This article is written by Samia Ayesh, a freelance journalist who writes about Arab cinema, and the opinions expressed below express the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CNN.
The first episode of the series “The Stranger,” which began showing this week on the Shahid platform, begins with a scene of the great Bassam Koussa sitting on the balcony drinking a cup of coffee. This scene in particular was closest to my heart, perhaps because it reminds me of the series of the good old days in Syria, when the stories, cities, and people all resembled us and reflected the daily stories we live.
Al-Gharib tells the story of Judge Youssef Mir Alam, who lives with his family in the city of Damascus, and one day finds himself facing a murder committed by his son by mistake. He is forced to flee with his family from Syria to Lebanon, and finds himself facing difficult choices that he did not expect to face. Never in his life.
The series stars Bassam Koussa, Farah Bseiso, Jamal Qabsh, Saeed Sarhan, and Sandy Nahhas. It is written by Lubna Haddad and directed by Sophie Boutros.
What attracts the most attention in the series for those who want to follow it is the presence of Bassam Koussa, who plays the role of the judge and the father. Youssef Mir Alam is an honest judge who refuses to make any concessions before the functioning of the judiciary, and I believe that the choice of Koussa was appropriate, as he has a great ability to perform the roles of good and evil brilliantly, as we have seen in previous series, starting with The Four Seasons and ending with Bab Al-Hara.
On the other hand, Farah Bseiso returns to the Syrian drama in the role of the judge’s wife, who was absent for a long time and recently returned through the series produced and shown by the Netflix platform, Mo, about a Palestinian-American family living in the city of Houston, Texas.
It may be too early to judge the series in terms of the story and characters, as the rhythm in the first four episodes varies between slow and natural, in addition to the lengthening of some scenes, perhaps to immerse the viewer in the atmosphere, or as a way to prolong the life of the episodes, such as the scene in which Rami goes, The judge’s son, to meet his friend Wael, at three-thirty in the morning after the latter called him. We see Rami driving the car heading to the meeting site, carrying his phone for guidance. This scene could have been shorter, because the idea had arrived, and the anticipation had originally started from the previous scene when Rami received the call.
I was happy to hear the names of the countries and cities in this series: Syria, Lebanon, Damascus and Beirut. These names give the series a realistic character, making its events closer to us, and at the same time we move away a little from the prevailing form of today’s series, which are the series of Time and Nowhere, or those copied from other societies and stories.
Two types of faces appear in the series: faces familiar to us from the generation of actors and actresses, and a new generation that considers such series a golden opportunity for them to rise and emerge.
However, I wonder here whether these young people have a real opportunity to appear and prove their talents through these platforms. I am afraid of the idea that the platforms depend for the success of these series on the names that have shined on television, as a way to attract the audience, and therefore any use of young stars will keep them in secondary roles from which they will rarely emerge.
The experience of watching drama series as it was before, that is, the daily episode on television, will not return again, as the specific time for showing the episode was required of the viewer to adhere to it, unlike platform series, which imposed a different form of experience, characterized by individuality and flexibility.
So what does user experience have to do with making a star?
I remember that one year, during the month of Ramadan, the series “Al-Hoor Al-Ayn” by director Najdat Ismail Anzour was shown. The series and its story are not the best at all for me, but experiencing the characters on a daily basis and watching the episode at the same time had a huge impact on me personally at that time, especially in the episode in which the explosion occurred and caused the death of many characters. I remember that I was so affected that I was afraid to sleep at night alone, because of my connection with the characters of this series. I think the main reason for this is the daily episode that was part of the daily routine, and the characters’ experience of everything they were doing.
Today’s platforms impose a different experience, as on some platforms you can watch the entire series in one night, or on other platforms you can wait until the full episodes of the series are available and watch it all in one sitting, or what has become known as Binge Watching. Such experiences do not give you space to think or contemplate the characters. Rather, it becomes like a task that we have to finish, until we start watching the next one, and so on.
For all these and other reasons, it has become easy to show a series about crimes or murder, or one that contains some excitement and anticipation, because it contributes to pushing towards this experience, the Binge Watching experience, until the viewer becomes “addicted” to watching episodes and a greater number of series.
These lines were never intended to review the series “The Stranger,” as the series is in its infancy, and it would not be fair to review and criticize it from now on, but I found in it a good introduction to talking about the difference in viewing experiences between yesterday and today, and perhaps the biggest inspiration in this was Bassam Koussa.
