Saeed (El Shafei) is a pushover man-child. He wears bright onesies to bed, has a Justin Bieber haircut, decorates his flat with pictures of Winnie the Pooh and watches cartoons while drinking milk. He's in love with a woman called Gamila (El Baroudi) to whom he's been sending anonymous love letters for 20 years without ever being able to pluck up the courage to introduce himself. He reaches his breaking point when a neighbour continues her quest to spoil his mornings and his alter ego Hazem appears. Hazem has greaser hair, smokes and drinks, has a way with girls and won't let anyone boss him around.
Saeed's latest assignment at the paper he works for causes both him and his alter ego to get mixed up in the robbing of a newly discovered Ancient Egyptian artefact. When Gamila gets unwillingly entangled in the robbery in her capacity as an Egyptologist, Saeed has to take a stand against Hazem to save the life of the woman he loves.
This is Nedal El Shafei's film, and comes across as a Mohammed Saad / Ahmad Mekki hybrid. As Saeed his facial tics are really quite similar to that of Saad. While as Hazem, he brought to mind Mekki, especially during a choreographed dance scene to Michael Jackson's Dangerous.
El Shafei's scenes show that he has the talent; he just needs the right material and better direction. There were some parts where he had to hold arguments between the two personalities and he'd switch his mannerisms and voice at a really rapid pace. During these scenes, you could always tell who was saying what and which identity was dominant at any given moment. He almost morphs into another person. Despite this, El Shafei is not helped by the direction. The director should have trusted the actor enough to convey the switching of identities without the background animal noises and the weird effects that were sometimes employed and which only served to give the film an amateurish feel.
Story-wise, the film isn't very coherent. Saeed is shown to be working at a newspaper at the beginning of the film. The editor-in-chief gives him an assignment and this is apparently the set up for the rest of the film. The connection between the stolen artefact and the piece he was commissioned to write isn't made clear. Honestly, the latter seemed like a detail of no importance until the end of the film when the story finally clicks.
The romantic subplot also needed to be fleshed out more. We're never given a reason as to why they're interested in one another, other than he's been sending her love letters for twenty years and that these letters are now a huge part of her life.
Despite the story's potholes and the amateurish effects employed, Ya Ana Ya Howashould be a stepping stone to projects that can better showcase El Shafei's talents. Until then however, this film offers a few entertaining scenes in the middle of an inconsistent and rather confusing whole.
About the AuthorStaff Writer for Cairo 360
Original article on:Cairo360
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