Memories are a tricky thing. Some people want to move on from them; others cling to them, devasted by loss. “My son refuses to die,” an old woman tells Bahaa (Alla En Din Hamada), explaining how she keeps seeing his ghost. “I am tired.” As a doctor, of course he suggests a series of tests. As a person, he relates, as he has a similar problem. His girlfriend Dalel has left him, and all that remains is the only love letter she ever wrote him – a letter that refuses to dry ever since he got it wet. After all, he is not ready to let her go.

The notion of pain is at the core of Muhammed Hamdy’s Perfumed with Mint [+leggi anche:
intervista: Muhammed Hamdy
scheda film], which has premiered in the International Film Critics’ Week at the 81st Venice Film Festival. The mint of the title sprouts on those feeling pain, thus attracting ghosts of the past. Bahaa’s friend Mahdy (Mahdy Abo Bahat), on the other hand, is fighting his feelings of anxiety about a whistle that he’s expecting to hear at any minute.

What unfolds is an odyssey through an empty Cairo as the characters are chased by encroaching shadows and memories. Hamdy develops a rich stylistic language, from the scarcely lit, murmuring mint bushes to the foreboding, black shadows in the corners of his frames. At times, these even seem to reduce the cinematic scope, an eeriness that can always be felt.

But it is not just the reduced lighting; the movie also works with a minimalistic set design, more reminiscent of a theatre sound stage, where every footstep is audible, every spoken word echoes, and every person passing through the frame has a role to play. Running through this maze of dark, crumbling alleys, they finally stop at their friend Hussein’s (Hatem Emam Moustafa) place to sit and smoke. “Mint only stops sprouting when I smoke hashish,” Mahdy explains.

This is where the film ultimately arrives at. The men are in some kind of state of emotional paralysis. They are cursed to live in these shadows, having been expelled from, or reeling from, their memories. As Hussein joins them, he tells them he is unhappy that his mother is praying too much. Abdo (Abdo Zin El Din) is covered in pimples, a reaction of his body to the memory of bullet wounds. Ali (who is never shown), on the other hand, has been waiting for medical treatment for seven years.

As they perpetually perform this circular dance of sitting in the house, walking the city streets, smoking and wailing about their pain, one of them comments, “This isn’t living.” He is right. And with regard to the movie, this isn’t very plot-driven, either. Not that it has to be, but as a viewer, one does need some patience. This is not for those with no staying power.

What Hamdy catches very well, though, oscillating between matters of the heart and political violence, is that pain is a universal experience. It’s a sentiment that does not differentiate, but rather unites. However, finding a way to live with this pain, and not succumb to anger or just go numb, is the real challenge.

Perfumed with Mint is an Egyptian-French-Tunisian-Qatari co-production staged by Supernova Films. Reason8 Films is in charge of the international sales.