Matar Abu Rabie (Jamal Suleiman) returns from self-imposed exile. A leftist fighter, he fought the Zionist enemy during the 1982 invasion of Beirut. Everyone considered him a martyr at that time due to his disappearance and the absence of his tracks or body. His fiancée, “Khaleda” (Dhaha al-Dibs), the Palestinian who lives in the camp with her brother (Abdul Hadi Sabbagh), who lost his arm in the same invasion, and her mother (Thanaa Debsy), who is haunted by the obsessions of returning to Palestine, still lives on his memory. Matar, the amazing character, returns with a lot of money and a lot of anger. He sold everything related to the revolution and the struggle and replaced it with “modern” ideas, as he put it. Thoughts that don’t give any weight to principles or morals, even if they wrap them in their amazing robe. He returned to meet yesterday’s group: Safi (Ghassan Massoud), the aristocratic painter, and his sister Abla (Samar Sami), the famous TV writer; She is married to a famous lawyer (Salim Sabry). The viewer soon learns that Abla was Matar’s ex-girlfriend, despite his engagement to Khaleda. The series begins by heading towards its own plot, albeit comically opposite to the idea of Alexandre Dumas’ wonderful “Count de Monte Cristo”, with the returning avenger, making him a villain this time. All this momentum is only one side of the story. The writer excelled in presenting four or five parallel stories that go together: a popular neighborhood that includes university girls/workers who live together, the original residents of the neighborhood of young men working in popular professions, the community of friends with cultural/aristocratic and revolutionary origins, and the world of the night with the artist “Aswaar.” (Shukran Murtaja) and the cabaret you work in. This creative mix made us in front of an amazing mosaic of society, not only Syrian, but also Arab.
The character “Matar” is the best portrayal of the idea of “The Devil” in all its meaning. We are in front of a magician in every sense of the word. Creative Jamal Suleiman in drawing his features. He resembles Al Pacino as director Taylor Hackfort’s demon in The Devil’s Advocate. A demon who is seductive, frightening and attractive at the same time and above all wants everything and nothing at the same time. Matar is not a good person who is corrupt, he is corrupt by his choice from the beginning. For example, he chose to imitate Guevara and wear a “beret”, because the eighties were haunted by the left and the revolution, and that “trade” was popular at the time, and it was a key for him to reach the heart of “Abla” and the friendship of her brother “Safi”. He uses Al-Mutanabbi’s poetry and listens to Abdel Halim’s songs whenever he has the opportunity. He wants to establish an Islamic bank, and he produces an album for the popular singer “Aswaar” (one of Shukran Murtaja’s first important roles), explicitly declaring that the “random song” is attractive and surprising despite its absurdity and shallowness (the series preceded the stage of its spread). songs by years). Matar exploits the simple evils of humans, to magnify them and uses them as chess pieces. Whoever watches the series knows that he did not need to spend a lot of money or to pay anyone to sin. He just waved in front of people what they wanted (McGuffin) to become slaves of that lust and to him without realizing.
An amazing mosaic of Syrian and Arab society
The strength of the character of “Matar” does not deny that the remaining characters were full. We saw “Safi” (Ghassan Massoud), the aristocratic painter, who resembles the stereotype of those aristocratic figures who left their society, to enter the “left dream” and change society, albeit through art, but it maintained her behaviour, the nature of her life and her wealth; It was accompanied by “shyness/laziness” and sometimes “cowardice,” which distinguished this social class from others. In turn, Abla (Samar Sami), the princess from the legendary stories, was gentle and wealthy, everyone’s dream, which we discover that even “Youssef” (Abdul Hadi Sabbagh) loved her. Young characters in the series played a big role, so “Kinda” was similar to the characters of the famous Western / Hollywood drama: a mixture between the famous “Lolita” Vladimir Nabokov, and the fully feminine woman represented by Jane Mansfield and Sophia Loren at one point. She is not after Sulaf Fawakherji, which the public knows now, but that does not prevent her from showing a high craft, especially when standing in front of a drama teacher like Ghassan Massoud. Amal Arafa, as Nadine, performed in one of her first roles as a “second or third” heroine. She embodied a trained lawyer, an “ambitious” villager who loves the dream presented to her by “Matar”; And it goes against everything: laws, customs, customs, and traditions for the sake of that dream. The side characters that the writer gave with impetus and strength also emerged. We saw the Islamic trends that began to appear in society, and the amazing struggle between the world of theater, which is full of ideals, and the financially poor, compared to the world of shallow television, which is drenched in money.
Directly, Haitham Haqqi made a great effort, especially in terms of presenting the characters as accurately depicted by Hanna. Musically, the well-known composer Taher Mamli provided a beautiful musical structure. In short, we are in front of a creative work in every sense of the word.
* “Memories of the Next Time” on “Witness”