An exceptional season for Egyptian Ramadan drama this year, exceptional in everything: timing, circumstances, topics, audience interaction, and evaluation of the works. Stars who dominated the screens for years fell into the trap of public anger, and others repeated themselves, succeeding or failing, and other works were frank in their goal to the extent that they wrote in their introduction: Produced by the Armed Forces! It is necessarily known about the current Egyptian media situation that the state controls it through the “Synergy Artistic Production” company and its director, Tamer Morsi, which is a company currently affiliated with Egyptian General Intelligence and supervises all dramatic and artistic works in Egypt. In light of a global epidemic the likes of which has not afflicted humanity in more than 100 years, filming series came to violate the ban imposed by the circumstances of confronting the new Corona virus, but among the works that were shown this year, 3 works topped the list: The Prince, The Choice, and The End, and each of them has a different experience and a unique evaluation. In this report, we take you on a tour to evaluate these three works shown on Egyptian screens this year:
Choice
From the first shot of the series, we know that it is produced by the “Egyptian Ministry of Defense (Department of Morale Affairs)”; To make it clear that we are not facing just an ordinary dramatic work, but rather a work directed by the state, the series tries to answer the question: Who is the enemy? Let the compass shift from “Israel” to “Islamists.” Indeed, in addition to the series’ work on presenting the biography of the late Colonel Ahmed Al-Mansi, who was killed in 2017 in an armed attack on an ambush in the city of Rafah, the series presents the state’s approved narrative about the year of rule of the late President Mohamed Morsi, the June 30 demonstrations, the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in, and the July 3 coup, which of course the series will not describe as a military coup. The series focuses on repeating scenes that remind Egyptians of the “blessings” in which they are currently living under the rule of military President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, by referring to the frequent power outages that occurred during the era of President Morsi, and the queues that were in front of gasoline stations, without addressing the causes of these sudden unrest, but rather only showing the “popular anger” resulting from this against the president. But the most dangerous idea in the series is to show the idea of linking the year of Muslim Brotherhood rule to the armed organizations in North Sinai, which appeared repeatedly in the first episodes. This appears from what guest of honor Majed Al-Masry said to “Mansy”, Amir Karara, who plays the role of Mansy, “Are you independent of what happened or what? In the year they ruled the country, you made a mistake, especially Sinai.” From the first moment, the drama of the series is marred by a clear problem, which is the stagnation of the characters. The development of the main characters in the work is simple and devoid of structure. “Mansi” appears, starting with the rank of major in the armed forces, as a brave, helpful and beloved person. He is embodied by Karara in the spirit of Pasha “Salim Al-Ansari”, the hero of “Kalbash”, without development. The character of Hisham Ashmawy came from the embodiment of Ahmed Al-Awadi in a superficial way, a terrorist who always frowns even inside his home. He was raised in a strict and extremist religious upbringing, but it is not clear, for example, why his thoughts changed after entering the army. A montage drama plays out over the interview between them. In general, the series conveys a direct idea directed to the audience, which is that “the army protects the state from terrorists,” that the residents of Sinai are murderers and hired hands, that the Brotherhood and President Morsi were supporters of extremists, and that Sisi is the only hero who saved Egypt from all of this.
The prince
The series tells the story of Youssef and his brothers, or “Radoun El-Prince” and his brothers. As usual, we are faced with a Ramadan story of revenge (relative to Muhammad Ramadan and not the holy month), within the framework of a popular contemporary treatment, where Ramadan returns to his comfort zone; The authentic Egyptian neighborhood, with all its requirements: coffee and children of the country, quarrels that the people of Hatta watch, and conflicts that take place over the values of ingenuity and immorality and the morals of the people of origins, and the sentences inlaid with the oath: “And the throne of our Lord.” The story revolves around Radwan, the best Doku craftsman in Egypt, the son of Hajj Hamed, the owner of the workshop, who has seven children, but they are not from the same mother. In the family building lives the first wife, who is no longer in his care but is still in charge of the family, and who bore him two children. The second, from which he had four children. As for Radwan, he is an orphan, as his mother, Fatima, died when he was young. Radwan, played by Mohamed Ramadan, is the son who is most loyal to his father. His father loves him more than his brothers and declares this. He is the one who inherits his profession, and he is the one who cuts off his passport in the first scene of the series, out of fear that he will be dissatisfied with his travel abroad, and he is the one who is most affectionate towards him. As Ramadan is accustomed to every year, he buries his father in the third episode. Let the conflict begin this time, when we discover that he has written all his properties in his name, and instructed him not to give his brothers their rights until their situation is improved. Each one of Radwan’s brothers has a reason to make his father angry with him. The eldest, Abdel Mohsen (Edward), made him angry and married a dancer (Badriya Tolba). As for Fathi (Ahmed Zaher), Yasser (Mohamed Alaa), and Raafat, the husband of their foul-tempered sister Abeer (Rehab El-Gamal), they work in the hashish trade, and at the front they open a pharmacy in the name of Dr. Shaima (Donia), Fathi’s wife. As for Adel (Ahmed Dash), he is a heroin addict. He lives far away from them and works in social media. As for Noura (Reem Sami), she is the kind, innocent younger sister who studies engineering. The series is filled with excess shots, fillers and stretching, many monologues and dialogues that repeat and add to the same content, without any dramatic benefit. As expected: the brothers turn against their brother who took away their rights, and their journey of revenge begins, until they wrong him, then the good brother turns evil and takes revenge on everyone. What is also striking in the “Prince” series is the dissemination and confirmation of the values of revenge and the increase in the dose of evil in the Egyptian character. It was clear while the Egyptians were watching the series during the month of Ramadan that they were extremely surprised at the amount of evil inherent in the characters of the series, which confirms the efforts of the drama makers in Egypt, who here are “the state,” to confirm the Egyptians’ view of themselves as bad people and that evil is spreading among them.
The end
Although many of the metaphors, connotations and worlds of the series “The End”, by Amr Samir Atef, were collected and patched from famous science fiction films, where you can see, for example, glimpses of the films “Blade Runner” and “1984”, it still maintains a sense of originality, to some extent, especially with its ambitious alternative history. It is the year 2120, the Earth is suffering from an energy crisis, and corporations have as much power as states these days. The company, aptly named Energy Co, has rules against the use of unauthorized energy cubes. Education is also not permissible for all people, unless it is with permission from the Education Co., where the selective education system is implemented, and anyone who violates this law and allows himself to teach to unauthorized children is punished. Years before the beginning of our story, the United States had fallen and disintegrated into gang-run provinces, allowing the Arabs to unite and reclaim Jerusalem. Our hero, engineer “Zain” Youssef Al-Sharif, had discovered a way to generate energy ten times what a regular IC cube could generate. He also secretly teaches orphans to read. Both of these things are making Energy Co. go after him. He must find a way to solve the energy crisis while at the same time escaping the authorities. In a parallel line to this, comes the character of Sabah (Sahar Al-Sayegh), who works with Zain’s pregnant wife, Radwa (Nahed El-Sebaei), in the “Green Co.” company responsible for crops and food, and who was previously infatuated with Zain, to decide to install a robot that resembles Youssef Al-Sharif, whom she loves and takes as her husband, with the help of Aziz (Amr Abdel-Galil), the robot makers, and it is this line that explodes quite a few stories, especially when Abdel-Jalil speaks in the spirit of his character in the movie “When “Misarah”, based on scientific terms. Perhaps because they perceive Egyptian audiences to be unaccustomed to science fiction tropes, the series’ makers rely heavily on directness, something that never ends and is presented in not-so-clever ways. No one cares to explain even quick historical details behind the war that killed his mother while he introduces himself.
