“The Brink of Dreams is both a sobering and hopeful portrayal of life for young women in rural Egypt, and a reminder that between dreams and reality often lies a leap of faith.”
Can your dreams overcome the limits of your surroundings? This is a central question in The Brink of Dreams, the second feature-length documentary co-directed by Egyptian filmmakers Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir. Following a group of young women in a small village on the banks of the Nile, The Brink of Dreams shows that the trappings of patriarchal role models are easy to fall into when what is expected of you is stronger than you doing the unexpected. As one of the women in the film says, in rural areas like central Egypt a girl’s father decides her life, a hard truth that seems inescapable. And yet The Brink of Dreams ends on a hopeful note, showing that even if not all dreams come true, the mere act of trailblazing can cause a turnaround for the next generation.
Riyadh and El Amir portray a group of girls who shake up their conservative community by forming a theater troupe who stage street performances in which they challenge traditions and the ideas of what women should be. They dance, sing, switch gender roles, and directly confront their audience with hard-hitting questions, much to the chagrin of the elders in the crowd. “Immoral girls,” they are called. The prejudice doesn’t deter them, as they’re at an age where they still think they can shape their destiny and follow their dreams.
Until harsh reality sets in. Suddenly there are prospective husbands and arranged marriages, and they are expected to play a different kind of role: that of the traditional female. The film mainly follows three of the women. Monika, who is determined to become a famous singer, is the first to fall in line with what is expected of her; her fiancée (and cousin) says that she can still pursue her singing career after getting married, but all we see of her after that is a dedicated mother. By choice? Hard to say, but the fact remains that the de facto leader of the troupe, a driven girl named Majda, sees her band of women fall apart when a marriage proposal slowly loosens a third member, Haidi, from the group as well. All flustered and giddy, her enthusiasm is dampened when the boy forbids her to further associate with Majda and the others. She quits the troupe, ostensibly on her own account. Her progressive father cuts through the bullshit and warns her that divorce is not a thing in this community, tacitly encouraging Haidi to make the right choice. She doesn’t.
Which leaves Majda, who is giving it her all to keep the act together. To her it probably means the most, and her desperation at the collective falling apart is palpable. She has had her own fair share of criticism and abuse to endure, in the little corner shop where she works with her brother. Once it becomes apparent that the original troupe has fallen apart she makes a decision: she will follow her dream and go to theater school in Cairo. Leaving her family in the dark, she takes a leap into the unknown, hoping to find in the capital the freedom to express herself. The inspiration she has provided for the younger girls following in her footsteps in the film’s final moments is probably her biggest triumph, and worth all the negativity that was leveled at her.
It took Riyadh and El Amir quite a bit of time to make The Brink of Dreams, having to first gain the trust of not only the young women, but also their families, fiancées, boyfriends, and the rest of the townspeople. This gave them access to some personal and heartbreaking moments, filmed unadorned as the proverbial fly on the wall. At times the naturalism of their subjects is questionable; Haidi in particular feels prone to ‘act’ in front of the camera. But niggles like this aside, The Brink of Dreams is both a sobering and hopeful portrayal of life for young women in rural Egypt, and a reminder that between dreams and reality often lies a leap of faith.