This is a film that will stay with you long after you watch it. In her first feature film, Spring Comes in Laughing, Egyptian director Noha Adel gives us an immersive viewing experience that lures viewers into seemingly charming stories before revealing deep depths of anger and tears at the heart of their stories. We are witnessing an unconventional first film that breaks many rules. It focuses on the aesthetic and the emotional effect without relying on traditional narration.
Spring came on laughing, but finds me sorrowful,
Spring calls my name, but I remain silent,
Spring lays its flowers beside me,
But what good are spring flowers to the dead?
From this quatrain by the great Egyptian poet Salah Jahin, Adel draws inspiration not only for the title of her film, but also for the philosophy of feelings, imagery and storytelling structure. The first line makes you recall the entire quatrain in your mind to put you in a kind of preparation and anticipation for what you are about to encounter.
In an interview with her, Adel tells us about the spring that inhabits the title and spirit of her film:
“I have never been drawn to the superficial image of spring as a cheerful season; for me, spring is a season full of stark contrasts, sudden sandstorms and unpredictable weather. “
In this sense, Adel’s tales in this film are spring tales par excellence, characterised by unpredictability and seeking to reveal the contradictions and complexities of her characters.
Autumn is usually associated with the revelation of secrets and the uncovering of truths, but here Adel turns the tables, making spring—usually associated in the imagination with the joy of nature—a season for revealing what’s repressed. Each of her tales has a somewhat festive undercurrent that begins with a lot of kindness and expected joy before a phrase is uttered; a phrase that has the power to shed the spring cloak, revealing the true nature of the season and the characters.
She draws the audience into ordinary situations, where the characters seem familiar and the place is ordinary, yet, as the narrative develops, it becomes clear that there is more beneath the surface. This gradual development is what makes her work so compelling. The director invites the audience to witness the transformation of seemingly ordinary moments into powerful revelations about the characters.
All the tales take place in one location, with the exception of the third tale, which takes place inside and outside the beauty salon. Adel seems to me fascinated by the idea of a single place, as her two previous short films also take place in one location.
We are faced with four tales and a conclusion that share the months of spring. The first story begins with the return of Reem’s lost cat, and for that Salwa (Sally Abdo) and her daughter Reem (Reem Safwat) host their elderly neighbour Mokhtar (Mokhtar Younis) and his son Shady (Shady Hakim) for tea on the balcony of a beautiful old apartment in Maadi. The conversation is pleasant and comfortable. Adel excels at embellishing the surface of her stories as if it were a trap to lure the viewer in: two canaries on the balcony railing, a poinciana tree in the background, songs creeping in from a neighbouring house, and talk of poetry, songs, and memories before it all turns upside down as if war had been declared following a surprise marriage proposal. The truth is revealed, and everyone is embarrassed and angry.
Then comes the most raving story. It takes place in a trendy restaurant where Zazou (Rehab Annan) is having lunch with friends on her birthday. Sitting across the table from her is Wessam, who seems to have obvious tension with Zazou. The tension between the two is felt like an old enemy lineup on a battlefield, but the real fuse is lit when Wissam hints that she knows a woman, whose name we shall not mention, whose husband has taken a Syrian woman as a wife. The ensuing explosion of profanity is no less funny than it is deeply painful, not only because of the scandal the foul language creates in the restaurant but because Zazou exposes a vulnerability that belies her apparent strength in a moment of misunderstanding.
The rest of the stories follow the same pattern, as they begin with laughter, roses and friendly conversations before simple conversations that hint at tension beneath the surface quickly turn into explosive confrontations, then escalating crescendo of emotions is followed by a moment of silence that, in my opinion, is more deafening than the explosion that preceded it. The painful moments of revelation are not without funny touches. This delicate mix of laughter and tears is the essence of the tonal film.
Dialogue is Adel’s only effective weapon in these small wars, and words seem like bullets that know how to hit their target. This is a film about the distance between what is apparent and what is hidden in us and around us. The great psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung borrows the word persona from the Roman theatre, meaning the mask worn by the actor to express the self’s passion for hiding its truth. The persona here is the face/mask with which a person presents himself to society; in our daily lives, we may find it necessary to cover the real self with a deceptive cover and wear a mask to appear to the world in a decent appearance that matches the group.
Adel’s film is undoubtedly one about the drop of the masks of the self and the discovery of secrets. About our hidden truths under a mask of pretence and beautification that resembles the laughter of spring and its flowers. Everything is carefully planned and precisely designed, yet it seems to have a character of improvisation and spontaneity, as if it were a piece of cinema verité.
In her first feature film, Adel resorts to documentary techniques such as hand-held cameras and non-professional actors, and as a result, her filmic world seems like raw, unfiltered reality. The moments appear spontaneous and authentic through the very natural performance of her actors. Adel tends towards long shots without cuts. It seems as if she is documenting the moments while they are happening as if there is no narration.
Through her unstoppable camera and close-ups of faces, Adel succeeds in capturing the apparent and hidden emotions of her women. Adel’s camera, with its overwhelming presence, follows her characters tirelessly, trying to keep up with what is happening as the pace of dialogue accelerates and comments overlap without losing its ability to capture touching details such as a trembling hand or the terrified face of a child in a corner. This is a film that seeks the truth, our own truth behind the masks of appearance and pretense.
There is a feminine spirit that drives this film. This is something that can be perceived even without knowing the identity of its makers through this deep awareness of the complexities of the female experience and the authenticity of its characters. It seeks to reveal the truth of the characters with a tender understanding of their weaknesses and contradictions. The film seeks to consciously accept the fact that nature in general, whether inside us or outside us, is governed by contradiction and fluctuation And the vulnerability and contradiction that she exposes within her characters is what connects us all as human beings.
Ahmed Ezzat Amer
Edited by Savina Petkova
© FIPRESCI 2024