-Written by Kyle Bain.
2024 MUSLIM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!
After causing a man to be killed, Mona (Eimen Yousif) hires his widow, Julia (Siran Riak), as her maid. While Mona is attempting to make up for the horrors that she’s committed, she will soon find that penance may not come as easy as she originally thought. Goodbye Julia is a study of the human condition as Mona traverses the darkest parts of humanity.
Writer-Director Mohamed Kordofani makes his directorial debut with Goodbye Julia–a hard-hitting emotional journey that is approached with both simplicity and convolution. Kordofani tells a very linear story, one headed by Mona and supplemented by the many actors that surround her. As she travels through her story, Director of Photography Pierre de Villiers follows her, often up close. As we track our leading lady, we see her through an often shifting, shaking lens–and that complements this story greatly. This keeps in tone with the idea of Mona having to walk on eggshells, forced to deal with a haunting, debilitating situation. We are able to see through a similar eye, one that helps to tell her story by pulling us in, sometimes even dizzying us in the process.
Similar to the simple approach taken in regard to the cinematography, Kordofani constructs simple and organic dialogue. Nothing feels forced here; nothing about this aspect of the film feels out of place, overdramatic, nor ineffectual. Kordofani finds a brilliant balance here, developing something through the course of Goodbye Julia that drives emotion and pulls viewers into Mona’s orbit time and time again.
It’s the simplicity that allows Goodbye Julia to shine, though Kordofani does take his film a bit too far, making it somewhat convoluted. Kordofani chooses to place his film in the middle of a non-fictional conflict–the Sudanese Civil War. As South Sudan prepares to succeed from Sudan, as death plagues the streets, Mona’s story plays out. I am unable to understand why exactly Kordofani chose to place his film in the middle of this deadly dispute–as I don’t feel it adds much of anything to the narrative. There are certainly times where there is meant to be some drama developed as a result of Goodbye Julia’s subplot–but it doesn’t create enough tension to warrant it being part of the film. Furthermore, this civil dispute isn’t one with which I was familiar–and it led to some confusion on my part throughout my viewing. This, simply put, made Goodbye Julia more difficult for me to appreciate.
Given the time period and historical context of Goodbye Julia, it felt that, at times, Kordofani lost sight of the film’s primary narrative. And with that viewers were sidetracked as well. In a film that could have and should have been significantly shorter, Goodbye Juliet combats its simplistic brilliance with more story, with more characters, with things that ultimately served no purpose in my opinion. I wanted the primary storyline to be more prominent, not to be overshadowed at times by the secondary and tertiary narratives, but it does sometimes exist in the shadow of those lesser stories. Though, through the cinematography and dialogue Kordofani creates something enticing, passionate, and entertaining.
Written & Directed by Mohamed Kordofani,
Starring Eiman Yousif, Siran Riak, Nazar Gomaa, Ger Duany, etc.
6.5/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE
