From the space of the novel, where words expand to build mysterious worlds and evoke fears, to the cinema screen, which summarizes stories in images and movement, Saudi novelist Osama Al-Muslim is embarking on a new experience with the film “The Hell of the Passers-by,” adapted from his novel of the same name, in his first experience writing a feature-length film.
The film will begin its journey with its world premiere at the Cairo International Film Festival next Friday, before launching its commercial screenings in Saudi Arabia on November 19, then it will begin showing in a number of Arab countries.
Regarding this experience, Al-Muslim reveals to Asharq Al-Awsat that “writing for cinema is very different from writing novels, especially with regard to the method of narrating events, building scenes, and the rhythm of the story... In the novel, I have a wide space to explain, detail, and delve into the depths of the characters, whereas in cinema, you have to say a lot in the fewest possible words, and leave the picture to do the telling.”
When asked about the most difficult thing he faced while converting the novel into a screenplay, he answers: “I think the biggest challenge was preserving the spirit of the novel while re-presenting it in a different cinematic language. Not everything that is suitable for reading is necessarily suitable for watching, and some scenes that appear effective on paper may not achieve the same effect on screen.
He added: “I had to deal with the text with some detachment, and not cling to all its details just because I wrote it. In the end, the goal is not to transfer the novel literally, but rather to present a good film that preserves the identity of the original work.”
When asked about his having to dispense with scenes he was attached to in the novel, he answers: “Absolutely!” This is normal in any film adaptation process. There are scenes and details that may be dear to the writer, but they do not serve the cinematic rhythm or do not fit with the new structure of events.
Al-Muslim believes that one of the most important things a writer must learn when moving to cinema is the ability to give up some of what he loves for the benefit of the work as a whole. Adding: “Sometimes deleting a good scene is the best decision to make a better movie.”
In his experience with director Hanaa Al-Omair, Al-Musallam highlights the importance of the creative partnership between the writer and director, especially in works that rely on an atmosphere of ambiguity and tension, where the image becomes an essential element in shaping the viewer’s sense of the story.
When asked about the most prominent addition that Al-Omair made to “The Hell of Passers-by,” he refers to her visual vision and her ability to transform the written atmosphere into a tangible world on the screen. He continues: “The director is not supposed to be just an executor of what the author wrote, but rather to be a creative partner who provides his own reading of the work.”
He also praises Al-Omair's experience and artistic vision, noting that she gave the film her directorial stamp, especially in building the atmosphere and dealing with tension and ambiguity, two elements he sees as essential in this type of story.
Regarding the extent to which the film - in its final version - matches the image he imagined while writing, he says: “I did not expect it to be completely identical to what I imagined, and I did not necessarily want it to be. The image that forms in the writer’s mind while writing remains a very personal image, and when the work is transferred to cinema, it becomes the product of a collective imagination in which the director, actors, and the rest of the team participate.”
He continues: “There were scenes that were very close to what I imagined, and others that were different, and some of the differences were beautiful and surprising to me. In the end, I do not measure the film’s success by the extent to which it matches my imagination, but rather by its ability to provide a cohesive and influential cinematic experience.”
Osama Al-Musallam had previously had short acting experiences in front of the camera. When asked about the possibility of repeating this in “Hell of Passers-by,” he answered: “Yes, I have a short appearance in the film, but it is closer to an honorary participation than to a real acting role.”
Then he continues by saying: “I do not consider myself an actor, and I do not aspire to compete with people of this profession in their field, but I sometimes enjoy these small participations, especially when they are in a work that is directly related to me... and perhaps it will be fun for viewers to try to discover the character through which I appear.”
With the launch of screenings of “The Hell of the Passers-by” in a number of Arab markets, Al-Muslim finds himself facing a test that goes beyond his usual audience of readers, especially since his novels have achieved wide spread in the region, which gives the film a potential audience base before it reaches the theaters. When asked about how to deal with readers’ expectations towards the film, he says: “I appreciate readers’ trust and love, and I realize that this trust is accompanied by high expectations, but I always try not to allow these expectations to turn into pressure that restricts creative work.”
Al-Muslim acknowledges the importance of realizing that the novel and the film are two different experiences, and that the reader who loved the novel may carry in his mind a special perception of the characters and events that is difficult for any film to match completely. He concludes his speech by saying: “I hope that the audience enters the cinema hall with the mentality of a viewer, not a reader who is looking for a literal correspondence with what he has read. Above all, I hope that they will enjoy the experience, whether they are readers of the novel or those who are getting to know the world of “Transient Hell” for the first time.”
Iranian director Mohsen Rabiei said that his film “I Just Want to Talk to My Mother” was born from a personal experience he lived when he was unable to communicate with his parents in Iran due to the war and the internet outage, before he found in Iranian actress Rehana Parsa’s concern for her mother an entry point into a story that intersects with the suffering of many Iranians residing outside their country.
Rabiei added in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat via Zoom that the film was formed from feelings that the work team actually experienced, explaining that its heroine’s crying, fear, and inability to reach her mother were real experiences that accompanied the making of the work, which made him see the film in a space between fiction and documentary, as its story is based on a reality that was not separate from what its makers lived outside of filming times.
The events of the movie “I Just Want to Talk to My Mother” revolve around an Iranian actress who lives in Istanbul, and is heading to a job meeting that might change her career, before her day is turned upside down with the inability to contact her mother, who lives alone in Tehran, in light of the war and restrictions on the Internet. She kept moving around the city and communicating with friends and acquaintances, searching for news that would reassure her, but the repeated attempts without an answer doubled her fear, and made checking on her mother her only concern.
The film, which is a joint Iranian-Turkish production, will have its world premiere during the 30th session of the “Tallinn Black Night Film Festival” in Estonia. It is written and directed by Mohsen Rabiei, and stars Rehana Parsa.
Rabiei recalled the circumstances that led him to the idea. His elderly parents live in Iran, and they sometimes need medicines that he buys from Istanbul and sends to them. Therefore, communication with them represents an essential part of his monitoring of their lives and their health needs, but the Internet outage during the war deprived him of this connection, and made him face a concern that resonated with other Iranians living in Türkiye and different countries.
He explained that his project with Parsa began in a different way, as they met in Istanbul before the war, and they were preparing to work on another scenario, before events imposed a new course. During their discussions, he found her crying because of her inability to communicate with her mother, so the power of this moment seized him, and the fear it carried did not need explanation, and he began to think about building a film that would start from her experience, and expand on what others live away from their families, according to what he said.
He pointed out that “the close relationship between Parsa and her mother gave the idea additional weight, because her mother represents the person closest to her, and the father’s absence from her life makes checking on her more urgent,” pointing out that the experience of waiting is repeated among people who left their country, then found themselves unable to reach their loved ones when crises occur, and the interruption of communication may extend for long periods that increase their feelings of fear and helplessness.
Regarding the choice of the title, Rabiei said that he derived it directly from the sentence that Parsa said while crying: “I just want to talk to my mother,” pointing out that she accurately expressed a need that in those moments overshadows everything else. The desire to hear the voice of someone we love becomes the priority, while questions related to the parties to the war and its details recede in front of her, because what a person is looking for at that time is news that reassures him about his family.
The Iranian director stopped at the heroine's trip to a work meeting with Netflix, which reflects part of the motives for leaving and searching for opportunities outside the country, noting that leaving the country is linked to the desire to build a better life and achieve professional, social, and financial progress, and that, like his heroine, he was not looking for an ideal life, but rather for a small amount of hope that would allow him to look to the future.
He added, “This ambition explains the difficulties the heroine endures being away from her mother and her country, but it constantly collides with what is happening there. Distance does not free her from anxiety, and events redirect her life even while she is in another country, and from here the desire for progress intersects in her journey with fear for those she left behind, and the date of work that holds the promise of the future becomes surrounded by questions that she cannot ignore about the fate of her mother.”
Rabiei described the atmosphere of making the film as being charged with tension, as it is one of the rare works in which there was no smile behind the scenes of filming, because the participants were living in the same conditions that it deals with, stressing that this closeness to the experience made separating the story from reality difficult; The tears and anxiety that appeared were based on real feelings, and on a common desire among the work team to reach their families and hear their voices.
We may sometimes smile without feeling happy, just as a compliment or to overcome an embarrassing situation, or perhaps to please someone in front of us. But can a smile that does not reflect our true feelings actually improve our mood? The answer seems to depend on a simple matter: Do we smile because we want to, or because someone is asking us to smile?
According to Newsweek magazine, a recent scientific study indicates that an artificial smile may make us happier, even when we have no real reason to be happy, but this effect changes when smiling turns into an imposed duty, especially if it is repeated under pressure or in the work environment.
The idea of the study goes back to a personal experience that Nicholas Coles, a professor of psychology at the University of Florida, lived during his work in an amusement park. He was required to always greet visitors with a smile, regardless of their behavior or the way they treated him. He remembers that he was once subjected to screaming in front of hundreds of people, but he had to continue smiling in front of thousands of other visitors, as if nothing had happened.
This experience led him to question the relationship between facial expressions and inner feelings: Why can the same smile improve one person's mood, while turning into a psychological burden for another person?
To answer this question, Coles and his team conducted an experiment that included about 1,200 participants. They showed them various images, some of which were cute and cheerful, such as cats and flowers, and others were disturbing, related to harming animals or stealing. Participants were asked to either smile while viewing the pictures or leave their faces as they were.
But the experiment included an important detail: Participants who were asked to smile were told that they might lose $2 of their $6 reward if they did not follow the instructions, although everyone got the full amount in the end.
The results showed that smiling voluntarily, even if it is artificial, can give them a boost of happiness. However, repeating the smile gradually weakened this effect, while insisting on it under the pressure of the threat of losing money led to a decline in feelings of happiness and an increase in levels of anger and annoyance.
Norman Farb, professor of psychological and neurological sciences at the University of Toronto Mississauga, explains that maintaining a deliberate smile requires a degree of concentration and effort, which may limit a person’s natural interaction with the situations in which he lives. When this effort is combined with monitoring and pressure, the smile becomes more of a heavy task than a spontaneous expression.
These results open the door to thinking about the culture of forced smiling, especially in the service, hospitality and sales sectors, where employees are required to greet customers with smiling faces, no matter how difficult their day is or how far from happy their feelings are. An employee who is exposed to an annoying situation, and then is asked to continue smiling as if nothing had happened, is not only being asked to control his facial expressions, but also to hide part of his feelings.
Perhaps the paradox lies in the fact that the smile does not lose its meaning because it is artificial, but rather because it loses its freedom. Sometimes we may smile to feel better, but we may feel worse when smiling becomes something we cannot refuse.
Not every smiling face is happy, and sometimes the real smile is the one that no one asks of us.
