DUBAI: “Dark comedy is my favorite genre,” says Saudi actress and writer Sarah Taibah. “So many comedy films are just silly jokes and nothing is serious, and so many Arabic dramas we watch are so much cheating, and weeping on the floor, and so much sadness. But what I like about dark comedy is that it’s closest to reality — I have days where I’ll cry my eyes out and then really have fun later on. Sometimes I laugh in the middle of crying. If you laugh at problems, they suddenly become lighter.”
Taibah is discussing “A Matter of Life & Death,” a film she wrote and in which she plays the lead, 29-year-old Hayat, who believes she has inherited a family curse that means she will die on her 30th birthday. So the stubborn and superstitious Hayat decides to take matters into her own hands: She will end her life before life ends her. And when she meets heart surgeon Youssef in the emergency room, she’s convinced that he’s supposed to help her accomplish this unusual task.
“I really like that the (main) comment I get from people (who’ve watched the film) is: ‘You made us laugh and cry,’” Taibah says. “I feel like this is such an achievement.”
The film is packed with eccentric characters, from the evil aunts Rawya and Nafeesa, who take Hayat in after her she is orphaned, to the harasser Dr. Asaad, who torments Youssef. We meet a young child who’s afraid to lose the people he loves; a yellow-eyed black cat that can’t seem to leave Hayat’s family alone, and which she believes is the reincarnation of her grandmother; and a mother who has passed on her depression to her son’s heart during birth.
