“Perfumed With Mint is in many ways a ghost story, but the question is who the ghosts are.”
Bahaa (Alaa El Din Hamada) and his friend Mahdy (Mahdy Abo Bahat) traverse a decaying city, moving from abandoned building to abandoned building, staying wherever they can until it is time to flee from some unseen terror. A doctor who is more of a patient himself, Bahaa mostly tries to forget, as the memories of Dalal, the woman that left him, are still too fresh in his mind; he carries a letter around, the last one he received from her, one that got wet and never dries again. The two friends drown their sorrows, or rather try to make them go up in smoke, through copious amounts of hashish (“Memories don’t like hashish,” as one of them says) and through poetry. Mahdy’s problems manifest themselves in more peculiar ways: mint grows from his body. As they move through the shadows of the city they meet people with similar problems, some of whom may be either metaphorically or actually dead, in encounters that take the shape of a procession of wandering souls that are cursed to stay in this nightmare forever.
Debuting Cairo-born director Muhammed Hamdy’s biggest claims to fame have come as a cinematographer, most notably winning a Primetime Emmy for his work on documentary The Square. Taking the helm for the first time, his Perfumed With Mint is a far cry from the harsh reality of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution at the now infamous Tahrir Square, but there are definitely parallels to be drawn between the subjects of that film and the characters in Hamdy’s feature debut. A generation with doubts but hope, fighting for a better future a little over a decade ago, and a group of people that seemingly have lost all hope, scarred by events of the past that could very well have occurred in that turbulent period for Egypt in the early 2010s. Perfumed With Mint is in many ways a ghost story, but the question is who the ghosts are. Is it these men who try to forget, try to blunt their pain by escaping to a better world, if not physical then at least in their heads? Is it the mint, the manifestation of the ghosts from their past, or the seemingly dead people who are still among us as if living memories? Or is it the repressive yet unseen forces the characters have to run from when they hear ‘the whistle’? All interpretations are valid, as Hamdy shies away from being dogmatic and overexplaining. In fact, some might find he explains too little, but he clearly aims to create a contemplative and in a strange way poetic piece of art instead of a tight narrative feature. If there is one criticism to be leveled at Perfumed With Mint, it is that the film is unresolved, but one can argue that Hamdy is not seeking resolution because perhaps there is none.
The film is tinged with a sense of melancholia, not just in the defeatism of its central characters but also in Hamdy’s cinematography (obviously taking care of it himself) and shot compositions. Hamdy places his characters in a maze of shadows, real shadows out of which at any moment could arise the metaphorical shadows that are haunting their memories. It creates an atmosphere of paranoia and dread, and gives Perfumed With Mint a gorgeous look to boot, so even those who can’t get on board with the film’s somber tone and contemplative look at the wounds of the past that have never healed will enjoy Hamdy’s vision as a director. An interesting and contrasting companion piece for the documentary that his cinematography was lauded for, Perfumed With Mint is a showcase displaying not just Hamdy’s eye for evocative imagery, but also his cerebral way of portraying lingering and unshakable trauma.