FemmeFilmFest7 Review: J’ai Le Cafard // Bint Werdan (Maysaa Almumin)

One wonders how far you have to say, loneliness is a bitch and I’m numbed by the mundane office life, before your eventual companionship with a cockroach makes sense. Or seems inevitable. From a helpless bug in a toiler cubicle to a human-size bed buddy, the imagined or the actual creature in Maysaa Almumin‘s short film J’ai Le Cafard (Bint Werdan) may be a kind of solution to our protagonist’s comfort zone, derived from a now null and void state of play in her life.

The talking point of this astute little film might be the surreal nature of a grown woman’s casual relationship with the common kitchen pest, but the spinal theme remains all the more relatable. We’ve all taken solace in a toilet booth away from the world dragging us down. Perhaps not as much, but some of us have contemplated the possibility of a more refreshing relation with the utterly unlikely over the robotic, tiresome humans around us. And like in real life, we find relief is temporary.

That said, writer and director of this bizarre, but affecting short film, Maysaa Almumin, is not particularly interested in crushing us with melancholy. The central woman and her grim but familiar surroundings establish a kind of echo for what’s its like to be alone. And this takes merely seconds at the very start of the film. The cockroach itself -of course- pulls us somewhat away from the reality. At times there are the kind of subtle comic undertones one would expect from a set-up of the peculiar. But the vapour of charm also comes from the very ordinary, with actress Enas Elfallal impressing throughout with the portrait of a lady on fatiguing feet.

J’ai Le Cafard (Bint Werdan) is a relatable little showpiece for the human daily grind. The same four walls, the same one-sided conversations, the same façade doing its best to hide the tedium and the misery. As your empathy grows, so does your suspension of disbelief that a cockroach could be a healthy change of scenery, rather than something you would not hesitate to splat with your shoe. Almumin moves her narrative with a snappy panache. The pacing is calm and almost taken for granted, she manages to step from one scene to the next efficiently, allowing us to get a good look around without time to put our feet up.