Locarno Review: Upshot (2024)
Locarno Film Festival
Pardi di Domani – Corti d’Autore Competition
In moments of unspeakable tragedy, reality becomes unbearable. Suleiman (Mohammad Bakri ) and Lubna (Areen Omari) a couple in their early sixties who have been married for almost four decades, know this too well. Living on a secluded farm “somewhere…in the future”, their days are filled with work – taking care of the olive groves and chicken, keeping the farm going and the garden in impeccable shape, to take their minds off something excruciatingly painful that they have been living with for far too long.
Each day, the couple performs similar kinds of rituals but they always take the opportunity to speak about their five adult children while having a meal, or a cup of tea together. Slowly, but surely, we learn their names: Bassel, Oumaya, Hamza, Tarik and Khaled. Each of their stories gets analyzed: career choices, marriages, grandchildren, studies or their only daughter’s life as an unmarried 34-year-old doctor-to-be, for whom Suleiman wishes to take some time off to travel the world. Lubna doesn’t find it fair that he puts her in front of other children. “I admit it”, he says cheekily and continues to defend Oumaya’s way of life.
It’s a picture of a harmonious marriage that the audience has in front of their eyes, and its setting is a big, tastefully decorated house surrounded by a huge property. There is an immediate understanding of the family’s wealth and at the same time of something invisible that is burdening the atmosphere. When they are not immersed in long talks, the couple’s faces look sombre and expressionless, almost like masks put over their skin. Bakri and Omari are impressive in their roles as parents who went through hell and were stuck on the way back, but who have somehow found a way to deal with the horrors of their trauma by inventing a parallel universe. The physicality of the actors’ performance and the ability to transport the emotional load onto the big screen is the driving force of Maha Haj’s short drama Upshot, which celebrates the world premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival in Pardi di Domani – Corti d’Autore (Auteur Short Film Competition).
Fitting to the heavy-weight script, the film’s photography (by Augustin Bonnet) is dark, dominated by heavy, pressing colours. In the scenes shot in the house, people’s faces are almost swallowed by shadows with big contrasts highlighting emotions. There is something else lurking in the shadows: the enduring strife in Gaza. With the story set in the future, the film concentrates on a terrible loss caused by the conflict without delivering political commentaries. In her director’s statement, the Palestinian helmer speaks of Upshot as “both a lamentation and a testament to the indomitable power of the human spirit.”
The days pass and with them, autumn settles in. While in the field tending to their farmland, the couple gets surprised by a middle-aged journalist Khalil Haj (Amer Hlehel, regular cast in Taj’s films) who appears out of nowhere and insists on coming in to interview the retired doctor. Suleiman refuses to let him into their property but hesitates when the man mentions how he went to school with Khaled. This won’t be his ticket to get in the house but the weather conditions will, and when the attempt at an interview happens, it will startle the guest with its abrupt switch from reality to the better, parallel world in which everything remains normal.
Upshot is a heart-tearing drama with an excellent cast, done with precise technical execution. This is Maha Haj’s third short after Oranges (2009) and Personal Matters (2014). Her debut feature Personal Affairs was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes FF in 2016, and Mediterranean Fever took the Award for Best Script in the same competition section two years ago.
Countries of Production: Palestine, Italy, France
Year: 2024
Runtime: 34′
Written and Directed By: Maha Haj
Cast: Mohammed Bakri, Areen Omari, Amer Hlehel
Producer: Hanna Atalah & Ronza Kamel
Production Companies: August Films
Co-Producers: Paolo Benzi, Teresa Mannino, Juliette Lepoutre, Pierre Menahem
Cinematography: Augustin Bonnet
Editor: Veronique Lange
Production Designer: Saher Dwairy
Sound: Mohammed Abu Hamad
Music: Munder Odeh
Distribution and sales in the Arab World: MAD Distribution
Worldwide Sales: MAD World
