Simo Featured, Reviews Film Threat
Director and screenwriter Aziz Zoromba’s short drama Simo is an eye-opening, simple yet captivating story about the integration of immigrants into Western society. An Egyptian-Canadian director, Zoromba depicts the familiar and normal situation of competing teenage brothers and their need for attention-grabbing masculinity, while creating anxiety. earthly fear and anxiety at once, destroying typical modern life and Western existence in one go. Swoop down. Simo (Basel El Rayes) and Emad (Seif El Rayes) are brothers who live with their father, Baba (Aladeen Tawfeek), sharing a basement bedroom where competition and jealousy know no bounds. Lifting weights, blasting speakers and playing war were all games for these growing young Egyptian boys at an outdoor winter soccer match, where Simo took a punch in the eye while Emad held peace. Emad is called to do dishes with Baba and is anxious to return to gaming. Feeling inferior, Simo highjacks Emad’s warfare computer game, where he garners 200 views. A blown speaker behind Simo resembles a bomb since Emad dismantled it after blowing it out, blaring the base while lifting weights. Unknowingly, Simo causes a life-threatening situation to his family and others while involved in his warfare—it’s very metaphoric. When Emad catches Simo playing, he sends him crashing into his bed, but not without asking how many views he has.
Simo has a bad dream about finding a house, but it’s not a dream. Baba and Simo eventually pick up Emad at a government building, where they feel the weight of life around them. The three stuck together in the car, leaving the horrific incident behind and moving forward together as a family. There is no question that it was a situation beyond their control, a situation of targeting and profiling. Alternative outlooks on masculinity and cultural identity, especially being an Arab in the Western world of Canada far from Egypt, is a subtle exploration of the state of things in Simo. Regardless of daily activities and typical boy teenage brothers fighting, growing, competing, and learning, there is an undertone of fear and not belonging. Creating a sense of place and identity, Baba is on the phone discussing money and an uncle no longer alive. He tries to control his hormone-raging sons while emphasizing their basic lives and existence. Simo’s cold, concrete, and white appearance from the snow and white brick house with rap music as a voice of fear adds to the outcast and foreign feel. However, Simo breaks the fourth wall and raps into the camera at the end, which can be justified as survival, upholding a suspension of disbelief.