Director: Sally El Hosaini
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Film Pulse Score: 6.5/10
There is a very particular air about Sally El Hosaini’s debut feature My Brother the Devil. As I sat through the opening scenes, struggling to understand the initial sounds of the Hackney accents, I felt a recognition for the style of cinema, but couldn’t quite place it. It kept me with the film until the dialogue began to unpack itself from the container of the accent. I thought of other films to see if there was a connection, Miranda July’s Me, You, and Everyone We Know came to mind, but it took a bit of research to trigger where the familiarities lay. Sundance. An air of innocence and openness is at play in the characters, one that borders on emptiness, but seems to always remain above water. Floating through a film from scene to scene compelled to continue, even when the flaws of the film are very visible, must be the marker of a Sundance Institute supported film.
Like I mentioned, the film begins with a slurrish Hanckey accented dialogue that is so heavy I couldn’t understand what was being said. Luckily, the beginning of the film relies heavily on action and little dialogue is actually needed in order to follow the progressing scenes. What begins as a sloppy execution in providing a scope of understanding for a wide audience, even if born out of a desire to commit fully to the real speak of the street, sets a tone that this is an amateur film. And it is, but in some of the best ways.
Ultimately the film follows two brothers whose roles are changing not only in relationship to each other, but also in the way the want to experience the world. It begins as most sibling relationships do, there is an older brother that the younger brother looks up to. While the older brother Rash is a drug dealer and street thug, he is very protective of his kid brother Mo’s perception and idealistic view of thug life. The frame work for the film is set up here, and I will try to avoid spoilers from here on out.
While the film beautifully captures an ever growing rift between the brothers, all the character development seems to be caught up in their identities. There are friends, thugs, lovers, family, a full ensemble of supporting cast, all of whom seem to have exactly the same amount of time on the screen, spread out over the duration of the film. With a story that is jam packed with events, surprises, and action (it takes only 10 minutes before their friend and accomplice in dealing, Sayyïd is murdered due to a gang rivalry), the story seems to barely involve other characters. In this way the film feels like to monologues struggling with each other’s right to be spoken.
That’s the crux of the film after all, because for a story of a young man’s coming of age to be pitted against the man he would most like to become, we are likely to ride these swirling monologues to their dizzying end, out of breath not simply because of the ride, but because of all that we have traveled through in the plot. The whirl of events is so packed with ‘issues’, that the focus of a film can’t help but seem a bit contrived. However, using several non-actors in an adventurous script like this does keep the landscape quite fresh. Both James Flyod (Rashid) and Fady Elsayed should be quite proud of their performances. Elsayed in particular kept his feet firmly planted in his character for his first role as an actor, and more can be expected not only from him but also of this director. The innocence and youth involved in a film about topics like gang violence, drugs, street wars, and sexual preferences read as totally sincere, fresh, and naive. Who else can say they can deliver those qualities involved with these subjects?
