One of the most interesting documentaries is The Square, which relates to the ongoing Egyptian state crisis. The documentary is directed by the Jehane Noujaim, who talks about the disaster that happened up to recently 2013. Much of the documentary covers the Egyptian revolution of 2011 although it is American based. Due to the creativeness in the movie, it has won different awards including three Emmy awards and nominated for various honors in the industry.
The Square Movie was released on January 17, 2013, and received a lot of media attention. Since that time, it still maintains one hundred percent rating on different websites concerned with movie rankings and organizations such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metallica, which are mandated to rate films. The video features different people who include Khalid Abdalla, Dina Abdalla, Magdy Ashour, Sheriff Boray, Aida Elkashef Ramy Essam, and Almed Hassan. The producers of the documentary are Amir Abdalla and Ibrahim Al Husseini, who was in the capacity of co-producer.
The genre of the work is both documentary and action. It received an R rating because of the presence of violence and language used in the movie. It can be argued that it must have been difficult to focus on the Egyptian revolutionaries, who try to battle out their leaders in the move to fight for the new regime, without some ‘bad’ language and a bit of violent episodes to match the situation of current leaders and their criminal actions. The documentary of The Square is interesting due to the choice of the film atmosphere, the sacrifice of the demonstrators involved in the activities, and finally due to the ability of the author to use diverse emotions throughout the movie.
The director of the film can give the real account of what it takes to bring about the atmospheric and immersive account and the environment in relation to what happens and the actual meaning of the revolutionary movement. Tahrir Square is explained in the movie. What I liked most about the flick is the show of police officers can be excellent and at the same time bad and fight back their government. For instance, at The Square where President Mubarak was addressing the people, the army was in large numbers to give the gathering the security they needed. They later can be noticed supporting the ouster of the sitting government.
The documentary shows the intolerant Muslim Brotherhood had power and the way they led demonstrations in the cities. The demo later resulted in a president being ousted although there were many deaths recorded in that period. The other interesting bit about the happenings here is the change of the administration due the public power. However, the police acted like bad guys in the movie by assisting in overthrowing the president (IMDb n.p). The author can mitigate this perception of the cops in the film and indicates that the ordinary people can have power, especially where the regime is totally against each of their interests.
The Square movie is fantastic because the author can demonstrate how the protestors have perseverance and do not hesitate to sacrifice. He made it clear that they were aiming to get the freedom. For them to attain this liberty, they endured a lot of pain and bloodshed as witnessed in the Cairo streets in 2011. This phenomenon makes it the first one in the creation of fiction documentaries, although it resembles a real story that happened to the Arabic nation of Egypt.
It will be a bit difficult to define The Square as a good movie because of the pain that the people in the film are depicted to be enduring. It is, however, a good piece because it casts the real-life characters who were involved in the struggle for overthrowing the regime to pave a way for the new administration. It was so encouraging to see the people take to the streets to remove the dictator, President Hosni Mubarak.
The involvement of the military in the protest was rather impressive. It tends to be one of the scenes to focus on in this clip. It is expected that every viewer of the documentary would be fascinated by the action of the men in uniform, thereby making the documentary more interesting. It is also quite thought-provoking for me to watch the dictator lose the power to the public majority, which is usually a rare occurrence. This scene serves as an encouragement to other people who might have the same dreams of doing away with their dictators the same way it was done in Egypt in that time.
The last thing that made the documentary remarkable is the manner in which the director has been able to make the movie so emotional by involving personal stories. He can show how the unity of the people grew suddenly using a practical example of how some people who participated in the demonstration fought on, despite the challenges, and depicted undoubted strength, leading to their victory in the fight. The author can present how the people were involved in the protest for this duration, which went on for years while also focusing on the changing times that still needed the determination to endure the terrible era of depression and loss experienced by the mass of the people.
Changing of the events in this clip can make one keep on watching the documentary with the motive of knowing what exactly happened next. The duration that was taken to film the documentary can be deduced to have been quite long. As such, it could give the viewer the impression of reality in the movie. In addition, the author of the documentary presented it as a conversation between men who can help in giving the direct message rather that narration that sometimes becomes a bit boring. These are among the scenes that I found to be interesting in this clip.
Many people can critique the documentary by stating that it was limited in the presentation of the people by calling it a three-person documentary. The reason behind the assessment is that the people shown in the film seem to have political motives that are major influencing features to them. One can easily conclude that the people could have other interests other than the freedom such as wealth and other goodies.
Another point is that they can also figure out that Taharir is a symbolic land, and it does not represent all the actions and wants, and also what was going on in the whole Cairo not even considering the whole Egypt. Furthermore, it can be deduced that the groups who were involved in the demonstration were not of the entire circle that represented all people, but were simply three groups of that could be interested in the power.
As a critic, one can argue that it would be better if the documentary showed all the people rather than these three groups, which were the Muslim Brotherhood, the military, and the people who were not in the government. However, this is true, and one does not expect the people who are in the government to fight themselves. The Tahrir square represented the group of the people who were agitated by the bad regime and were hungry for the changes.
The film is touching on the political changes in Egypt. According to the news posted in the Washington Post, it was clear that during this time, many people were involved in a demonstration which led to the oust of then sitting president. Political news in the Guardian was regularly reporting on the situation in the country with hundreds of the anti-government protesters flooding into the streets demanding the resignation of the dictator president. These events have had positive effects on the people of Egypt because they were able to get a new president from the demonstrations. The documentary is based on true story of the Egyptian revolution.
In conclusion, The Square documentary is an excellent movie because of the way the author presented the events and the people who were involved in the movie. People should emulate the individuals who are shown in the film and endure the pain to get the fruits of the good governance. Watching the documentary, one can easily identify that it is based on true story and through it we understand the political situation of the country.
Works Cited
Cheshire, Godfrey. The Square. 26 October 2013. URL. 22 march 2016. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-square-2013>.
Hauslohner, Abigail. Tension roils Egypt as protests grow. 30 June 2013. URL. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tension-roils-egypt-as-protests-grow/2013/06/30/fcc318aa-e184-11e2-8657-fdff0c195a79_story.html?tid=a_inl>.
IMDb. The square (2008). 8 6 10. URL. 22 March 2016.
