Ben Affleck's "Argo": A Movie about a Movie

Argo. Directed by Ben Affleck. USA, 2012. 1. Suspense and Espionage for a New Era As the awarding of the Oscars draws near, one is reminded of what is not being said. The kerfuffle around Zero Dark Thirty's representations of torture has been interesting, but no less than the docile reception among reviewers and awards voters regarding the far more competitive of the film's set in West Asia, Ben Affleck's Argo. At one level, Affleck has created a rousing espionage entertainment for our times. The story is based on the accounts of CIA operative Tony Mendez's smuggling—with the help of a Canadian diplomat—six Americans out of post-revolutionary Iran in midst of the US ...

“The awakening of a radical reality”? Reflections on PhotoCairo 5

(PhotoCairo 5 was held between 14 November and 17 December 2012. It was organized by the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo and curated by Mia Jankowicz.) PhotoCairo 5 was not photography and not Cairo. It was a mélange of video, conceptual art, installations, and photographic productions by local and international artists that generally required knowledge of the English language and international art practices and theories to be comprehensible. Indeed, this would have been a fine exhibition in a European or American city where the fragmentation of society has led to art made for specialists shown in institutions that attract small audiences. So, if life and death, ...

Zaha Hadid: Black Square, White Cube, and the Twenty-First Century Museum

The staircase of Zaha Hadid Architects’ recently opened Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing is sleek and straightforward. Its intention is functional; its design is simple (as simple as a contorted, suspended mass can be). A departure from the use of a traditional grand stairway as a means of announcing the authority of an American cultural institution, its narrow path cuts through three distinct levels of sensory experience, as each floor of the museum has been configured to showcase a varied permanent collection.   Positioned as the building’s spine, the birch and black staircase urges visitors to follow the dynamic energy ...

Morsi Mubarak

Popularly Elected Apartheid

With Our Ideas, We Take Our Portrait: Reflections on the Work of Alessandra Sanguinetti

In this collection of essays, three young Palestinian photographers and refugees respond to the work of Alessandra Sanguinetti, an Argentinian-American photographer who visited Palestine twice during the second Intifada. Mohammad Al-Azza, Yasmeen Saleem, and Areej Asad were children when Sanguinetti took some of her photographs in their community. Years later, they found these photographs personally and politically resonant. Sanguinetti documented the aftermath of military violence, but she also captured quiet moments of reflection. These writers gravitated to the latter images. For more about the photography project, “With Our Ideas, We Take Our Portrait,” read Amahl ...

Regarding the Torture of Others in "Zero Dark Thirty"

Much of the hype and controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty centers on the issue of torture. The acting director of the CIA as well as three US senators have criticized the film for exaggerating the role of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the search for Osama bin Laden, while commentators have criticized the film for advocating torture, some going so far as to call the film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow, an “apologist for evil.” Cinematographically, the film has received rave reviews, garnering five academy award nominations, among them best picture and best actress for Jessica Chastain’s depiction of CIA agent Maya. Yet what is at stake when the torture of ...

Mohamed Majd

The great Moroccan actor Mohamed Majd passed away last Thursday, at the age of seventy-three, at a clinic in Casablanca. He was admitted the week before for respiratory problems, following a short stay in Dubai to promote Noureddine Lakhmari’s latest feature Zero (2012). Majd plays one of the lead roles in this film about police corruption, social exclusion, and an anti-hero's redemption through love found in the film-noirish streets of downtown Casablanca. The renowned actor was laid to rest in Casablanca, where he was born in 1940. His death follows the recent loss of many figures of Moroccan cinema's first generation of directors (Ahmed Bouanani), actors (Hassan ...

Amir Tag Elsir: Ebola '76

A Chapter from Amir Tag Elsir’s  Ebola ‘76 Translated from the Arabic by Maia Tabet   In times of Tragedy, Things seem real. Eyes are real. The hand that greets a neighbor is real, And the moon is real, not just a fantasy in the distance. My sweetheart asks me about the meaning of reality, I refer her question to Tragedy, Passers-by ask me about the meaning of real blood. It is that which is sown by Tragedy, I say.  Cautionary Note In August 1976, the deadly Ebola virus struck several areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the border town of Nzara in South Sudan. The virus, which causes a severe haemorraghic fever, is ...