Still: East of Noon - Hala Elkoussy

Hala Elkoussy hates being asked to explain what any new film is about. This is as much the case on East of Noon as any of her previous pics. She tells how, even in pre-production some seven years ago on the new work, no answer she gave could readily explain the complex scenario she had in mind for the film she wanted to make. 

“I almost resent this question because it's very reductive and I don't necessarily work in this kind of handy logline fashion,” she says. That said, on this occasion she describes the film’s essence to SEE NL. “I would describe it as a dystopia, but not one set in the future. I would describe it as a fable about power and courage. I would describe it as a story about the power of the imagination.”

To that she could easily add that it is a mesmerising allegory that pitches the audience into a monochrome world of dystopian opposites, between control and liberty, between the city as a place of oppression and the sea as a haven, between art and stagnation. It is also a film about storytelling, as illustrated by the elderly Jalala who runs the stories shop, and about two young people who want to fall in love; the cheeky dreamer Abdo, whose percussive music is played on a Heath Robinson drumkit of his own devising, and the happy-go-lucky yet pragmatic Nunna Lolly, a victim of sexual abuse meted out by the local gangster Borai.

“Let's say I borrow from the language of allegory to describe something that is in my mind, in my universe,” the Egyptian filmmaker responds when asked which world she is describing in her film.

“This notion of the relationship between power and art, and power and youth, is something that is everywhere. But it’s dressed in what I know. Basically, if you have a universal idea, but it's coloured by who you are, it would be completely different had I been from a different part of the world. So I rely heavily on local references to give life to the characters and the story, because this is what I know.”

Storyteller Jalala, for example, is far from “maternal,” says Elkoussy. “She does not see herself as holy just by virtue of being old and wise. Yet she's open to youth and what youth means,” and is therefore far removed from the villainous patriarchs who dominate the narrative elsewhere within the film.

Likewise, Nunna Lolly is a young woman living off her wits. “We deal with a lot of hardship through sense of humour,” says Elkoussy. “She's a happy-go-lucky kind of character that in my mind I meet all the time. It's not like she's shallow, not at all, but she's a survivor. And as a survivor, she needs her mechanisms which are in opposition to the young Abdo who is stuck in this notion that he wants to go somewhere else. She knows how to adapt. It's an intrinsic understanding of what life is about. She has something that is beyond her years, and that is the essence of what it is to survive while remaining healthy.”

The story is played out within a delicious and audacious mise-en-scène depicting industrial grime, playful theatricality and a seascape that is akin to myth. The sense of illusion is further enhanced by a monochrome aesthetic which serves to demarcate the worlds of reality and the imaginary.

For Elkoussy the careful production design represents a sense of “vision fulfilment,” and she tells how she retains a catalogue of visual images in her head that she will turn to in order to heighten the cinematic experience, or to subvert expectations. She explains how she dresses the local police in Boy Scout uniforms that are more suggestive of the former colonial [British] militia, and hence effects a shift in audience perception. “It triggers something different in your thought processes about what they are supposed to embody. They're supposed to embody power, but that is subverted by what they are wearing.”

Produced by artist/filmmaker Lonnie van Brummelen for vriza productions, and Marc Thelosen for seriousFilm, the film received funding of €450,000 from De Verbeelding, a collaboration between the Mondriaan Fund and the Netherlands Film Fund. Film Production Incentive and Fonds 21 further supported the production of the film while post-production was supported by DOHA Film Institute. AFK and Mondriaan Fund supported the research for East of Noon.

“This kind of production sits between the two worlds art and film, and I believe that I convinced the committee that this film had enough artistic and experimental merit,” Elkoussy ends of her fantastical work that is sure to stimulate and thrill both critics and audiences alike.

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Here you will find the complete overview of Dutch (co-)productions in Cannes and the screening schedule.