Fukada is a filmmaker whose reputation has often exceeded my personal enthusiasm for his work although he previously earned recognition at Cannes with a Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section. That impression inevitably shaped my expectations going into Nagi Notes, and by the time the credits rolled, I found myself feeling much the same way about this film.

It isn’t a bad film.

It also isn’t a particularly good one.

It exists somewhere in that broad middle ground occupied by films that are competently made, occasionally interesting, but never quite compelling enough to justify their ambitions. The frustrating part is that Nagi Notes gradually improves as it unfolds. Had its stronger material appeared earlier, my reaction might have been significantly warmer.

The film follows a woman who travels to a small village called Nagi to visit her former sister-in-law. The woman she is visiting has dedicated her life almost entirely to artistic creation. She is a sculptor, a painter, and generally the kind of artist whose identity has become inseparable from her work. Because the visitor works as a model, she is invited to pose for various artistic projects, leading the two women to spend several days together in relative isolation.

One of the film’s most notable structural choices is its insistence on documenting the passage of time. Fukada seems determined to make sure the audience always knows exactly where they are within the chronology of events. Every day feels carefully marked and observed. By my estimate, the story unfolds over roughly five or six days, and the film pays close attention to the rhythm of those days.

As the visit continues, we observe the evolving relationship between the two women. We also become acquainted with the people who live around them, including neighboring teenagers and members of their families. These interactions slowly expand the social landscape of the film while simultaneously reinforcing its central themes of loneliness, emotional distance, and the various ways people attempt to connect with one another.

At the center of it all stands the artist herself, a woman who appears comfortable living in solitude. She has constructed a life defined by independence and artistic devotion, and much of the film’s dramatic tension comes from examining the effects of that choice.

The problem is that examining something and dramatizing it are not necessarily the same thing.

For a significant portion of its running time, Nagi Notes simply doesn’t give the audience enough to hold onto.

If I had reviewed this film halfway through the screening, the review would have been considerably harsher than the one you’re reading now. The first half suffers from a severe lack of momentum. Scenes accumulate without generating meaningful dramatic energy. Characters interact, conversations occur, days pass, but very little actually happens. The narrative moves so cautiously that it frequently feels as though it is standing still.

The film’s slow pace is possibly designed to mirror the emotional states of its characters. The atmosphere reflects their depression, their isolation, and their difficulty connecting with the world around them. Fukada wants the audience to experience that emotional weight rather than merely observe it.

The challenge is that there is a fine line between conveying emotional stagnation and creating cinematic stagnation.

Too often, Nagi Notes drifts toward the latter.

The film eventually becomes more engaging during its second half. Developments arrive that give greater purpose to the preceding material and justify some of the patience demanded by the narrative. Character relationships deepen. Emotional undercurrents become clearer. The themes begin to feel more integrated into the story rather than simply existing alongside it.

That improvement matters because the film’s central concerns are genuinely interesting.

At its heart, Nagi Notes is fascinated by art itself. It explores the role artistic expression plays in shaping identity, defining purpose, and providing refuge from loneliness. These are ideas that naturally appeal to audiences interested in creative lives and the sacrifices that often accompany them.

The film also touches on familiar but enduring questions of self-discovery. Who are we when stripped of our routines? How much of our identity comes from our work? What happens when art becomes both our greatest source of fulfillment and our primary means of isolation?

These themes carry genuine intellectual appeal.

The issue is that the film often feels more invested in presenting those themes than in transforming them into compelling drama.

There were moments when I found myself thinking that some of the film’s observations about artistic creation could have been communicated just as effectively through a collection of short videos showing someone sculpting a statue. The ideas themselves are worthwhile. The cinematic treatment of those ideas is less consistently rewarding.

That doesn’t mean the film lacks strengths.

Its atmosphere is carefully constructed. The performances are committed and believable. There is a sincerity to the filmmaking that prevents it from feeling cynical or manipulative. Fukada clearly cares about these characters and the emotional states they represent.

The film also deserves credit for resisting easy dramatic shortcuts. Rather than manufacturing conflict, it remains faithful to the quieter rhythms of everyday life. For some viewers, that restraint will likely be a virtue rather than a flaw.

For me, however, the balance never quite works.

Perhaps that reaction is influenced by the festival environment itself. Cannes is an exhausting experience, and films that ask for patience are competing against fatigue, crowded schedules, and the mental strain of watching multiple films in rapid succession. A stronger opening act would have made a tremendous difference.

As an opening entry in the competition, Nagi Notes feels less like a statement film and more like a placeholder. It is neither embarrassing nor particularly memorable. It occupies that familiar festival category of respectable but unspectacular cinema.

In the end, Nagi Notes is a film I respected more than I enjoyed.

Rating: 7/10

Two Best Friends and a Road Trip

In his long feature directorial debut, Abou Bakr Shawki, chooses to tell the story of Beshay, a recovered leper who never stepped foot outside the leper colony but decided travel a long distance to find his family after his wife’s death. Beshay is joined by Obama, his young orphan friend and they embark on a road trip filled with adventure, laughs and tears.

The film stars Radi Gamal, a recovered leper in real life and a resident of the leper colony. Of course he’s not a professional actor, neither is Ahmed Abdel Hafez who plays Obama. This adds to the overall risky approach that Shawki followed in making his film which also guarantees him full control by taking more and more strings in his own hands. No big star to dictate his own vision, no hours of daily makeup, and no complications in sets and decoration since the film is mostly shot in real locations and mostly outside. I would say this is an understandable approach for a director with an enthusiastic vision and a large amount of energy to see it through.

The vision is not about people with sickness, poor people or illiterate people, it’s rather about discarded people. The ones we don’t see even though they’re in plain sight all the time. The ones that suffer from everything and struggle with anything. The ones that find peace in believing that they’ll have justice on judgement day, which happens to be the title of the film in Arabic.

Like any other road trip film, our story flows through acts consisting of the places our heroes travel to, the people they encounter and the misfortune, and rarely fortune, that they come across. Our acts are very well paced, with just about the right dosage of pain and humour to balance it. Shawki, who also wrote the screenplay, doesn’t seem to be overly interested in providing a poverty fest. He appears to be aware of when his audience will be about to feel much of anything, and he always has the right solution. A ray of hope always appeared when a lot goes wrong. A splash of kindness always emerged when cruelty becomes too frequent. I was kept engaged and interested through the entirety of the film.

The cast, while inexperienced as actor, are of course experts in playing their characters. This added a unique layer of realism that is not necessarily always effective. The characterization of Beshay is of course unparalleled, not only in the understanding of the character’s struggles but also in the basic tools of portrayal like speech delivery. However, timings are not always perfect and reactions are sometimes lacking.

Beshay’s journey is not by any means more interesting than the journey of Yomeddine from being an unknown film to Egyptian viewers to becoming the most important film of the year, and the official representative of Egypt in the race for the Best Foreign Language Film race at the Academy Awards. It is indeed a huge risk but it delivered a beautiful film and a unique experience for us as viewers as I’m sure it was for the makers of the film.