All eyes on Asmahan

In July of 1944, a car carrying Asmahan, the renowned Syrian singer, and a female friend of hers crashed into the Nile after the driver lost control. Without doors in the back where the women were sitting, both got stuck and drowned. Though Asmahan’s life was short, however, her influence on Arabic music is still felt 54 years following her death. With the story of Asmahan, the reader glimpses not only aspects of the cultural and political history of Egypt and Syria between the First and Second World Wars, but one can touch upon the change in attitude in the Arab world toward women as public performers on stage.

Asmahan’s style of interpretation has enriched Arabic song by opening up to the music of the Western World, but with keeping the coherence and difference between the two types of music. The mastery she displayed when interpreting an Arabic song in the classical manner such as “leïta lilbarraqi aïnan”(If only the lightening had eyes) was equaled by “ya tûyûr”(Oh, birds)in a style influenced by Western technique. Her mastery is truly acknowledged by the fact she did not disturb in the least Arabic listeners.
Asmahan descended from a great clan in the mountains of Syria but broke free from her traditional family background. She left her husband, and became a public performer, a role frowned upon for women of the time. Television drama critics in Egypt hold an almost unanimous view that the Syrian series “Asmahan” by the Tunisian director Shawqi al-Majiri is a technical marvel, and attracted high numbers of Arab television viewers. The series was shown on more than 10 Arab channels during the 30 days of the holy month of Ramadan.
The series highlights the lifetime of the renowned singer, born Amal Fahd al-Atrash, daughter of a prestigious Syrian family. She had the title of “princess,” and lived during a critical period in the history of the world and her country alike. She was born in the First World War, and didn’t survive to see the end of the Second World War. Her death was mysterious, and it is still not known whether it was just an accident or a deliberate criminal act.
During her lifetime, a prominent figure of her family, Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, was the leader of the Syrian revolution against the French occupation forces. Her father had also effectively contributed to this major Syrian revolution against the French occupation forces. The close involvement of her family in the revolution pushed her mother Alia al-Munzir to leave for Lebanon, and from there to Egypt, where the renowned Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul was a great supporter of the family.
Critics attribute the overwhelming success of the series to the artistic performance of its three main actors: the stunning Syrian actress Sulaf Fawakhirki in playing the role of Asmahan; the Egyptian actor Ahmad Shaker Abdul Latif in playing the role of Asmahan ‘s brother, Farid al-Atrash; and the role mastered by Asmahan’s mother, Lebanese actress Ward al-Khal, as well as the professionally mastered scenario written by renowned Syrian scenarist and film director Nabil al-Maleh.

All these elements combined together made the series the most viewed in the Arab world. It maintained the equilibrium between Asmahan’s private life and the historical period she lived. Moreover, good use of music, elaborate sets, and the attempt to introduce Asmahan as a human character rather than a sacred and legendry image further ensured success for the series.

Maleh said that the idea of the series had been with him a long time. “I was interested in Asmahan just like any other person would be,” he said. “I look at the events of her life as an expression of a certain development of women in general and certain destinies in particular.”
In 2005, Firas Ibrahim came to him as a producer for the 30-episode series, written by Mamdouh al-Atrash and Qamar Azzaman Allouch. “He represented the series, asking me to direct the work,” Maleh said. “I was amazed by the idea because I am charmed completely by the character herself.” After reading the script, Maleh found it completely at odds with his way of thinking and his way of telling stories. He apologized citing his reasons, and found that Ibrahim agreed that the series was not realizable in its present way, asking Maleh to rewrite the script. “My contract with him was as dialogue writer and the director of the whole work. I started writing the script from scratch. A new beginning was set, and new sources of information found, with local, international and documented elements.” Maleh worked for about year as an author, changing the script from A to Z, without being affected at all by any thing already written. He reconstructed the story of Asmahan as he interpreted the source materials he found. The work finished in October 2005, and got the approval of the team, the censorship board, and the reading committee without any remarks and was 100% approved. “We started scouting for locations, and actors, mainly for the main role Asmahan.”
The preparations to arrange the production were extremely expensive and surpassed the capability and resources of local producers. They were also trying to find the actress who will match the role of Asmahan in every respect: physically, her features, her movements, her cultural point of view, her charisma, and her character. Finally, it was difficult to show the different faces of the Arab world: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt during 1930-1940. “ I was not only documenting and telling the story of Asmahan, but the history of the whole region.” 

By the beginning of 2008, touches were finalized by Firas Ibrahim for shooting the “Asmahan” series. A new deal was made on the ground: Shawqi al-Majiri, a Tunisian TV director, would handle the demand and expectations of the series. For Maleh, Majiri was the one who could direct in the way that matched his vision as closely as possible.
Commenting on the decision taken by the Syrian Ministry of Information to ban the series on Syrian television, Maleh noted that the Syrian censorship is becoming shortsighted in what it permits to be shown. “I believe this was a very bad move to prevent the series from being shown on Syrian ground or satellite television, losing the series to other Arab channels. It is loved by almost every one,” he commented.
On objections raised by certain members of the Atrash family on broadcasting the series, Maleh said the problem was limited to a few members of the family, who were afraid that the series might harm the family reputation. The fact remains that the Atrash family was very helpful in shooting the series, giving their support to filming the project. Only one nephew of Asmahan’s, Faisal al-Atrash said, “we are deforming the history of Asmahan,” a claim the rest of his family refutes.
Asmahan: an important Syrian icon; a woman in the 1930s, the golden age of the rise of women empowerment and the political movements mainly in Syria and Egypt; a star of the age of Syrian and Egyptian brilliance and the common fight against colonialism, both French and British. This is the story  that Syrian censorship denied the Syrian public. The story of Asmahan is almost the only story that can cover the whole period in an intelligent way. All of that is in addition to the fact that she is an extraordinary artist, a singer involved in the social, political and artistic life of that period.

An unstoppable force

In the 1930s, General Gabriel Peaux, the French high commissioner in Syria, met the real Asmahan at the mansion of her husband, Emir Hasan al-Atrash. He described her by saying, “She didn’t take well to the hardships of Druze life, and tried to create, in sad Suwayda [the capital of Arab Mountain], an occidental atmosphere. She received us unveiled, in a pleated white gown, speaking a clear, pure French learned in a convent in Egypt.”
Asmahan, or Amal al-Atrash, was born in 1917. Her mother raised her in Egypt, fearing for her safety and that of her brothers because of the political turmoil in the Arab Mountain, as a result of consecutive revolts. Amal’s talent was discovered by a family friend and composer from Lebanon, who was residing in Cairo while she was still in school. She made her first recording under his request and in the early 1930s performed at local nightclubs with her brother Farid al-Atrash, who played in the orchestra behind her. She then changed her name to Asmahan, a catchy yet classy art name, and like Farid became a quick success in Egypt.
Asmahan quit her career under family pressure in 1933 to marry Emir Hasan al-Atrash, who fell madly in love with her and agreed to all of her conditions for the marriage, which were: her refusal to wear the veil; to live in Damascus rather than the Druze Mountain; and to spend winters in Cairo with her mother and brothers. His only condition was that she give up her singing career, which she did. She lived with Hasan al-Atrash for six years, but longed for the artistic life she once enjoyed in Egypt, and eventually began to despise married life. She pressured Hasan al-Atrash into a divorce and returned to Cairo.
In May 1941, Asmahan got involved in politics through her connections with the Allies, who were striving to liberate Syria from the pro-Vichy regime of General Henri Dentz. She was asked to go to Syria on the behalf of the Allies to speak with the Druze leaders and obtain a promise from the Emir, her former husband, to facilitate the entry of the Allied forces to Syria. Hasan agreed to her request but conditioned that she marry him once again, which she accepted. After the invasion, she returned to Damascus where she paraded through the streets with her husband Hasan and sat behind General Charles de Gaulle during the celebrations held when he visited Syria and promised independence. Edward Spears, the British ambassador to Syria, expressed intense admiration for Asmahan saying: “She was and will always be to me one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her eyes were immense, green as the color of the sea you have to cross on the way to paradise.”

Internal dialogues on film

Inspired by his hometown Damascus, professional photographer Nassouh Zaghloulah returned to his roots after spending 25 years in Paris, bringing with him a creative and abundant artistic experience.

He is back, and split in his own tale of two cities: Damascus and Paris, two diverse cultures and artistic attitudes. In Paris, there were people who loved the camera, accustomed to it, and spoke its language fluently. Back home in Damascus, where Nassouh Zaghloulah spent his adolescence, the camera focuses on the walls of the city, its shadowed white and black colors and narrow alleys.
In Paris, where he moved to in 1980, he studied photography at the higher national school of decorative arts. There, he tackled various human situations common to all, depicting human suffering, the unemployed, and portraying the emptiness of people’s struggles for life and survival: he worked as “photograph de plateau” for Child awareness-raising campaigns; he made films on violence and drugs; he depicted all the contradicting aspects of the French capital environment, the misery reflected on the face of an unemployed man, the collapse of addict, and the hunger of a vagabond. In October, he will hold a photography exhibition dedicated to his work in Paris under the title  “Pictures from Paris.” It will be shown at the French Cultural Center in Damascus.
Pushed by nostalgia, Zaghlouleh decided to come back home and join the club of pioneer Syrian artists at Ayyam Gallery in 2007, becoming the head of their design department. His first photography exhibition was held there in May of that year, featuring the works of a professional and talented photographer, with photographs developed from telling a story by creating an abstract relationship that seizes the moments of truth reflected in the movement of light and shadow.
For Zaghlouleh a photographer monitors the moment “when we press the button and take a picture. This picture has instantly become the past.” He therefore finds rationality in classical photography, demanding that all artists start in this form, so as to be able to preserve this prestige art.
In his frequent visits to Damascus during his 25-year residence in Paris, Zaghloulah had scanned the old quarters of the city, its old houses and mosques minarets, and old cafes. With an accumulated and rich experience, he could bring about new lighting to the ancient city’s attributes, exposing it to light in black and white, creating a sense of abstraction that celebrates in-depth a silence of a city empty from people, just walls and the sky.
With Zaghlouleh, it is always out of the thousands of photos and films he had compiled that he very often selects a few films and is only ready to develop one or two shots, or even in most cases give up the idea of developing any of the depicted pictures. This stems from his own belief that a photographer has to be responsible and strict over what he creates. “We still have enough visual pollution [in our every day lives]. We need to protect our sight from further visual pollution in photography,” he often explains.
On his forthcoming photo exhibition in Dubai, Zaghlouleh noted it as an integral part of his work with Ayyam Gallery. “What is new in this exhibition,” he added, “is that for the first time as a photographer, I use other colors rather than simply black and white. I just follow up the details of the picture. There is a continuous and an everlasting dialogue between the photograph and me.”
What is regrettable for him is that photography in Syria is not recognized as a brand art. It is still rejected and not classified with plastic arts. Photographers are affiliated in the Artisans Association, rather the Plastic Artists Union. “This is an underestimation for photography as a genuine art,” he explains
In Zaghlouleh we find a devoted photographer with a pure love of his city, as Damascus becomes the focus of a creative imagination rather than merely photographs from a digital camera.