arrabi

This movie is a great one on several levels: 1- It depicts the life in Amman Jordan in a very real way: the difference between the poor (eastern) and rich (western) sides of the city very well. The nostalgic aspects of Amman downtown - the roman ruins everywhere, the stairs, the groups of kids running around ... This is one aspect never found in any previous Jordanian movies.

2- The movie has very capable actors - very expressive faces. The kids in the movie are supposedly 1st time actors, gathered from refugee camps in Jordan. That is AMAZING. They truly acted so natural.

3- amazing soundtrack - the music score adds so much to the emotional scenes - yet, it remains transparent. Perfect combination.

4- the story is very nice, global, humanistic, 3rd world concerns (child employment, familial violence, poverty, class segregation, etc.) I think the story could have been better: I wish it had more depth, I wish the problems presented are not so "cliche". Child employment and familial violence are problems that usually 1st world people "project" on 3rd world countries. However, if you ask 3rd world people about it, chances are they are at the bottom of the list. Not because they are not important, but because there are so many other more pressing problems, AND, because they often tend to be symptoms of poverty & ignorance.

I wish the author has picked a problem where right and wrong are actually much harder to decide. The movie seemed a bit long even at 1.5 hours.

I also wish the movie got faster.. the introduction, and I would say the first 60 minutes of the movie were perfect. The director was preparing the stage for the plot very nicely. However, after 60 minutes, one would expect the movie to pick up speed and not remain very "dreamy" like. The plot came very quickly.

Overall, great job director Matalqa. I am looking forward for his future movies.