Lost in Translation: A look back at the Arab world’s obsession with remaking ‘The Godfather’
DUBAI: Remakes of Western movies and TV shows are all the rage in the Middle East these days, and given the hype over “The Deal,” which dramatizes the making of the iconic movie “The Godfather,” we take a look at Arab filmmakers’ attempts to remake the film Mafia.
Now airing on OSN+ in the region, “The Offer” follows film producer Albert Ruddy as he struggles to bring the cinematic masterpiece to the big screen.
Regarded as one of the best films ever made, 1972’s “The Godfather” is about an Italian mafia family headed by Don Vito Corleone, portrayed in the first of a trilogy of Marlon Brando films. Corleone decides to hand over his empire to his youngest son Michael, played by Al Pacino. However, his decision seriously endangers the lives of his loved ones.
Scroll down for Arab critics’ ratings of the Middle Eastern remakes of the mob cult classic.
The film not only influenced the West, but also inspired filmmakers and production companies in the Middle East.
In 2015, the late Syrian director Hatem Ali created an Arabic version of “The Godfather” for television called “Al-Arrab” and even borrowed the iconic logo from the American film.
The two-part series “Al-Arrab: Taht Al-Hezam” and “Al-Arrab: Nady Al-Sharq” starring Jamal Soliman, Bassem Yakhour, Basel Khayat and Amel Bouchoucha, but was it good?
Essam Zakaria, an Egyptian critic and artistic director of the Alexandria Mediterranean Film Festival, thinks not, describing it as “an inferior production. The story and the details are not convincing.”
According to Saudi film critic and actor Baraa Alem, one of the reasons some remakes are unsuccessful is because they lack the cultural references of the productions they are based on.
“When you take something that is internationally acclaimed… you can’t just expect me to completely forget about it and get the story back from you as a new story,” he said.
“You talk about ‘The Godfather’ and we remember Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, and whoever you’re going to put in that place is never going to have the same emotional baggage that we have for these characters. You can take the theme and remake it, but you can’t take the cultural aspect. That’s why I find it so difficult for a new version to be successful.”
Lebanese critic and writer Jamal Fayad said the challenge was in changing the production from a film to a TV show.
“The difficulty of turning a movie into a 30-episode series is making the script not boring,” Fayad told Arab News.
“We can take a movie and turn it into a movie; a series and turn it into a series,” she explained. “But for us to change a movie and turn it into a series, it will lose a lot of joy in the script because the writer will be forced to drag out the scenes. He will get to a point where he will create new scenes and that could mess up the production.”
“The production was good and all the actors are veteran stars, from Jamal Soliman to all the actors that accompany him,” said Fayad. “I think director Hatem Ali, peace be upon him, was amazing. He was always exceptional.”
That same year, “The Godfather” was turned into another Arabic series, also called “Al-Arrab”, starring Salloum Haddad, Assi El-Hallani and Mustafa El-Khani and directed by the Syrian filmmaker Muthanna Sobh.
“In the two parts of ‘Al-Arrab’ that were made, the story was expanded and that is not recommended in drama. Either we have the same writer and he/she can extend the story in his/her way or we don’t make the movie into a series,” Fayad said.
Another work inspired by “The Godfather” is the 1991 Egyptian film “Assr El-Qowa,” directed by Nader Galal and starring Egyptian icon Nadia Al-Gendy. But Zakaria described it as “not good at all.”
“Both the 2015 series and the 1991 movie don’t live up, in any way, to one of the parts of the original production,” he said.
Speaking to Arab News about “Assr El-Qowa”, Fayad responded and said that he is a fan of Al-Gendy and his work.
“The best thing about Nadia Al-Gendy is that she found a place for herself in the industry that made her the most successful,” he said. “In all of her works, she portrayed strong women who can take on men. Despite that, she never reprized her characters and always played new roles.”
context matters
Critics agreed that context matters when it comes to remaking international classics.
Zakaria, who is also an instructor in the film department at the American University in Cairo, told Arab News that remakes can only be successful if their creators add “something that will touch society” on which they are based.
“They find a successful American or Western movie and they want to steal its success, but they don’t always have something to add,” he said.
“Writing is the hardest part of production. So they shortened this step, which is considered the most important, and started working after the writing process. This is laziness sometimes (and) not trying hard enough to look for regional ideas.”
Zakaria said that a rare example of a successful transition to Arabic was the Egyptian film “Om El-Arousa,” based on the 1950 American film “Father of the Bride.”
“When they transformed it, it became an original Egyptian film,” he said. “If the team making the remake is creative, skilled, has ideas and a vision, it will be good. But, if it’s done out of laziness just to make a movie or a series, the result is the inferior productions we see.”
Meanwhile, the latest Arabic remake, “The Killing” by Shahid, based on the hit Danish crime show of the same name, also received a warm welcome on social media.
Set in Cairo, the series, starring the Syrian Bassel Khayat and the Egyptians Riham Abdel Ghafour, Bassem Samra and Salma Abu-Deif, follows a police investigation into the murder of a girl.
Remakes versus original narration
While studios in the Middle East are understandably drawn to remaking movies that have already been successful elsewhere, industry insiders largely agree that original storytelling is the way to go.
“I always encourage my writing friends and the writers around me in the Arab world to look for new ideas and find original content that can come from our culture because we have a lot of untold stories,” Alem said.
“We have heritage and stories. We also have imagination and we have the ability to fantasize and create new worlds and new characters…not just rely on the success of things that were done in the West,” she added.
Fayad walks a middle line, declaring that remakes can work if the writers take the general idea of the story and turn it into something original.
“In this case, we built on the idea with a new script, a new story, and new scenes. This is more successful and more convincing,” she said.
critics open up
We asked reviewers to rate the Arabic remakes out of 10 to help you decide if they’re worth watching.
“Al-Arrab: Taht Al-Hezam” and “Al-Arrab: Nady Al-Sharq”
Critic rating: 5/10
“Al-Arab”
Critic rating: 5/10
“Assr El-Qowa”
Critic Rating: 6/10
Source: www.arabnews.com