Robyn Matthews AS Film Barrington My Brother The Devil Review 11/26/2014

My Brother the Devil(2012) is directed and written by  Sally El Hosaini. This is a drama that explores the social realism of drug dealing and crime in Hackney, London. The themes expressed throughout the film are family, unity. Friendship, betrayal,  greed, love and sexuality. There is a great cast, not a single complaint about it. The young actors are convincing through expressing their emotions and reactions to the effects of gangland. What the producer wanted to show is the under layer of society where kidsa as young as 16 feel they are ahead of their time and maturity levels has excelled; so they  get involved in the lowest of the hierarchy of drug dealers and their rivalry in an effort to make it big or make it out.

In the beginning of the film, (Mo) Fady Elsayed, is mugged of his brother Rashid’s (James Floyd) large amount of weed and his own trainers, Right from the beginning you are made aware of the violence and risks when involved in these types of movements and already in the first few minuits the danger the characters involved are made clear.

Mo clearly is influenced by Rashid’s movements, as he sees him as a role model… given that it is his older brother. You also see in the first scenes of thew film Rashid placing ten pounds into his mother’s purse. This changes our perspective on Rashid instantly as you see he only had his families wellbeing at heart. This scene is mimicked in the latter half of the film when Mo copies his brother’s previous actions and places an excessive amount also into his mother’s purse. The repetition of this scene highlights the motif behind the film and that the acts these brothers have become involved with are only to move forward in life and protect the ones they love.

The mis en scene of the film is fantastic. For example the costumes make the film believe able the dealers all have their expensive trainers which is a direct effect of the money they are earning. This makes the viewer believe that they are wealthy people and justifies why they enter the trade. Furthermore it is clear that Rashid and Mo are originally from Egypt as Rashid often wears a tartan scarf which are commonly used in that country. This provides the view with an additional background story and allows them to interpret some of their life before the film.

In todorov’s theory he believe that all films begin with an equilibrium, in this case, Mo finishing school and receiving a television from his older brother, Rashid. This was then disrupted by Rashid allowing Mo to pick up some drugs for himself, when this happened and the incident happened where Mo was mugged the equilibrium was disrupted. After this Mo got involved in dealing and it was noticed by the girl who had just moved in she stated “I don’t like it when you hang around with them”. This made us aware of the dangers involved with this business. The equilibrium was then finally restored when Rashid demanded Mo was not involved.

There was another equilibrium also happening throughout the film It started with Rash loving his girlfriend. The equilibrium was later disrupted when he got a job in photography and he couldn’t see her as much. This was noticed when Sayyid (Saïd Taghmaoui) the friend whom he was hired by kissed him one day at work. Rashid tried to restore the equilibrium by having sexual intercourse with his girlfriend however this did not restore the equilibrium. The thing that did restore it was Rashid realising that he perhaps was gay and it was finally restored when Rashid accepted his sexuality and removed himself from all the drugs and crime.