“Captain Abu Raed,” an unaffected melodrama from Jordan, is like the humanistic efforts that made up the first generation of art films to arrive in the United States.
It’s a simple story told with dignity. It aims for universal relevance.
Abu Raed (Nadim Sawalha), a janitor at the Amman airport, is a kindly fellow of venerable years who lives alone and cherishes memories of his late wife. He finds a captain’s hat in the trash and, on a lark, wears it home. The kids in his working-class neighborhood think he’s a real pilot and pester him to recount his adventures. He hesitates, then indulges them with delightful tales.
A grim-faced older boy, Murad (Hussein Al-Sous), spitefully reveals the truth to the others.
It’s a measure of Abu Raed’s character that he recognizes the kid’s neediness — the boy lives with a horribly abusive father — and extends him a hand. He also tries to help a kid whose father wants him to skip school and earn money.
An intersecting plotline involves Nour (Rana Sultan), a strikingly beautiful airline pilot and daughter of a wealthy family, who is forced to fend off her father’s ham-handed attempts to find her a husband.
She takes a liking to Abu Raed, who, despite his gallantry and thoughtfulness, confesses that he’s felt adrift since his wife’s death. Nour will eventually join him in helping Murad, whose dad is spinning out of control.
Writer-director Amin Matalqa, a Jordanian-American, succeeds at the tricky task of portraying a genuinely good man. The filmmaker is aided by Sawalha’s appealing performance, and Al-Sous does good work, as well.
Matalqa adds one off-the- wall moment worth mentioning: Abu Raed’s brief, revealing discussion with a French traveler whose name is a takeoff on François Truffaut’s, clearly one of the director’s cinematic heroes.
“CAPTAIN ABU RAED.”
Not rated. 1 hour, 45 minutes. In Arabic, English and French, with English subtitles. Written and directed by Amin Matalqa; starring Nadim Sawalha, Rana Sultan, Hussein Al-Sous. Opens today at the Chez Artiste.
