Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: A NOSE AND THREE EYES [Red Sea International Film Festival 2023 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia]

The texture of trauma reflects in certain people's ability to mask it. As an actor Egyptian Dhafer L'Abidine seems to understand the inherent underpinings of this idea, especially in a culture that is slowly changing but also wanting to maintain certain traditional elements. The crux of the story here, in a novel that was also made into an Egyptian movie in the early 70s, is in the examination of the idea of when does love become obsessive, what is correct, what motivates and how it is resolved both inwardly and outwardly. L'Abadine's successful surgeon character,at 46 years old, falls in love against his best intentions with a 21 year old college student who is hired by his agency to manage his socials. It is an age old diatribe but updated for modern times because, as a character, he can't seem to draw himself away despite his better judgment. At a certain point, he goes to see a psychologist who has complicated ideas and perceptions of her own in certain respects that create and trigger set points of said doctor.

L'Abdine is able to extract an empathy though this is a slightly less dramatic and more mainstream performance than his other film he wrote, directed and starred in at this year's festival entitled "To My Son". Here "A Nose And Three Eyes" is more intrinically keyed into romance and matters of the heart but also how repressed memories, even in the smartest of people, can cause very specific reactions. By regressing into examining his own relationships, the three women at crisis or specific points seemingly intersect the surgeon's psyche without realizing it, hence the three eyes. But it takes that context for the doctor to get past his hang-ups which are social in a context but not as much related to ego as his own sense of identity and self. This psychosis has been skewered by elements in his subconscious. This texture tends to play at times a bit melodramatic without the truly overarching need to actually be. However that in a way is the style of filmmaking and structure that keys into its necessary audience. As a result, "A Nose And Three Eyes" finds its context but updates for a modern sensibility which because of certain sensitivities is not as cut and dry as it used to be. B

By Tim Wassberg