A Bahraini Tale

An Easier Said Tale Than Done

Fatima (Mariam Ziman) lived through mixture of disappointments. Starting with her husband on going annoyances, which she has no control of, to the gradual loose of her children, friends and above all her dreams. It's the time were people in this small island were used to live for big principles such solidarity against both inside and outside disputes. There were some local scam people and more of corrupted state. This were surrounded with a long waited "D-day" with the Jewish state. The local hero was "Jamal Abdul Nasser" and Israel's nightmare and the time was 5 June 1967! Eventually, the five days war that followed was a painful defeat to both the Arabs and Fatima's small island.

For some, the reaction was to escape out of this sinking ship of reality to the other side of the sea. Only people like Fatima who went out in the street to face the destiny of her generation to say "No!".

Despite the glowing notices on long waited opportunity for Bassam Al-Thawadi's "A to Z 35 mm Movie", with a little backup from few Bahraini businessmen and an international professional film crew I thought "A Bahraini Tale" was a muddled film, an overlong, and certainly could have been one of Bassam's best if not for these pits and pieces.

Some characters are well acted, such as (Latifa, Fatima, Khalifa, Yaqoop and Hammad) but for most, this probably helped with a shaky script and with inadequate story, lacked interested development through most of the film.

Yousif Foolad