Syrian filmmakers begin to bring heavyweight topics into TV dramas during Ramadan.
By Sami Moubayed – DAMASCUS
Last Wednesday afternoon, the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II—who died at the age of 75 in 1918—sprung back to life, strutting through the lavish corridors of the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul, handing out orders left-and-right to aids, ministers, and his Grand Vezir.
Speaking classical Arabic Syrian star Abbas Al-Nouri came across as a warm, strong and extremely intelligent monarch when playing Abdulhamid II, very different from how Arab history has viewed him since collapse of the Ottoman Empire nearly 100-years ago.
Many would attribute the new portrayal directly to the very warm Syrian-Turkish relations but the entire TV drama, Suqut al-Khilafa (Fall of the Caliphate) was Egyptian produced by Iraqis, rather than Syrian, carrying a colorful assortment of stars from around the Arab world.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s television was used purely to entertain throughout the Arab world. Audiences loved to watch light comedies of Syrian actor Duraid Lahham or his Egyptian counterpart Adel Imam, steering clear from anything serious or thought consuming.
Filmmakers reasoned that TV had been invented to air soap operas, comedies, sitcoms and talk shows, rather than serious works that tackled history or politics. That, they claimed, was duty of Arab cinema.
In Syria, however, due to a declining cinematic industry and a rising television one, filmmakers started to bring heavyweight topics into TV dramas, which seemingly overnight shifted from witty pranks of Ghawwar al-Tawsheh (Charlie Chaplin-like comedy) to tedious historical epics portraying legendary warriors like Saladin and Khaled Ibn Al-Walid.
Venturing of the Syrian private sector into TV production—which meant greater wages, better scenery, and stronger scripts—made the TV drama boom in Syria all the more reasonable.
Production companies, however, were working for return on investment and began arranging that their works are aired during Ramadan, so as to coincide with audience preference and advertiser’s budgets. Pretty soon, TV ads riddled these Ramadan works, which bloated from 13-18 episode works to 30-episode dramas so as to fill the entire month of Ramadan.
Portraying historical figures on screen began to mushroom in Ramadan 11-years ago, when Egypt came out with a 30-episode biographical work on the diva Um Kalthoum.
Others quickly followed, Abdulhalim Hafez, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Mohammad Abdo, and more recently, Asmahan, King Farouk, Layla Murad, and Nizar Qabbani.
Most of these works, Asmahan, Nizar Qabbani, and Al-Andalib, were delayed, stirring up much controversy and legal wars because families of these figures refused to grant production companies permission to make works around them. Others, like a work on former Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, never saw the light because of conflict with Quwatli’s inheritors.
Among the historical figures brought back to life this Ramadan are pioneer playwright Abdu Khalil Qabbani, who founded theatre in Syria in the 19th century and revolutionized it in Egypt, and the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II.
The latter work is attracting much attention, given that for many decades, Arab TV showed nothing but negative works about Abdulhamid and the entire Ottoman legacy. A prominent work from the early 1990s, Ukhwat al-Turab (Brothers of Soil) went into great detail about torture of Arab dissidents during World War I and depicted Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman Governor of Syria in 1915-1918 as someone similar to the Devil himself.
Suqut al-Khilafa, which comes 14-years later, depicts a completely opposite picture and shows just how times have changed in Arab-Turkish relations. The work, which will be broadcasted within Turkey while dubbed into Turkish, delves into Abdulhamid II’s famous commitment to Palestine and his refusal to sell land to Zionist chief Chaim Weizmann in 1903.
For the past year, Arab intellectuals have been sporadically remembering that episode of Ottoman history, hailing Abdulhamid as a visionary in various mainstream Arab media, who they now claim, was toppled in 1908 through a Zionist conspiracy.
Another controversial figure appearing on TV screens this Ramadan is founder of the Umayyad Dynasty, Muawiya Bin Abi Sufyan (602-680), played by the young Syrian star Qays Sheikh Najib.
Muslim Sunnis consider Muawiya a sahabi (companion of the Prophet) who helped document the Holy Quran as one of Mohammad’s scribes, expanding the Muslim Empire’s frontier and building the modern Muslim state. The Damascenes, who accredit him with glory of their city, still refer to him as Sayyiduna Muawiya.
Shiites, however, see him as a fraud and imposter who insincerely converted to Islam after the fall of Mecca, who stole the caliphate from Ali, the fourth Caliph. In fact he is one of the major sources of division between Sunnis and Shiites.
This year, Muawiya comes to life in the mega Syrian-Qatari production, Al-Qa’qa Ibn Amr al-Tamimi, biography of a prominent warrior who accompanied the Prophet.
The thought of seeing Muawiya on screen has created much resent among Shiites while certain scholars have already launched a campaign against the work, accusing it of “criminally distortion” of history aimed at “igniting sedition among Muslims.”
Filmmakers seem to ignore that history was never black & white as depicted every Ramadan. Muawiya, Sultan Abdulhamid II, and even Nizar Qabbani, Um Kalthoum, or King Farouk, were human beings at the end of the day, with their ups-and-downs, faults and attributes.
Arab audiences are intelligent after all, and are beginning to ask: “Why don’t we get a real version of history that is somewhere in-between Ukhwat al-Turab and Suqut al-Khilafa?”
In all of these works, the historical characters were shown as one-sided figures, either 100% good or the exact opposite. The obvious answer to such a question is Bab al-Hara, the popular Syrian 5-part drama that shows a very rosy picture of Damascus during the 1930s.
Although riddled with historical inaccuracies, the work is immensely popular throughout the Arab world, giving filmmakers a glimpse of what Arab audiences want to see.
It’s the glamour of Yildiz or Abidin Palace, the regal lifestyle of King Farouk, the romances of Nizar Qabbani, and the chivalry of Bab al-Hara that attracts an Arab audience to all of these works, regardless of how factually correct the works are.
By Sami Moubayed – DAMASCUS
Last Wednesday afternoon, the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II—who died at the age of 75 in 1918—sprung back to life, strutting through the lavish corridors of the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul, handing out orders left-and-right to aids, ministers, and his Grand Vezir.
Speaking classical Arabic Syrian star Abbas Al-Nouri came across as a warm, strong and extremely intelligent monarch when playing Abdulhamid II, very different from how Arab history has viewed him since collapse of the Ottoman Empire nearly 100-years ago.
Many would attribute the new portrayal directly to the very warm Syrian-Turkish relations but the entire TV drama, Suqut al-Khilafa (Fall of the Caliphate) was Egyptian produced by Iraqis, rather than Syrian, carrying a colorful assortment of stars from around the Arab world.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s television was used purely to entertain throughout the Arab world. Audiences loved to watch light comedies of Syrian actor Duraid Lahham or his Egyptian counterpart Adel Imam, steering clear from anything serious or thought consuming.
Filmmakers reasoned that TV had been invented to air soap operas, comedies, sitcoms and talk shows, rather than serious works that tackled history or politics. That, they claimed, was duty of Arab cinema.
In Syria, however, due to a declining cinematic industry and a rising television one, filmmakers started to bring heavyweight topics into TV dramas, which seemingly overnight shifted from witty pranks of Ghawwar al-Tawsheh (Charlie Chaplin-like comedy) to tedious historical epics portraying legendary warriors like Saladin and Khaled Ibn Al-Walid.
Venturing of the Syrian private sector into TV production—which meant greater wages, better scenery, and stronger scripts—made the TV drama boom in Syria all the more reasonable.
Production companies, however, were working for return on investment and began arranging that their works are aired during Ramadan, so as to coincide with audience preference and advertiser’s budgets. Pretty soon, TV ads riddled these Ramadan works, which bloated from 13-18 episode works to 30-episode dramas so as to fill the entire month of Ramadan.
Portraying historical figures on screen began to mushroom in Ramadan 11-years ago, when Egypt came out with a 30-episode biographical work on the diva Um Kalthoum.
Others quickly followed, Abdulhalim Hafez, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Mohammad Abdo, and more recently, Asmahan, King Farouk, Layla Murad, and Nizar Qabbani.
Most of these works, Asmahan, Nizar Qabbani, and Al-Andalib, were delayed, stirring up much controversy and legal wars because families of these figures refused to grant production companies permission to make works around them. Others, like a work on former Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, never saw the light because of conflict with Quwatli’s inheritors.
Among the historical figures brought back to life this Ramadan are pioneer playwright Abdu Khalil Qabbani, who founded theatre in Syria in the 19th century and revolutionized it in Egypt, and the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II.
The latter work is attracting much attention, given that for many decades, Arab TV showed nothing but negative works about Abdulhamid and the entire Ottoman legacy. A prominent work from the early 1990s, Ukhwat al-Turab (Brothers of Soil) went into great detail about torture of Arab dissidents during World War I and depicted Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman Governor of Syria in 1915-1918 as someone similar to the Devil himself.
Suqut al-Khilafa, which comes 14-years later, depicts a completely opposite picture and shows just how times have changed in Arab-Turkish relations. The work, which will be broadcasted within Turkey while dubbed into Turkish, delves into Abdulhamid II’s famous commitment to Palestine and his refusal to sell land to Zionist chief Chaim Weizmann in 1903.
For the past year, Arab intellectuals have been sporadically remembering that episode of Ottoman history, hailing Abdulhamid as a visionary in various mainstream Arab media, who they now claim, was toppled in 1908 through a Zionist conspiracy.
Another controversial figure appearing on TV screens this Ramadan is founder of the Umayyad Dynasty, Muawiya Bin Abi Sufyan (602-680), played by the young Syrian star Qays Sheikh Najib.
Muslim Sunnis consider Muawiya a sahabi (companion of the Prophet) who helped document the Holy Quran as one of Mohammad’s scribes, expanding the Muslim Empire’s frontier and building the modern Muslim state. The Damascenes, who accredit him with glory of their city, still refer to him as Sayyiduna Muawiya.
Shiites, however, see him as a fraud and imposter who insincerely converted to Islam after the fall of Mecca, who stole the caliphate from Ali, the fourth Caliph. In fact he is one of the major sources of division between Sunnis and Shiites.
This year, Muawiya comes to life in the mega Syrian-Qatari production, Al-Qa’qa Ibn Amr al-Tamimi, biography of a prominent warrior who accompanied the Prophet.
The thought of seeing Muawiya on screen has created much resent among Shiites while certain scholars have already launched a campaign against the work, accusing it of “criminally distortion” of history aimed at “igniting sedition among Muslims.”
Filmmakers seem to ignore that history was never black & white as depicted every Ramadan. Muawiya, Sultan Abdulhamid II, and even Nizar Qabbani, Um Kalthoum, or King Farouk, were human beings at the end of the day, with their ups-and-downs, faults and attributes.
Arab audiences are intelligent after all, and are beginning to ask: “Why don’t we get a real version of history that is somewhere in-between Ukhwat al-Turab and Suqut al-Khilafa?”
In all of these works, the historical characters were shown as one-sided figures, either 100% good or the exact opposite. The obvious answer to such a question is Bab al-Hara, the popular Syrian 5-part drama that shows a very rosy picture of Damascus during the 1930s.
Although riddled with historical inaccuracies, the work is immensely popular throughout the Arab world, giving filmmakers a glimpse of what Arab audiences want to see.
It’s the glamour of Yildiz or Abidin Palace, the regal lifestyle of King Farouk, the romances of Nizar Qabbani, and the chivalry of Bab al-Hara that attracts an Arab audience to all of these works, regardless of how factually correct the works are.
