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‘Perfumed With Mint’ Review: A Languid, Visually Striking Work of Magical Realism

A deserted Cairo plays host to a surreal, drawn-out political saga of mint leaves and encroaching shadows in Muhammed Hamdy's 'Perfumed With Mint.'

This eerie, absorbing prologue soon gives way to the methodical introduction of Bahaa (Alaa El Din Hamada), a despondent doctor who treats a middle-aged woman for what she describes as an inability to let go of her dead son — whose spirit she sees everywhere she looks. This mint affliction is common among Cairo’s youth, and is seemingly dulled by smoking hashish, which leads to an extended second act along the lines of an acerbic stoner comedy, albeit one wrapped in gorgeous and evocative use of light streaming through windows and pitch-black darkness, accentuating both spaces and emptiness. When it blooms in its final act, it does so through moving, rigorous, tension-filled visual inquiries into what becomes of young people when their spiritual wounds aren’t allowed to heal, and when their calls to action seem more muted and distant with each passing political movement.

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