A middle-aged divorced father discovers that he needs to undergo an emergency operation for a twisted testicle, which he cannot afford. Having gambled away everything he earned as a successful care salesman in Amman, Yousef (Ali Suliman) lives alone in poverty, working as a taxi driver, stealing electricity from a neighbor to brew coffee and enduring his sleazy boss's degradations and double-dealings with ironic stoicism.
Much is in motion on the eve of Yousef's surgery. A Last Supper with Islamic background, where Friday has multiple meanings as holy day, protest day, strike day.
First, his teen-age son (Fadi Arida) comes to stay with him, hiding out from Yousef's ex-wife (Yasmine Al Masri), now married to a powerful, invisible husband. Yousef discovers that his son is nearly illiterate, a habitual truant from his expensive private school.
On television and radio, we hear strange ideas about romance and love, where women have the upper hand, while Yousef has coffee on the veranda, playing solitaire backgammon, outside his pitifully empty bedroom.
The first Jordanian film screened at Berlinale, Al Juma Al Akheira first took form in Paris, where director-screenwriter Yahya Alabdallah studied at the International Film and Television School EICAR.
Working on a 100,000 euro budget, Alabdallah has turned in a well-written, well-acted, beautifully photographed film that casts a perceptive gaze on a society in crisis, with a focus on the drama and comedy of everyday life that will be recognizable to audiences worldwide.
Mirror post: http://blog.williamaveryhudson.com/?p=954
The Last Friday
2011 [ARABIC]
Comedy / Drama / Family
6.0
Plot summary
When a 40-year-old divorced father discovers that he needs to undergo an operation which he cannot afford within the next 4 days, he is forced to deal with the life he isolated himself from for the longest time. Yousef (Ali Suliman), once a successful car salesman, is now a down-and-out taxi driver who lost his job, money, wife, and son to a poker game five years ago and is forced to work on a taxi as the economy crisis diminishes his chances of finding a better job. Imad (Fadi Arida) is a 14-year-old son lost between divorced parents living in different worlds, consumed with their own lives, and in the process neglecting their son's needs and future. Dalal (Yasmin Al Massri) left Yousef after he lost his money and got married to a wealthy man, detaching herself from all emotions and her love for Yousef for the sake of a more prestigious, stable life. Yousef is now living alone in a rundown apartment in East Amman. Disconnected from his new reality and engulfed in the sadness of his loss, he is driven away from his son and from any meaningful and intimate relationship in his life. This refusal or denial of his new social status compels him into isolation from the world and the people around him. His quest to collect the money for the operation pushes him to interact and open old chapters in his life, discovering things he never expected to find. An estranged community where individualism controls behavior and relationships. A relationship void of any substance and of any humanity, but of a son who is still waiting for his father's return. Each failed attempt to collect the money for the operation pushes him closer to the solution he is desperately trying to stay away from: playing poker--the cause of his downfall a few years earlier. 'The Last Friday' is a story of faith and luck, love and fear, and how we risk losing our way when we lose our dreams.—Rula Nasser
April 11, 2023 at 12:12 PM
Director
Top cast
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A Last Supper with Islamic background, where Friday has multiple meanings as holy day, protest day, strike day.
The Jordanian drama won the special jury award at the Dubai Film Festival.
The Last Friday is a well-thought-out piece of filmmaking that fails to take that crucial friendly step towards its audience. Its bleak take on individual isolation in a cold modern society won post-production financing at San Sebastian this year, followed by the Special Jury Award and two other prizes at the Dubai Film Festival. Beyond the Arab world, however, the downbeat subject will make it a hard sell with audiences, though this first feature should earn director Yahya Al Abdallah the attention of fest programmers. A little disappointingly, there's little that is specifically Jordanian in this sober tale set in Amman, whose story could be told in any modern metropolis. Yousef (played by Ali Suliman, a veteran familiar from the films of Elia Suleiman as well as Body of Lies) has only a few days to find money for a crucial surgical operation. A compulsive gambler, he lost his home, his wife (the beautiful Yasmine Al Masri of Caramel) and all his savings years ago at the poker table. Even his job as a car showroom salesman has been downgraded to that of a company driver. Though the back story is implicit rather than spelled out, it explains and nuances Yousef's estrangement from society and his family. The urgency of the moment forces him out of his solitude and on a hurried search for money. Paralleling his wasted life is that of his unpromising teenage son Emad (Fadi Arida), who cuts school, steals from Dad's wallet and generally screws up. Both Suliman's morose, uncompromising father and young Arida's brash but insecure son are painfully on target, generating a convincingly destructive father-son chemistry. Suliman's strong, nearly wordless characterization of Yousef as a loser who struggles with misplaced pride and self-sacrifice won him best actor kudos at Dubai. It's night a lot in this dark drama, finely captured on digital blown up to 35mm by D.P. Rachel Aoun. The long-held shots of the sober, fixed-frame camera-work tend to stretch on and on. Underscoring the action is a mellow, award-winning soundtrack by Le Trio Joubran. Venue: Dubai Film Festival (Muhr Arab Feature competition) Cast: Ali Suliman, Yasmine Al Masri Production companies: The Royal Film Commission Jordan in association with ME Films, Dubai Film Market (Enjaaz) Director: Yahya Al Abdallah Screenwriters: Yahya Al Abdallah Producers: Rula Nasser, Majd Hijjawi, Yahya Al Abdallah Executive producers: George David, Mohammad Al Bakri Director of photography: Rachel Aoun Production designer: Samir Zaidan Music: Le Trio Jubran Editor: Mohammad Suleiman Sales Agent: The Royal Film Commission Jordan No rating, 88 minutes
The worst
I never seen performance like this, there is no senario and story, they should delete this film