Film tackling poverty in Egypt ruffles 'feathers'

If one of the film's producers had not been French, it may not have been screened in Cairo at all. Despite nabbing the top prize at Cannes Festival and the Best Arab Film Award at El Gouna Festival, 'Feathers' has rubbed some viewers the wrong way.

This is despite that fact that some of the most celebrated Egyptian films have also depicted Egypt's poverty, such as 'The Beginning and the End' and 'Cairo 30' by Egyptian film director, Salah Abu Seif, as well as the acclaimed Italian neorealist film 'The Bicycle Thief,' directed by De Sica.

It can be argued that the film was unfairly targeted and subjected to exceptional scrutiny tantamount to a moral assassination campaign, by ignorant fanatics who are dismissive of the nature of cinematic art.

After the screening of 'Feathers' at the French Institute and two years after the crisis, we can now explore this film's legacy.

A man-turned-chicken and thick black smoke

The movie opens with harrowing cries and shouts, paired with a black screen, creating the illusion of a person undergoing self-immolation. Shortly after, the camera pulls away from the charred remains of the body, establishing the tone for the rest of the captivating film.

This solemn introduction bears a striking resemblance to the well-known historical event where Tunisian youth Mohamed Bouazizi tragically took his own life in the same manner over a decade ago.

Nonetheless, the central plot of 'Feathers' is a purely fictional account in which a man transforms into a chicken and navigates our actual world, as reported on TV news broadcasts. Thus, this man-turned-chicken serves as a point of convergence between the realm of fiction and reality.

Surprisingly, we are not given any further information about the man-turned-chicken in the remainder of the film, except for a brief mention toward the end, without any flashback to the initial transformation scene.

After the self-immolation, the camera shifts to the surrounding area, to what looks like an abandoned industrial zone, where lifeless people wander. Among the factories scattered throughout the area, there is a house, or rather a small apartment, with striking interior design elements.

The apartment's window overlooks a chimney that unexpectedly releases thick black smoke, filling the apartment and hindering the occupants' visibility, forcing the housewife to repeatedly close the window.

The living room contains only a pitiful bed and a dining table, while all the windows are coated in tar and the three children appear dirty, presumably due to the smoke emanating from the factories.

At this point in the film, the father of the family is the only character who speaks, donning the same clothes every day before leaving for work.

He retrieves outdated banknotes, like all his family's money, from a broken cupboard where a lock seems unnecessary, hands some change to his wife, and bluntly dictates what the family will have for dinner: "Eggplant, just like yesterday."

The housewife, skillfully portrayed by Demyana Nassar, remains silent throughout the film and is never identified by name. Despite the nondescript apartment setting, she stands out as the most noticeable, although she leaves her mark on the ground with her dirty feet.

The father's voice is the only one we hear, as he tells a fictional tale about cows producing hot milk when barbecued on fire.

The TV has a constant presence, as if a member of the family — if not its most important member —  with its partially amusing or misleading power. A suckling baby —  the family's third child of unidentified gender —  is always carried by the mother.

One day, influenced by TV ads, the father buys a luxurious water fountain to adorn the apartment. One can only imagine how much money the family had to sacrifice for the father to purchase the water fountain, which ultimately does nothing to improve their dire circumstances.

The father tells both his wife and his work manager that the water fountain is an elegant piece of art that will beautify their home. Sadly, it will ultimately serve as a tragic reminder of the wife's loss when her husband suddenly passes away.

A magic trick gone wrong

Reminiscent of how Gregor Samsa — the protagonist in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis— wakes up one day to find himself transformed into an insect, the father in 'Feathers' unknowingly brings a similar fate upon himself.

To celebrate his son's birthday, he buys balloons, sweets, and colourful decorations, and hires a popular magician to perform entertaining tricks in an attempt to mimic affluent parties he sees on TV. 

Perhaps magic is the only available means for the family to dramatically improve their life. The magician asks the father to enter a wooden box. He pulls out a chicken on the first try, and to everyone's surprise, the chicken reappears from the box on the second try.

During that moment, an attendee is heard saying in a cinematic tone, "Where are you, Marzuq?"

This line leaves the audience questioning whether Marzuq is the father's real name or a deliberate reference to the breadwinner in old-black-and-white Egyptian films. The scant dialogue in 'Feathers' is likely intentional to emphasise the senselessness of the plot.

The father's work manager attends the birthday party to give a present to his employee's child, which he uses as an opportunity to boast about his high position.

He lectures the son to prove himself and not become a loser like his father. However, the father does not take offense to these words and, instead, appears grateful for the money his son received, snatching it away quickly.

In Kafka, Gregor Samsa transformed into an insect that nobody desired, even his closest relatives. However, 'Feathers' focuses on the tragedy of the other members of the family — the children and the wife — disregarding the chicken following the transformation.

However, unlike Samsa's family, the mother in 'Feathers' maintains all the authority of her absent husband, although it's unclear if this is due to fear, incompetence, love, or a combination of these factors.

She still tends to the chicken, leaving it in the bedroom and spending her remaining outdated banknotes when it falls ill to keep it alive. In addition, she wanders in vain through the neighborhoods of the uninhabited factory area, searching for a skilled magician who can fix what the old wizard broke.

Who is the real victim?

One interpretation suggests that the wife in 'Feathers' is the one who transformed into a chicken and suffered abuse, similar to Gregor Samsa. Her surroundings seem to conspire against her, and while she lived a difficult life with her husband, she is now also at the mercy of his manager and his conditional kindness toward her and her children.

Additionally, she must navigate the bureaucracy of a government that naturally does not believe that her husband has been transformed into a chicken. She is forced to fabricate a story and find a corpse just to have her husband be declared as legally dead.

To compound her misery, the housing administration wants to seize her apartment because her husband failed to pay the rent regularly. Later in the film, the wife starts working as a cleaning lady in the homes of wealthy people, which exposes her to an entirely new experience. While cleaning, she is made to feel like a machine, a piece of junk, or a void.

This new world leaves deep scars on her body and soul, even though she resigns herself to her fate. The wife cannot even be certain that fate will not deal her another blow, which may not necessarily stem from this other world but from her own self, of which she is not aware. In the midst of such a tough life, there seems to be no space for reflection on oneself or anything else.

Imagery of slaughtered animals to draw comparisons

Feathers, animal hair, and bloody remnants of cows are scattered throughout the scenes of the film. The fate of humans in the film is compared to that of the slaughtered animals, as well as to the uncertain future of the widowed mother and her children.

When the father disappears, the children are depicted screaming incoherently, much like how animals would react to a similar situation.

On her part, the mother — carrying the burden of her children and the movie itself  — does not embody the characteristics of a conventional protagonist. She is entirely subject to the circumstances and shifts surrounding her and is willing to make sacrifices when called upon to do so.

When the factory where her husband worked asks that one of her sons replace him in exchange for rent payments, she has no choice but to offer her eldest son.

As the film progresses, the mother begins to understand the rules of power, exploiting them to the fullest and outwitting authority — a mindset often born out of utter poverty.

Demyana Nassar is undoubtedly the lead star of this revolutionary film. Along with other actors who seem to come from real life, they speak in a manner reflective of everyday life, at times even irrational or absurd.

Despite the grim reality depicted in 'Feathers,' the film's director Omar El Zohairy includes moments of respite such as vast but cloudy skies, and a comical dancing of the employees, during which we see Demyana smiling for the second time — the first being during the ominous magician's performance.

'Feathers' is a promising film that is a true reflection of the amazing creativity in Egyptian filmmaking — even in the direst conditions.