In ‘May Twenty Seventh of This Year’, Mostafa Morad tackles a well-known subject that we don’t give enough attention, and that is the partners of famous artists. We all have writers, actors, musicians that we love and we think they are the nice people with regular everyday activities, but, in reality, some of them become monsters when it comes to the interaction with their significant other. In the name of art, they become abusive: they tend to control everything; they want the power to overcome the writer’s block that sometimes barges in. Whilst doing so, they tend to unleash a different person that is most of the times, one hundred per cent different from the person they are in their everyday life. There are thousands of examples one google search away, and we will not point them out here.
It is fascinating to watch the chemistry between young couple in Mostafa Morad’s short film. They seem happy, but that happiness hides some deep scars under it. Awatef (played by Sandra Sameh) is extremely supportive of her husband, and she will do literally anything to help him achieve his goals. On the other hand, young Adham (played by Ahmed Adel) does not see the artistic potential his wife has, and most of the times mocks her based on that. She seems offended by this, but she manages to get past this every single time. When the writer’s block occurs, Adham needs to focus more, and his wife wants to help him in some way. Few steps forward, the story does not end well, and there seems to be a loophole that can change the whole course of this story, but Adham knows it. When he feels that the time is right, he finds courage and is ready to unveil the truth.
If there is one thing to recommend, that is to improve the subtitles, as they are a little bit off, and we as viewers do not get the whole point of the scene. For example, when Adham holds a note in his hand, there are some lines written, but in translation there is just the title, and in this regard it was hard for us to understand the whole context of what happened to Awatef. Also, there are moments when the word choice makes the sentence evasive and hard to understand without having to rewind it. Aside from that, ‘May Twenty Seventh of This Year’ is nevertheless a beautiful film with a story that stands out in a remarkable way.
Written by Vlad A. G.