The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMovie reviews

Wajib (Duty)

Wajib (Duty) | Movie review
10 September 2018
Joseph Owen
Avatar
Joseph Owen
10 September 2018

Movie and show review

Joseph Owen

Wajib (Duty)

★★★★★

Release date

14th September 2018

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

Website

This is expert filmmaking from Annemarie Jacir, now a veteran of the art house festival circuit. A story of fathers and sons, East and West, progression and conservation, Wajib intelligently explores the tensions within an Arab family living in contemporary Israel. Politics is always there, of course, but through a peculiar road trip – one confined to the labyrinthine streets of Nazareth, the city with the highest Arab population in Israel – we observe a fraught personal relationship simmer and boil. We’re never far away from the pot tipping over.

Abu Shadi (Mohammed Bakri) needs to deliver his daughter’s wedding invitations, as is custom. He solicits the help of his son Shadi (Saleh Bakri – yes, the paternal relationship is not just for show), who has temporarily returned from Rome where he is an aspiring architect. Sporting a bun and a pink shirt, Shadi invokes light mockery from his father. Still smoking after a recent heart attack, Abu Shadi receives light disdain from his son. Their respective barbs cloak deeper ill feeling, a sense of incompatibility. We learn that the mother ran off with another man to America. Shadi is still in contact and shows clear affinity to her sense of adventure and self-respect. He abhors his father’s toadying to Israelis for a teaching promotion, seeing superiority in his own flight to more open-minded climes. (We learn his departure wasn’t so simply initiated.) Alternatively, his sister Amal (Maria Zreik) sees the virtue of her father’s constant support. The possibility of the mother’s return for the wedding, which hinges on the health of her new husband, hangs over the endless deliveries and preparations.

Jacir’s achievement is that these characters do not descend into caricature. Abu Shadi’s conservatism and respect for tradition is balanced by a pragmatic, refreshing approach to others. He commits small dishonesties constantly, not out of malice or even cowardice, but out of an understanding that assuaging people’s fears and comforting their egos is a fundamentally human attribute, a necessary aspect of friendship. Shadi, conversely, is hot-headed and frustratingly obstinate. His politics of progressive nationalism have no pliability, no thoughtfulness. Yet, he is the character with whom we most sympathise, his ideas about architecture and aesthetics delivered pompously but nevertheless with intellectual ballast. The film wishes to show the reconciliation of distinct beliefs – these men love each other, know each other – and so we conclude on something crucial: the pleasure of giving respect.

★★★★★

Joseph Owen

Wajib (Duty) is released in select cinemas on 14th September 2018.

Watch the trailer for Wajib (Duty) here:

 

Related Itemsmovie reviewreview

More in Movie reviews

Moxie

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More

Notturno

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More

The Winter Lake

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More

Justine

★★★★★
Abbie Grundy
Read More

Lucky

★★★★★
Jacob Kennedy
Read More

Foster Boy

★★★★★
Jim Compton-Hall
Read More

Crazy About Her

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More

Bigfoot Family

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More

Judas and the Black Messiah

★★★★★
James Humphrey
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Joseph Owen

Wajib (Duty)

★★★★★

Release date

14th September 2018

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

Website

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • I’m Your Man (Ich bin dein Mensch)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Black Bear
    ★★★★★
    Film festivals
  • Celebrate International Women’s Day with a Bombay Sapphire Cocktails & Create masterclass
    Food & Drinks
  • Spotlight: Lauren Everet and Soup Kitchen London, striving for food security and social equality
    Food & Drinks
  • Bicep at Saatchi Gallery Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • William the Conqueror – Maverick Thinker
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Ski (Esquí)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Guzen to sozo)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Petite Maman
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Celebrate International Women’s Day with a Bombay Sapphire Cocktails & Create masterclass
    Food & Drinks
  • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Guzen to sozo)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Moxie
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Souad
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • We (Nous)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Bicep at Saatchi Gallery Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Faces Places | Movie review
Flotsam at King’s Head Theatre | Theatre review