Sold as a "concise autobiography", Ammar Al Beik's Aspirin Wa Rassasa (Aspirin and a Bullet) — screened as part of the Muhr Arab Documentary segment at the Dubai International Film Festival — is a recording of confession, poetry, pain and cinema.
Unfortunately it rarely rises above this, nor does the filmmaker attempt to link these elements. So while each individually is arresting, they're less successful when combined into a unit.
Al Beik ruthlessly trains his camera on his subjects — an older woman, his mother, seems perturbed. At first seemingly under the impression she's sitting to have her picture taken, she gazes at the camera unflinchingly, transferring the anxiety she's clearly feeling to the viewer.
On her first number of appearances she's quiet, later she ceases being an interview subject and speaks to the director/cameraman as her son. Later still, she answers some questions shedding light on the title.
In contrast, the filmmaker's father is much more animated, engaging the viewer with anecdotes about his exploits, a lot of it sexual, as a young man.
A third element has two people reading what appears to be a script, repeating some of the intricacies of film from a theoretic perspective.
Another features clips from other films (like Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris), whereafter the director of each (including the avant-garde Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov) also stares into the camera. At first, this is uncomfortable, but this device loses its power as the viewer becomes sensitised.
This is true for most of the elements of Aspirin and a Bullet — Al Beik is hampered by his status as a conceptual artist, and while the devices he employs have all at one stage been groundbreaking, now it's pretty much passé.
Al Beik is a proponent of the idea that film — like other forms of art — should be unprepared, unscripted and unfold on its own. This is an interesting idea, but the result is akin to a happening (performance art) gone wrong, because here for too long, nothing happens. Now, while some theorists would argue "nothing happening" is in itself also something worth recording, on film it's just dreary and comes across as indulgent.
For most of the film, it's good, artistic filmmaking. But after 125 minutes, the viewer will happily choose the titular bullet — anything to make the misery end.
Aspirin and a Bullet is also screened on December 13 at 9pm, Mall of the Emirates.
