3.5 Revolutions out of 4
Social change never comes easy. Hindsight allows us the ability to look at past events and accurately discern exactly where everything went wrong, but the truth remains that social change is the one human paradigm that refuses to succumb to precedent. Insanity is supposed to be doing the same thing over and over – expecting a different result; people have been struggling for freedom and equality since antiquity. Some struggles have borne successful fruit, while others have ended in absolute disaster. If insanity is refusing to accept historical precedent as fact, what’s more insane – fighting for unlikely freedom for 30 years or ignoring history and believing that fascism and tyranny can last forever?
Jehane Noujaim’s The Square is a strikingly human look at the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, beginning with the ousting of former Egyptian President – and tyrannical dictator – Hosni Mubarak. Interesting is the way Noujaim’s story uses Mubarak’s toppling as a jumping point to study the next two years in Egypt’s history. Anyone who paid attention to the Arab Spring can tell you what led to Mubarak resigning control to Egypt’s Military Forces – what’s more difficult to chart is the disastrous way in which a trinity formed by the Military, the Islamic Brotherhood, and the Egyptian People completely fell to ruin.
After Mubarak fell, the military was supposed to pave the way for elections, democracy, and a meaningful constitution that served the people. What resulted was a military coup that attacked the people behind the revolution while simultaneously serving self-interested bedfellows. After months of demonstration and riots, Egypt elected Mohamed Morsi, a well-educated Egyptian man who was closely allied with the Muslim Brotherhood – a group that faced persecution under Mubarak, and a group that rewrote the Egyptian constitution until it more closely resembled Sharia law than anything meaningfully non-secular.
These are the facts obtained through news reports and a brief reading of Egypt’s Wikipedia page. Where The Square succeeds is through its attempts to put a human face on revolution. Noujaim’s camera focuses on a character list of no more than five individuals. If the film were to have a main character, it would be Ahmed Hassan, an Egyptian citizen whose foray with politics lives and dies with freedom, equality, and protest. As we follow Hassan around each significant gathering – the first demonstrations at Tahrir Square, the riots around the Egyptian Media Headquarters, and at least a dozen more – we’re offered a picture of Egypt unavailable through newsreels.
If we focus too much on part of a single image, we become oblivious to the picture’s surrounding details. What Noujaim does is paint a comprehensive portrait of the entire Egyptian crisis, following poets, revolutionaries, and even a deeply conflicted member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Understanding how difficult it is to remain objective, Noujaim gives her opinion on the situation, but allows the audience to draw their own conclusions. Integral to the plot is the character arcs she develops for these very real people.
Especially fascinating is the way each character conforms to their particular social archetype. Hassan, the sidewalk poet, is joined by Khalid Abdalla, the British-raised Egyptian film-star who returned to his country to fight for his beliefs, who struggles to form a connection with Magdy Ashour, the persecuted Muslim who is caught between his religious beliefs and hopes for social reform.
The documentary form has always been caught between a desire to report fact and a need to convey opinion. As a form of cinema, The Square articulates the necessity to put fact into context. If that means conveying a particular agenda, then so be it – the audience too must form their own opinion and understanding of a situation.
Musical selections handled by Jonas Colstrup, and a moving score by H. Scott Salinas attempt to bridge the connection between camera and viewer. On the topic of The Camera, it must be mentioned that future of revolution will largely be defined by an oppressor’s ability to “Cut the feed.” During tense moments, Noujaim focuses on the people, but each shot is punctuated by the presence of social media and human interaction. Cell phones fill the screen, with laptop computers and rudimentary editing applications stringing together video gathered from smart-phones and hand-held video cameras.
At one point, a character explains that they ran away before they were killed by the presumed application of military nerve gas. A character quickly interjects, “But did you get it on film?” Luckily for the viewer, the character, and the people of Egypt, it’s all on video.