‘East Of Noon’: Cannes Review

Dirs. Hala Elkoussy. Egypt. 2024. 109mins

A sumptuous piece of filmmaking, East Of Noon captures youthful angst under autocratic rule. It is set in Egypt, where ambitious teenage musician Abdo (a captivating Omar Rozeik) longs to leave his dead-end surroundings along with his partner Nunna (Fayza Shama). The rebellious Abdo is alway in trouble with the local authorities, which forces his sage grandmother, Galala the storyteller (Menha El Batroui), to protect him from retribution. The picture’s handsomely mounted surrealness is enough to transform this story of youthful revolt into a fervent, evocative satire capable of grappling with taboo subjects. 

A fervent, evocative satire  

Premiering at Director’s Fortnight, writer/director Hala Elkoussy’s second feature film (following his 2017 debut Cactus Flower) tries to recall the works of Gordard and Fellini as a reality-warping, formally daring fable that may have specific arthouse appeal. 

Filmed in milky black-and-white, the viscous texture of Kodak 16mm lends a grim, imaginative tone to Abdo’s story. He spends much of his time either locked away in his room, creating music with household items (radios, pipes, sandals, a typewriter etc) or doing odd jobs, like digging ditches for graves and treasure. No matter where he is, however, people like Shawky the Showman (Ahmed Kamal), who stages theatrical productions meant to entertain and instill fear, want to keep him under their thumb. Abdo uses his music to remix the insults flung at him, poking fun at his oppressors through their own recorded words.  

Abdo often recalls cinema’s many restless young men. In fact, when paired with Nunna, a teenage girl forced into sex work by the oppressive magistrate Borai (Osama Aboul Atta), the two often bring to mind Paul and Madeline in Godard’s Masculine Feminine (1966). Though not as devoutly political as Godard’s pair, Abdo and Nunna are both resentful of their town’s present power structure. Galala often tries to calm Abdo’s anger. “Patience,” she says. “Is death,” he continues. “I wish I could blink and be far away.” Abdo demonstrates the pain of a kid who’s grown far too old to believe in hope and fairytales, but is also far too young to know which battles to fight. 

Elkoussy is a strong world builder. Each set provides a lush cornucopia of information – especially Galala’s shop, where people can either pawn or exchange items for the many odds and ends that adorn her walls. Pieces like clocks, toys, and appliances give us a texture of everyday life. Elkoussy’s keen sense of staging makes for classical composed frames from DoP Abdelsalam Moussa, flushed by ethereal lighting, that give this visionary film a sense of scale.

Although mostly filmed in black and white, East Of Noon has occassional shocks of color. These sequences – which carry the kind of escapist imagination Galala pleads Abdo to have – take place by the sea, far away from the dusty, dingy confines of the town. Other black and white dream sequences, where people in animal masks chase Abdo, often recall Fellini’s sense of the surreal, where the boundaries between harsh reality and invasive nightmarish memories collide. 

Despite its otherworldliness, East Of Noon remains surprisingly grounded, even in its transgressiveness. It covers issues of rape, abortion and sex work frankly, while demanding its characters burn down their broken government. Because the autocratic rulers of this impoverished town aren’t just out to control Abdo – they want to break him, to extinguish his confident innocence. And it looks like they may do just that before Abdo, with the help of a headstrong Nunna, regains his tenacity. The final freakout, a chaotic crumbling of the social order that seesyouth finally taking up arms, is vigorous filmmaking that, like this well-crafted picture, really makes a mark.