Based on the short novel by Hammour Ziada: "The Longing of the Dervish: A Novel," You Will Die at Twenty (2019) is the first feature film by the Sudanese director Amjad Abu Alala, who, in addition to being one of the writers, has marked a milestone in the history of Sudanese cinema, this being the first film to enter the competition for the Oscar for Best International Film, and is only the eighth film in the history of Sudanese cinema. It is also a dedication to the victims of the Sudanese Revolution, sparked between 2018 and 2019, which ultimately toppled the government of Omar al Bashir.
This film is an ode to freedom, a call represented by the main character; Muzamil, who we see grow throughout the movie after a prophecy marks his life; that he will die at the age of 20. Faced with this supposed death sentence, the film's narrative is constructed, questioning whether it is possible to escape our destiny, mainly if God dictates it.
Sébastien Goepfert. (2019). You Will Die at Twenty
Similarly, the meaning of life and death are constructors of the narrative. Muzamil's mother, Sakina, is precisely the representation of these imperatives. Seeing that her son is sentenced, her wardrobe speaks for itself; for 20 years, we see her dressed in black, representing death as if her son were already dead, but Muzamil is still alive. And it is from this thought that Muzamil's life is cloistered; they turned him into someone extremely submissive and without perceiving the notion of freedom.
Sébastien Goepfert. (2019). You Will Die at Twenty
Likewise, the narrative it's marked by a mixture of cultures between Africa and the Arab world, represented explicitly by the dervish religious group of Sufi tendency, and it's from this combination that the identity of the Gezira community is generated.
On the other hand, a characteristic of the characters is that they always hide their feelings, represented either by vice or their beliefs. For example, Muzamil will not understand the consequences of his actions or his lack of thinking and acting until his lifelong friend, Naima, with whom he is in love and who also declared her love for him, is engaged to another man.
The relationship between Muzamil and Sulaimani is perceptible the parallelism. One is a conservative boy whose only shelter is the Koran, waiting for Allah to forgive him. And on the other one, we have a man who, since he was a child, has questioned Islam and lived a "hedonistic" life surrounded by Westernism, and his shelter becomes his vice and his passion for cinema.
Sébastien Goepfert. (2019). You Will Die at Twenty
The bond between these characters is very similar to the one built between Salvatore and Alfredo in Giuseppe Tornatore's film Cinema Paradiso (1988). When Salvatore, in this case, Muzamil, begins to explore and know the world through cinema, thanks to Suleimani, who would represent Alfredo, this becomes a means of escape from reality. But this interaction is the beginning of Muzamil's questioning of his beliefs. Specifically, in a scene where Sakina tells Muzamil that he cannot see Suleimani again because he is a sinner, Suleimani looks for him in the mosque and confronts him by making an analogy between a white sheet of paper and the same one stained with ink. To which he says:
"You ask for forgiveness and yet you have never sinned. Try to sin, perhaps then you will know the difference between whiteness and ink".
However, Muzamil will not understand the meaning of life until the last day.
At the film's end, the director makes it very clear whether it is possible to escape from destiny. Since he elucidates that this is not built by the mandate of God but that everything was a construct of the mother, she decided the course of life that Muzamil would follow; she deprived him of that freedom. And it is here where the director launches his criticism; just as a religion gives hope, it also takes it away and alienates. Finally, I would like to close with this analogy between the film and the Sudanese reality since this film represents what the Sudanese people did in the revolution: a call for freedom.
Sources:
Ajyal Film Festival. (2019). Interview with Amjad Abu Alala – Ajyal 2019. Retrieved on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hgZojHtRLQ
Cineuropa. (2019). Amjad Abu Alala. Director de You Will Die at 20. Retrieved on: https://cineuropa.org/es/video/377181/rdID/375466
IFFR. (2019). Amjad Abu Alala. Retrieved on: https://iffr.com/en/persons/amjad-abu-alala
IMDb (2019). You Will Die at Twenty. Retrieved on: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9686154/
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