Perfumed With Mint: Turning Egypt into a Purgatory of Ghosts

"My Heart hurts” This is the first line of dialogue in the film, that is said near the 9-minute mark, or rather, this is the first “audible” line of dialogue.

Before that, we are treated to an eerie night scene of a field, so pitch black where we see nothing except the faint light that reflect from the green leaves of mint trees, a vibrant beautiful green, (that will be the only color to stand out from the film’s expertly dark cinematography) with a lot of sound in the background, almost the sounds of unseen humans, either so far for us to hear, too intermingled for us to comprehend, or too gibberish to make sense. Doesn’t matter, we can’t see them, we can’t understand them, are these the sounds of people? Or the sounds of ghosts?

Here’s the thing, when the first audible sentence is said, “My heart hurts” is said to a young doctor, but the old woman saying it goes on to describe an emotional problem. The doctor has got nothing to do but say that her problem isn’t medical and that he can’t help.

Those are the two notes the film begins in: ghosts, and helplessness.

“Perfumed with Mint” is about walking dead mannequins on sedatives and painkillers.

Saying that “Perfumed with Mint”, Mohammed Hamdy’s haunting, creative and surprisingly funny debut feature is one of the best Egyptian movies in years is easy, it easily is. But the profound effect this film left on me makes me wonder if this is one of the best Egyptian movies period.

I’ll admit, there’s some personal bias here, after all, I am a young doctor like our main character, and most of my “work day” in my governmental healthcare unit consists of me listening to poor unlucky people, who don’t have the money, luxury or time to do further tests, buy expensive medicine, or go to more specialized doctors, before either saying that I unfortunately can’t help, or giving symptomatic treatments or painkillers.

Did I mention that the film has magical realism? And is built in a supernatural weird premise? A premise that I love so much that I don’t know whether I should spoil it to sell the film to you, or leave you to discover it for yourself, so if you don’t want to know it, skip to the next paragraph.

The film takes place in a world where people sprout Mint from their skin, the smell of said mint attracts ghost and shadows, basically all our main characters are on the run or hiding like a Tarkovsky made zombie apocalypse, but here’s the catch: The smell of Cannabis keeps the monsters away, so our characters spend their days either looking for drugs, or getting high as fuck. In other words: This is a stoner movie.

Some recent Egyptian films tried turning Egypt into a Purgatory or Limbo, a place for wandering, lost and/or helpless souls, from “Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo” to “East of Noon”. But this is the most otherworldly and apocalyptic Egypt has ever looked and felt in a movie.

Hamdy’s Pedro Costa-inspired cinematography, and Ammar Abo Bakr’s production design show abandoned, rusty and uncanny places, with high contrast lighting with a lot of heavy dense shadows. It builds on the foundation of Costa’s revolutionary visual language to paint incredible landscapes of shadows, internal and external in equal manners.

It’s an existence that feels both very richly textured and hallow, like no normal physical space can or should house that much darkness and shadows. If you happen to not be grabbed by the film’s hypnotic pacing, or aren’t affected by its saddening spell, then at least you won’t be able to deny that it is one of the most visually gorgeous and unique you have ever seen.

But the film is as emotionally and tonally rich as its characters feel to themselves that they are hallow inside. The way it moves from different modes of slow cinema, from the contemplative, to the emotional, to the allegorical, to the abstract, to the experimental, to the absurd.

And on top of all that it manages to be as funny as a stoner movie should be, like I laughed out loud more than once. You could sometimes feel like the whole script was written by someone when he is very high, and you’d be tempted to believe so if not for the emotional truths the film understands and captures very well.

The black comedy is part of this emotional truth, it is part of this existence, it is part of the numbness, the sedation, the black irony governing it all.

It is part of the emotional state of this city, especially its hopeless youth stuck in the past, forced to stick to the past and hold on to it, forced to be static, stunted, forced to trim out all of their true potential, their true self, their true beauty, to be zombies running from zombies, sedated, undying, unfeeling.