Marina Of The Zabbaleen English Movie 2009
Cast And Crew
Released: September 9, 2009
Director: Engi Wassef
Producer: Engi Wassef
Writer: Engi Wassef
Director of photography, Rob Hauer; edited by Nicholas Martin; music by Michiel Neuman; released by Torch Films. At the Imaginasian Theater, 239 East 59th Street. In Arabic, with English subtitles.
Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes.
This film is not rated.
Reviews
Filled with glancing light and happy faces, “Marina of the Zabbaleen,” Engi Wassef’s compassionate documentary about a poor community of garbage recyclers, fights hard to sweeten the misery of its surroundings. Its success is due in no small part to Rob Hauer’s eloquent cinematography, which creeps inside the mind of a child to turn a rat carcass into a shiny toy and mounds of rubbish into a mysterious kingdom.
The child in question is 7-year-old Marina, who lives with her family and 30,000 zabbaleen (recyclers) in Muqqattam village in Cairo. Using a model that has been copied worldwide, Marina’s family sorts and sells paper (others specialize in plastic or aluminum) under the watchful eye of a witchy neighbor and the constant threat of eviction. School appears to consist solely of biblical-theme videos (the zabbaleen are mostly Coptic Christian) and seems unlikely to advance Marina’s dreams of becoming a doctor.
Unaware of the threats to her eco-friendly if spirit-crushing life (including government outsourcing of garbage management), little Marina attends religious services and mourns the loss of her toothbrush to marauding rats. Some scenes are difficult to watch — children playing among used syringes; an anesthesia-free dental visit yet the film never loses its admiration for human resilience and childish imagination. Or for the tenacity of faith among those who seem most abandoned by their God.
Pigeons take wing in freewheeling circles but always return to their cages. A kite soaring serenely over a verdant field of corn turns out to be made of refuse. Symbolism runs thick in Marina of the Zabbaleen, first-time director Engi Wassaf’s look at a community of Coptic Christians who eke out a living recycling garbage and raising pigs on the outskirts of Cairo. The most omnipresent symbol is Marina herself: a good-natured, studious six-year-old girl who hopes to become a doctor. The doe-eyed girl is a sympathetic presence in a coarse, fetid environment, whose inhospitality
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