Summary: In her first feature-length fiction film, "And We in Imagination... Love?" (recently released on the Shahid platform), with the subtitle "Once One Loved One," Egyptian director and writer Sarah Razeek aims to discuss many sorrows.

Sarah Razeek wants to talk about immortal artists and their influence on generations far removed from them in time, for example, the character of the famous painter Van Gogh. And about young people who dream of becoming today's artists under rapidly changing circumstances. And about the place of love in the distance between imagination, which opens the door to possibilities, and illusion, which closes them all. However, one of the most important themes explored is loss and the difficulty of rebuilding the world after a beautiful past has ended.

The film exudes nostalgia, and its characters cling to fragments of a world other than the one we live in today. From the opening minutes, the character of Youssef Mourad (Ahmed El-Saadany) appears—a professor of fine arts returning from a long stay in Germany after losing his wife, to teach at the Cinema Institute at the Academy of Arts in Cairo. He presents himself as an old-fashioned figure who listens to songs on gramophone records and heats water on a stove, not an electric heater like everyone else.

This introduction of the professor parallels the character of his student Noah (Omar Razeek), who moves on screen in a color palette derived from Van Gogh's paintings, dreaming of love and romance in a way that goes beyond his generation, which is more influenced by fast relationships and virtual worlds on social media.

Modern Romance (Film File): This is not the only source of nostalgia in "And We in Imagination." The film's nature, closer to a musical structure, and its mood remind us, for example, of the worlds of Hassan Imam in the film "Khali Balak Min Zozo" in terms of dance, spectacle, and a tendency toward joy and love of life. And of course, a hint of the spirit of Youssef Chahine, especially with the presence of Omar Razeek, who, since his participation in director Hala El Koussy's film "East 12" (2024), evokes the energy of Mohsen Mohieddin, Chahine's inspiration who embodied some of his greatest dreams of expression through dance on the cinema screen ("The Sixth Day," "Alexandria... Why?").

However, Razeek's acting abilities here appear less than in Hala El Koussy's film, perhaps because the character of Noah, despite his cheerfulness and joy, lacks the complexity that unleashes acting potential. He is a naive character whose maturation life will ensure.

The peak of nostalgia is manifested in the story that primarily drives the events: on one hand, Noah's infatuation with the shadow of a beautiful woman he believes to be his professor's daughter, not knowing she is a doll created by the former artist of his late wife Laila (Basant Abu Bakr) under the weight of loss. On the other hand, the illusion from which the professor himself cannot escape as he isolates himself from the world and lives with a silent statue—the secret that weighs on him and multiplies his strange behavior with his students. Noah imagines the doll to be a real, dreamy woman like him, melting all day sitting on the balcony with music, projecting onto her his romantic dreams that he cannot live with his real beloved Warda (Mai El-Sayed). He writes her "letters" that he throws from his window—in our era dominated by WhatsApp messages and Facebook conversations that can be easily deleted and their history erased with a single click.

The Question of Love: The film does not show us the depth of Noah's relationship with Warda. We only see the apparent contrast in their personalities. She is committed, training to work in film set design while studying at the Cinema Institute. Meanwhile, Noah is hesitant, full of energy but also dispersed. He has tried ballet and music, and is unstable in his cinematography studies. The relationship supposedly spans ten years, as we learn from dialogue, and the revealing moment of separation comes from Noah's insistence on performing a romantic dance with Warda at one of the film sets where she works, causing her problems.

Poster (Film File): Yet we do not feel the pulse of this bond. The director compensates by showing a confrontation scene between the couple from the 2008 film "Revolutionary Road" in an attempt to condense meaning. The screenplay focuses more on the consequences of this separation: while Noah sinks into his illusions, Warda accidentally discovers Professor Youssef Mourad's secret, and consequently the secret Noah hides from her. Thus, she may become impressed by the devotion of the old lover and gradually show more interest in the silent sculptor's character, trying to rescue him by injecting some spirit into his home, which has almost become a museum.

The question of love itself—what is love?—was posed in recent years by the film "Al Hawa Sultan" (2024), written and directed by Heba Yousry, which achieved a phenomenon with its success. It was also a film whose two protagonists long for the 1990s with its songs and films, creating around themselves a transparent fence of memories, refusing to get involved in our world today. In "Al Hawa Sultan" (the title taken from George Wassouf's famous song), love seemed to be about habit, companionship, and perhaps even friendship.

In "And We in Imagination," Professor Youssef asks Warda after a moment of her reckless confession of love: "What do you mean you love me?" It's a question the film fails to provide a specific answer to. Perhaps the work shows us a love of art and love of life more than it shows love between Noah and Warda, and this may not be a failure of the screenplay, but rather a deficiency in our general social vision, as the image of love has changed from what it was in old films, but a new vision has not yet taken root. And perhaps commercial filmmakers have lost interest in the question over the years with the rise of popular action films and poorly made comedies.

Depth of the Film: Among the sources from which the film is inspired are the famous ballet "Coppélia" and the legend of Pygmalion. Additionally, "And We in Imagination... Love" reminds us of the 2006 film "King and Writing" directed by Kamla Abu Zekri, in which a drama professor also isolates himself from real life after an emotional tragedy, and a young actress (Hind Sabri) brings him back to it, as Warda does with Youssef Mourad. The relationship represents a moment of liberation for both the professor and the student, a freedom that helps each return to life with a more passionate spirit.

Notably, the palpable dramatic development in the film does not occur at the level of the relationship between the two young people (closer to teenagers), but in the complete testing of mourning—even to the end, despite the pain—the mourning of Youssef, or Ahmed El-Saadany. The actor admitted in an interview with Mona El-Shazly, in few words, that the character of Youssef represents him, having himself gone through the experience of losing his former life partner. The emotional depth in "And We in Imagination" is achieved especially through scenes of Youssef's crying, his stories about his wife, his recollection of their old memories, and even the confrontation with her family, who did not approve of the marriage when they separated from their daughter to live with Youssef Mourad in Germany, only to have her die there, losing her twice. No wonder that El-Saadany—the man, not the actor—was able after this film to start a new life, publicly thanking art for allowing him to express his experience.

Cinematic Reservations: In contrast to this emotional intensity, we may sense the absence of the character of the heroine Warda, who is the common link between Youssef and Noah. We have seen Noah's home and lived in Youssef's home, but we have not been acquainted with Warda's inner life. She is a young woman full of energy, with a love for people. But she denies herself, in a way, in order to save Youssef, and in this rescue she seems to believe she loves him, or loves that her lover should be like him. When the moment of her confession of love comes, it leaves us as confused as it leaves him.