Writer: Mohamed El-Hosseiny, Khaled Mansour
Director: Khaled Mansour
Bullying techniques are universal: demand respect, create a conflict, blame the victim. The basics are the same from Cairns to Cairo, which is the location of Khaled Mansour’s Seeking Haven for Mr Rambo. As the film shows , however, other, more benign connections are also universal – such as the bond between human and animal.
Living with his mother and his beloved dog Rambo, Hassan is a good boy – he wears his vest – and a responsible one – Rambo travels in his motorbike sidecar wearing helmet and seatbelt. Hassan has lost his father , who “bailed” on the family twenty years ago, and his girlfriend Asmaa, who is engaged to someone else. Now he’s about to lose his home to the crooked landlord Karem. Karem picks a fight; inevitably the trusty Rambo bites him. The film follows Hassan’s struggle to find a place where his dog will be safe from the murderous Karem. It’s a kind of poor man’s Odyssey. He meets various characters , some helpful, some treacherous. There is an encounter with death. Throughout Asmaa acts as a constant helper and support.
The idea of emotional support animals is often derided, but for Hassan, Rambo is precisely that. Still missing his own father, he enacts the role himself. He treats his dog as a beloved little child, gently instilling discipline and teaching skills. (He has managed the standard ones, “Sit,” and, more adventurously, “Play dead,” but more complex instructions don’t seem to work). He talks to Rambo more readily than to anyone else, even kindly Asmaa. It’s to Rambo that he recounts the wonderful experience of going to see the movie Rambo with his dad. “I ordered milk tea,” he says, “and it got it for me.” As Hassan , Essam Omar dips deep into the well of sadness. His face expresses every gradation : sorrow, misery, grief among them. There are occasional glimpses of happiness, a playful rough and tumble, or the scene of improvised levity when Hassan celebrates his thirtieth birthday, fuelled by a miniature bottle of something , dancing with his dog in a one man disco in a closed café, both wearing ridiculous party hats. There is a brief moment of great tenderness that leads nowhere -another lost opportunity for Hassan.
The story of the relationship is barely sketched, but it is clear that Asmaa has moved on, for security and an escape from the ladies’ boarding house where male visitors are forbidden. Rakeen Saad plays Asmaa with beautiful economy. She can express a lot with a slight nod or a barely perceptible smile. She has a comforting stillness, but also a brightness, trying hard to make Hassan unbend and even laugh. She is a nurturing presence – most of her scenes take place over food which she has provided.
If Asmaa is a somewhat idealised woman, Karem is a comic strip villain, encased in black leather and scowling. He’s cruel to widows and orphans. Neither character is fully developed, because this is less a drama than a fable, a reflection on memory and loss. Touching tales about animals appeal to any age group, and this is a perfectly suitable film for family viewing. The one sex scene happens behind closed doors and doesn’t get very far anyway – it just serves to reinforce the sleaziness of Karem.
With Ahmed Tarek Bayoumi’s cinematography, the film doesn’t look at all like a children’s story, even though it has elements of one. Hassan has found cassette recordings of himself and his father, and had them converted for his phone. He listens to them for the first time against a most melancholy background, a rusted, faded , chained contraption that may once have called itself a merry go round. The building where Asmaa lives could be a fairy tale palace with its arabesque windows and magnificent panelled doors. It’s crumbling, the paint is peeling and the grand staircase looks filthy. The film starts with a horrible image of a bloodied animal., a hyena attacking its prey. Hassan is watching a documentary about African animals . Zebras race across the screen. That bloody image recurs a couple of times, for different reasons.
Also universal is poverty. This is a film which shows how difficult it is to navigate life anywhere when you have little money and no one to stand up for you.
Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo is screening at the SAFAR Film Festival 2025 from 11-28 June.
