One of the things that I like most about Netflix is that it gives me the opportunity to watch all the TV series that I always wanted to watch but never had the time for (I’m currently watching Vikings and Prison Break is on my waiting list) and the same goes with Arabic movies.
Recently I’d watch an Egyptian movie called Sheikh Jackson that left a great impression on me. The movie follows a young cleric (whose name you won’t know till the end of the movie) who’s happily married and leads a very strict religious life. But his world turns upside down when he hears the news of the death of Michael Jackson.
So how are these two related? The viewers are given a peek of the Sheikh’s life as a child in the early 90s where he hears of MJ for the first time and then as a teenager when he becomes a fan, memorising the lyrics and imitating his famous dance moves. But what turns a normal teenager into an extremist?
Director Amr Salama answers the question by showing the social environment surrounding the growing up Sheikh, from his school where theological arguments are labelled ‘blasphemy’ to a cold and a distant father who wants him to be a ‘real man’ and punishes him when he finds out about his idol: MJ. These difficult conditions leave the young Sheikh feeling confused and vulnerable, which opens the door to his religiously extremist uncle to enter into his life — giving him the attention and understanding that he lacks at home and turning him into a junior cleric.
The movie gives an interesting insight into extreme ideologies that could be funny at times. For example, when the sheikh supervises a record of a moral song that promotes Islamic values — using Nancy Agram’s music to appeal to younger generation — he asks the lady singer to sound less ‘feminine’, more ‘pious’ and ‘soldier like’.
There is also the philosophical angle where the Sheikh finds himself questioning choices that he’d made in life (what’s right and what’s wrong), the contradictions in society that many finds hard to understand or deal with and the never-ending clash between culture and religion. The movie is a nostalgic ride to those of us who-like the Sheikh — grew up in the 80’s and the 90’s listening to MJ’s songs.
From MJ’s famous look that every teenager imitated (curly mid-length hair, white shirt and t-shirt, black trousers, plastered fingers and sunglasses if you could afford it!) to listening to the songs on a Walkman and singing along with the lyrics that came along with the tape (using the dictionary to decipher all the words that were new to us, the non-native speakers!). Not to mention the dance moves that everyone had a go at (hands up if you moonwalked in front of your friends or were mesmerized by the zombies’ dance in Thriller music clip).
It’s amazing to think about the global culture that MJ’s music had created and the reach it had before the time of the internet. Though MJ’s music was never used in the movie for copyright reasons, there were many scenes that copied famous music clips like Black and White and Dangerous. The movie was Egypt’s submission to the Oscars in 2017 for the foreign language films category.
It’s one of those feel-good movies that leaves you with a big smile at the end. It’s filled with positive messages about life and how to live it. I won’t share them here, so that you could have fun watching it and finding your own.
Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of:
The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com
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