18/12/2024 - In his third film, Oday Rasheed explores the contemporary history of Iraq through the eyes of a child for whom time has come to a standstill

Songs of Adam [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which world-premiered in the Red Sea Competition at the Red Sea International Film Festival, scooping the Best Screenplay Award to boot (see the news), is the third film by Iraqi-born, US-based writer-director Oday Rasheed. It’s a slow-paced story set in Mesopotamia, a historical region dubbed the cradle of civilisation, where modern-day Iraq is nestled. The story starts in 1946 and spans seven decades, revolving around a character that doesn’t feel the passage of time – literally.

Pre-teen Adam (Azzam Ahmed Ali), after witnessing the burial rituals for his grandfather, wishes to stay a child forever. And so he does: we meet him again six years later, yet he hasn’t aged a day, and his father puts him in a prison-like, clay cavern, believing that Adam is cursed. He doesn’t age, but he also doesn’t mature, retaining the innocence of a child as well as the life experience of one. The people around him – his brother, his friends and his father – succumb to the passage of time, and through the dialogue between them and Adam, we learn that the country has changed as well.

The years depicted in the movie mark some of the crucial dates in contemporary Iraqi history: the intifada of 1952, the Ba’ath Party rule following the 1963 coup d’état, and the Islamic State offensive of 2014. These events are not mentioned directly, as Songs of Adam is not a political film, but it’s clear that the dates on which we revisit the protagonist are far from random.

The film focuses more on creating an atmosphere of magical realism while depicting the harsh realities of a traditional, patriarchal community in Iraq. However, neither is it a direct critique of these traditions; it feels like these observations and references to political turmoil are just dots left for the audience to connect.

The movie has a clear structure and storytelling style, which leaves a lot of room for the audience to focus on the landscape captured by DoP Basim Faihad. Nature is a character in its own right – alluring in its harsh, sometimes ruthless beauty. The style of the film is realistic, apart from the mysterious immortality of Adam – incidentally named after the first man – which is never explained or even discussed, save for his father’s assumptions. This narrative choice invites our interpretation of Adam as a symbolic representation of the innocent, unchanging essence of historic Mesopotamia, untouched by the turbulence of political upheavals.

The slow pace and scarcity of information given about the characters and the world may feel frustrating at times. Songs of Adam often requires patience and focus from the audience. Also, it’s not easy to connect with the lead, a boy who doesn’t really evolve as a character. The tentative moral of this story would go something like this: those people who have ever wished to remain a child forever may see this as a cautionary tale, illustrating that the loss of one’s connection to people and the world one once knew outweighs any potential benefit.

Songs of Adam is a co-production between Iraq, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and the USA. It was produced by Kian Film Production and Nippur Films. Its world sales are up for grabs.