The Open Door

With a fine-tuned mise-en-scène, theatrical chiaroscuro effects, expressive cross-cutting, heavy symbolism and melodramatic outbursts, Henry Barakat’s The Open Door adapts Latifa al-Zayyat’s iconic coming-of-age novel of the same name about a woman’s political and sexual awakening for the Nasser era (1954–1967).

Laila is an outspoken, freedom-loving young student who faces ongoing patriarchal repression in her life: There is her violent father at home. Then there’s her first love, Essem, who subjects her to sexual violence. And later, there’s the respected, yet conservative professor and fiancé Dr. Fouad. Only her brother Mahmoud’s freedom fighter comrade Hussain shares her ideals. Ending with a classical train station sequence, she joins him in the national struggle.

Shown at the Third Afro-Asian Film Festival in Jakarta, Henry Barakat’s The Open Door adapts Latifa al-Zayyat’s iconic coming-of-age novel of the same name about a woman’s political and sexual awakening for the Nasser era (1954–1967). Its skillful play with realist and melodramatic modes mirrors the film’s central conflict between the public and private, interweaving guerilla fighting on the front with Laila’s fight in the domestic sphere. Barakat directs this with a fine-tuned mise-en-scène, theatrical chiaroscuro effects, expressive cross-cutting, heavy symbolism and melodramatic outbursts. With its focus on two key moments, the freedom struggle (1952) and the Suez crisis (1956), it asserts that only Nasser’s socialist revolution and nationalist agenda can bring about women’s liberation, making this not only a feminist, but also a nationalist classic – a true ‘revolutionary melodrama’.

– Stefan Borsos

Presented in collaboration with Rotana Studios.

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