Decor

A sophisticated melodrama about a woman going through an existential crisis, which borrows from both Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen. Director Ahmad Abdalla (Rags and Tatters, Microphone) has long been a guiding star in independent Egyptian film. His most recent work Decor, written by the director of 678 Cairo, is considered his best by several critics. We follow Maha, a voluntary childless career woman who works as a costume designer. She and her boyfriend Sherif are working on the recording of a new film that none of them really like. But the longer Maha works with the film, the more she disappears into the characters' reality.

Eventually she lives herself so into the parallel reality, that both Maha and the audience are unsure which life is actually real. While she on the film set state that she does not want to start a family, in the movie she is a loving mother with a daughter of ten years. Rather than portray reality with children as an idyll, both realities contains conflict that is problematic for Maha. Abdallah elegantly manage to merge Mahas two lives together without us, the audience, getting confused. We are sucked into the existential drama Maha is part of. Beautiful black and white cinematography gives Decor a timeless character, in line with the issues the film raises.