‘The Stories’ Review: An Improbable Connection Between Two People From Different Worlds Reveals Egypt’s Recent History
Ahmed (Amir El-Masry) belongs to an Egyptian family accustomed to defeat. The soccer team they root for can’t win a single match, no matter how they follow their household-specific superstitions. And even when good things come their way, the specter of how it could all go wrong lurks around to remind them that luck is not on their side. In “The Stories,” writer-director Abu Bakr Shawky (“Yomeddine”) tracks the customs and conflicts of this clan over time, centering the real-life story of how his parents met as pen pals living in Egypt and Austria. The result is a decidedly melodramatic, yet often endearing portrait of a family and a country.
One of three sons when we first meet him (his mother is pregnant with another child), Ahmed aspires to become a renowned classical pianist. Through a magazine ad, he connects with Elizabeth (Valerie Pachner), a young woman in Vienna. Ahmed writes her letters with vivid descriptions of his haywire homelife. An ensemble cast of characters (including Ahmed’s uncles and neighbors) crowd into believably small spaces as the camera follows the miniature chaos that occurs within the walls of their middle-class apartment. To an extent, the director seems to romanticize the situations that might read as precariousness to Westerners, mining charm from the communal disarray.
Divided into chapters that synthesize different decades in the North African nation’s modern history, from the 1960s through the ’90s, the narrative traverses Egypt’s multiple wars with Israel, a presidential assassination and violent social unrest against detrimental economic policies. Rather than acting as backdrop for the human drama, these events directly interject with the characters’ daily lives. Ahmed’s fraternal twin brother Hassan (Ahmad El-Azaar) is drafted to serve as an interpreter (he’s learned Hebrew and Russian), and his father (a wonderfully exasperated Ahmed Kamal), a bureaucrat, lives in constant fear of losing his job (or worse) after he misspeaks on national TV.
Among the widely held local beliefs, not only by Ahmed’s household but by others around them, is that taking a photo with the president, no matter who is in power, will help one advance in his career (Ahmed’s piano rival has one that he carries around like an amulet). A photo with such an esteemed figure implies one’s own importance. Idiosyncratic details like this effectively, and amusingly illustrate a cultural divide when Ahmed travels to Austria on a piano scholarship and meets Elizabeth in person. Her father is initially reluctant to their relationship implying that they are too dissimilar to match. But in general, the pushback to Ahmed and Elizabeth’s romance is minimal on both sides, which feels a tad too idealized perhaps.
It’s also in this section that “The Stories” captures a truth for many who’ve left their homelands for “greener” pastures: Half of their minds are often preoccupied by what’s happening with those they left behind. After a tragedy, Ahmed returns to Egypt, and Elizabeth eventually follows him. Previously seen in Ben Sharrock’s extraordinary “Limbo,” where he curiously also played a musician escaping a wartorn environment, El-Masry is a joy to watch here, as a mild-mannered man who wonders if he’s missed his chance to fulfill his potential. His Ahmed permeates every interaction with a mix of apprehension and lovable sincerity.
If at times the emotional responses among Ahmed’s boisterous clan feel excessively fiery or disproportionate, one can interpret that as the director’s approach to portraying a tight-knit culture where people wear their hearts on their sleeves. Here, a father can sleep in the same bed with his adult children, and a lonely uncle is a welcome presence as if part of the nuclear family. That heightened sentimentality feels integral to Shawky’s intent, even if it clashes against the naturalism other art-house dramas from the region employ. Although most of the drama unfolds inside the apartment, Shawky materially shows the passage of time via thoughtful production design — namely, the visible disrepair on a statue of a historical heroine holding the Egyptian flag right outside their building and the buildings around it. Even with limited locations, “The Stories” feels expansive in scope.
To the film’s detriment, Elizabeth’s family stories or proclivities are mostly absent. The most notable instance in her arc comes when she discovers that Ahmed’s strong-willed mother (Nelly Karim) hid numerous notebooks where she would write the family’s anecdotes and capture the fleeting miracles of everyday life. In general, the women’s perspectives lack depth, despite their being the observers and protectors of the yarns that build a collective history. Because of that, “The Stories” feels less like a film about the bridging of two distinct worldviews than one about Ahmed reconfiguring his understanding of the only reality he’s ever truly known through his bond with Elizabeth.
Shawky wraps up the life-affirming time with the perennially embattled characters with a one-two punch of ephemeral good news for Ahmed and his loved ones. The neatly conceived conclusion confirms that tribulations and elation swirl around in parallel. Thus, even the smallest of victories tastes gloriously sweet when struggle is the default setting.
One of three sons when we first meet him (his mother is pregnant with another child), Ahmed aspires to become a renowned classical pianist. Through a magazine ad, he connects with Elizabeth (Valerie Pachner), a young woman in Vienna. Ahmed writes her letters with vivid descriptions of his haywire homelife. An ensemble cast of characters (including Ahmed’s uncles and neighbors) crowd into believably small spaces as the camera follows the miniature chaos that occurs within the walls of their middle-class apartment. To an extent, the director seems to romanticize the situations that might read as precariousness to Westerners, mining charm from the communal disarray.
Divided into chapters that synthesize different decades in the North African nation’s modern history, from the 1960s through the ’90s, the narrative traverses Egypt’s multiple wars with Israel, a presidential assassination and violent social unrest against detrimental economic policies. Rather than acting as backdrop for the human drama, these events directly interject with the characters’ daily lives. Ahmed’s fraternal twin brother Hassan (Ahmad El-Azaar) is drafted to serve as an interpreter (he’s learned Hebrew and Russian), and his father (a wonderfully exasperated Ahmed Kamal), a bureaucrat, lives in constant fear of losing his job (or worse) after he misspeaks on national TV.
Among the widely held local beliefs, not only by Ahmed’s household but by others around them, is that taking a photo with the president, no matter who is in power, will help one advance in his career (Ahmed’s piano rival has one that he carries around like an amulet). A photo with such an esteemed figure implies one’s own importance. Idiosyncratic details like this effectively, and amusingly illustrate a cultural divide when Ahmed travels to Austria on a piano scholarship and meets Elizabeth in person. Her father is initially reluctant to their relationship implying that they are too dissimilar to match. But in general, the pushback to Ahmed and Elizabeth’s romance is minimal on both sides, which feels a tad too idealized perhaps.
It’s also in this section that “The Stories” captures a truth for many who’ve left their homelands for “greener” pastures: Half of their minds are often preoccupied by what’s happening with those they left behind. After a tragedy, Ahmed returns to Egypt, and Elizabeth eventually follows him. Previously seen in Ben Sharrock’s extraordinary “Limbo,” where he curiously also played a musician escaping a wartorn environment, El-Masry is a joy to watch here, as a mild-mannered man who wonders if he’s missed his chance to fulfill his potential. His Ahmed permeates every interaction with a mix of apprehension and lovable sincerity.
If at times the emotional responses among Ahmed’s boisterous clan feel excessively fiery or disproportionate, one can interpret that as the director’s approach to portraying a tight-knit culture where people wear their hearts on their sleeves. Here, a father can sleep in the same bed with his adult children, and a lonely uncle is a welcome presence as if part of the nuclear family. That heightened sentimentality feels integral to Shawky’s intent, even if it clashes against the naturalism other art-house dramas from the region employ. Although most of the drama unfolds inside the apartment, Shawky materially shows the passage of time via thoughtful production design — namely, the visible disrepair on a statue of a historical heroine holding the Egyptian flag right outside their building and the buildings around it. Even with limited locations, “The Stories” feels expansive in scope.
To the film’s detriment, Elizabeth’s family stories or proclivities are mostly absent. The most notable instance in her arc comes when she discovers that Ahmed’s strong-willed mother (Nelly Karim) hid numerous notebooks where she would write the family’s anecdotes and capture the fleeting miracles of everyday life. In general, the women’s perspectives lack depth, despite their being the observers and protectors of the yarns that build a collective history. Because of that, “The Stories” feels less like a film about the bridging of two distinct worldviews than one about Ahmed reconfiguring his understanding of the only reality he’s ever truly known through his bond with Elizabeth.
Shawky wraps up the life-affirming time with the perennially embattled characters with a one-two punch of ephemeral good news for Ahmed and his loved ones. The neatly conceived conclusion confirms that tribulations and elation swirl around in parallel. Thus, even the smallest of victories tastes gloriously sweet when struggle is the default setting.