Ibrahim Al-Husseiny... and the Heat of Fatherhood!

There are scenes that do not require lengthy dialogue to reach the heart, because the pain they convey is greater than words. In the seventh episode of the series “Red or White,” Ibrahim Al-Husawi stands before a moment unlike any other. A father, enraged with his son, had reached the point of expelling him from the house. Then comes a shock that offers no chance to retreat: his son has been killed. Suddenly, everything else loses its value. The anger that filled the room extinguishes, leaving only the image of the son in memory—the son who left the house in anger and never returned.

In Al-Husawi’s conversation with his daughter, the words come like another stab to the father’s heart as he says: “The police didn’t arrest Mishaari… he was killed… killed, my daughter… he didn’t say goodbye… I wished I could see him and hold him.” Here, the dialogue is not merely written lines in a script; it transforms into the anguish of a father who realizes in an instant that his last chance to meet his son is gone forever. Al-Husawi then breaks down in tears—a scene that sends shivers down the spine, not because the crying was loud, but because it carried everything that preceded it: anger, regret, shock, and longing for a hug that never happened.

This is where the strength of Ibrahim Al-Husawi lies in this scene, one that today’s generation of actors should learn from. We have never seen a father shout to convince us that he is broken, nor did we need many tears to understand the magnitude of the tragedy. His facial expressions were enough: a look carrying the shock of the news, and the pain of a man beginning to grasp that the moment he had been waiting for to reunite with his son did not turn out as he had hoped.

In this scene, Ibrahim Al-Husawi did not only portray a father’s grief; he conveyed the warmth of fatherhood colliding with the coldest truth a human being can experience: losing someone you love before you have had the chance to mend what was broken between you. Thanks to Al-Husawi, and thanks to director Munir Al-Zubaidi for the quality of the scene.