging enough, his romantic backstory was bland and him telling his fiance that with an uncertain future their relationship cannot move on was terribly cliche. 

On the plus side, the film successfully encapsulated the tension of the time period and the social uncertainty associated with war. It does so by showing how Egyptians from all walks of life were affected by the war. Although this might have given the impression that the film is disorganized, it clearly paid off in creating an interesting atmosphere.

In addition, it miraculously steered clear from discussing socio-political themes indicative of the era, namely Nasser-related arguments around the 1967 war, which the director maintain the focus on the story.

The action sequences for the most part, although influenced to some extent by other action flicks, were really enjoyable and well-choreographed.

The movie score was also one of the most successful aspects of the movie. Composed by world renowned musician Omar Khairat, it complemented the scenes flawlessly and oversaw a well orchestrated ambiance. 

El-Mamar is a neat return to war films in Egyptian cinema, its grand action sequences only became more enjoyable as the film progressed and its tense nature kept the viewers guessing. 

It was plagued however by watery clichés in its idealistic dialogue. It is quite understandable that a film like El-Mamar would have such dialogue and while some filmmakers choose to steer clear from that others choose to include it, which is a respectable decision. Nevertheless, in this case it becomes quite repetitive really quick and it’s over usage takes a toll on the film’s plausibility.