Educational Media Reviews Online

Atef Hetata’s sensitive and compassionate examination of the life of a young Egyptian student and his single mother is both moving and horrifying. Set in Egypt at the time of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War, The Closed Doors tells the story of Mohamad, nicknamed Hamada, a high school student, and his mother Fatma, who works as a maid for a wealthy and very secular family. Her husband had married a much younger woman, and encouraged their oldest son, Salah to go abroad. Salah has vanished into the maw of the Iraqi Army and has not been heard from in three years.

Fatma is fiercely determined that Mohamad will go to college and become someone special, possibly a pilot. Mohamad struggles against the indifference of his teacher and the hostility of his schoolmates who mock him for being fatherless. At the same time he is plagued by the awakening of his sexuality and beset with the sexual urges and dreams of the typical adolescent. Their neighbor, the voluptuous Zeinat supports herself and her useless husband by prostitution and flaunts her sexuality. Hamada has a complex relationship with his mother; he is very aware of her beauty and is proud of her, yet he wishes she would simply stay home and not work and is embarrassed when she seeks to touch him in public.

Mohamad’s teacher, Mansour, insists the boy needs extra tutoring to pass his classes. Attracted by Fatma he offers tutoring at no charge. The father, meanwhile, encourages Mohamad to stop school and go to work, promising he’ll get the boy a job abroad. Fatma, herself a very beautiful woman, is subjected to unwelcome advances from the husband of her employer. She worries when her son forms a friendship with a street boy, Awadine, who is surviving by his wits. When Fatma is fired, it is Mansour who provides emotional support and encouragement, and helps her find a new and better job.

Beset by secular urges, sexual passions, burgeoning manhood, and determined to protect the virtue of his mother, Mohamad increasingly falls under the influence of fundamentalist Islamic leaders, Sheik Khalad and Sheik Azziz. Distraught from the death of Awadine in a traffic accident, he is resolves to save his mother by having her married and wearing a veil. When he discovers that Fatma and Mansour have become lovers, he stabs them both, murdering his mother.

For people like Fatma and Mohamad there are only closed doors. Women, vulnerable to predatory males, have few protections outside of marriage, yet Egyptian law permits a man to take multiple wives. The school system seems more interested in beating and humiliating students than educating them. Job opportunities are few. The fundamentalist religious leaders in their own way are as obsessed with sexuality as Mohamad is, but they use it as a weapon to control their followers. The Closed Doors is a graphic portrayal of the complexities of Egyptian society, where the sounds of CNN, and elements of Western secular culture, KFC, scotch, and plastic toys vie with the calls of the mosque. This film should inspire greater understanding of some of the dynamic forces at play in the Arab world and generate thought provoking discussion among its viewers.

A final technical quibble, at times the white letter subtitles disappear into the background of the film.