Movie Review: Poor Reception
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By Biniam Tekle
August 14, 2008
When I watch a movie, the process for me is akin to the critical and analytical process of reading a book, albeit at a lesser level. Every time I watch Eritrean movies I look forward to go through that experience and be enthused and entertained at the same time. However, more often than not, I am not as successful as I would have hoped in meeting that experience. Disappointment seems to outweigh satisfaction.
Such an experience of disappointment was yet again provided by a movie entitled "Reception".
Reception, I am told, was a box office hit following its release. I learned hordes of movie goers went to see the movie week after week. That begs the question, does the commercial success of a movie gives the indication that the movie was actually good? Not necessarily, and certainly not in Reception's case.
There is a supposition that the great majority of locally produced movies released in theaters are commercially successful and if that assumption holds true, would that speak to the quality of the movies or does it attest to the fact that communal movie watching experience is becoming more appealing and popular regardless of the quality of the movie being screened? If so, what would that do to the ongoing maturity of the motion picture industry in Eritrea? Would movie makers simply pander to the conformist audience and slap together so called scripts and run for the money? Would the box office success force the industry to hit a certain plateau of mediocrity in which movies designed solely to make money are churned one after another, as seems to be the case now? Or would the flow of finance help the industry to eventually turn-in creatively refined products? Notwithstanding the acute lack of financial and material resources, would it be too much to ask the creative community to aspire for excellence? Hopefully those who are active members of the creative community back home would shade some light on the above questions.
Coming back to Reception, the story revolves around a hotel receptionist, Philemon (played by Suleiman Omer), who by the virtue of his occupation is privy to the extramarital indulgences of some of the hotel guests. The knowledge of other people's secrets provides ammunition to those who are bent on using them for sinister purposes. Armed with secrets that could shatter a family, Philemon turns the opportunity of access to influence by becoming a shrewd and devious manipulator and extortionist. Philemon, who goes by the nick name Philly, is conveniently popular with beautiful figured girls roaming the streets of Asmara in tight jeans, except the girls end up in the tight grips of the Receptionist's ominous spell.
The female characters are portrayed as being hopelessly gullible that the level of their susceptibility is simply absurd. One of them is actress Mereb Estifanos, who is an otherwise capable actress, but who
seem to have hit a snag lately as evidenced through her lackluster performances in recent releases, including the movie "Gizie". Some of the dialogue and the interaction between the characters in Reception is far separated from reality that believability seems to be a strange concept for this movie. The links between scenes or lack thereof betray a movie suffering from a poor plotline. The characters lack perspectives and appear to be shallow. If one fails to make fictional characters react to events and each other as real people would, then the movie misses a critical component, a real life context, and the story simply crumbles. After hearing some of the dialogues between the characters in this movie, one is left with frowning thoughts like "real people don't say that" or "no one reacts like that".
If the aim of this movie was to depict a certain social reality it only succeeded in failing to express such reality. As the protagonist in the movie tries to destroy a family, the poor script and direction coupled with poor performances nearly destroys the film, at least for me.
DIRECTOR:
Tesfit Abraha
ACTORS:
Suleiman Omer
Mereb Estifanos
Ghirmay Gebrelul
Salina Ghebrehannes
Alem Rezene
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