A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Showing posts with label Father Amin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Father Amin. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

Father Amin (Youssef Chahine, 1950)

Mary Mounib, Esam Abdu, Hussein Riad, and Faten Hamama in Father Amin

Cast: Hussein Riad, Faten Hamama, Kamal El-Shinnawi, Mary Mounib, Farid Shawqi, Hind Rostom, Mohammed Tawfik, Hasan Kamel, Esam Abdu. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Ali El Zorkani, Hussein Helmi El-Mohandes. Cinematography: Massimo Dellamano. Art direction: Abdel Monem Shoukry. Film editing: Kamal Abul Ela. 

Youssef Chahine's first feature film, Father Amin (aka Baba Amin and Daddy Amin), is an amusing mashup of family drama, screwball comedy, musical, romance, and fantasy. Amin (Hussein Riad) dies suddenly but comes back in ghostly form to watch the consequences of an imprudent investment he made just before his death. His wife (Mary Mounib) is forced to sell the furniture in an attempt to pay the installment due on the house she shares with their daughter, Huda (Faten Hamama), and young son, Nabil (Esam Abdu). Huda is being courted by a shy, studious young man, Ali (Kamal El-Shinnawi), who is just about to leave for Alexandria when Amin dies. In his absence, she tries to earn money as a singer in a nightclub, though she's too embarrassed to tell Ali and the family of her job, claiming that she's a nurse. Hovering through this hubbub, Amin learns a few lessons that he will try to put into practice when, you guessed it, he turns out not really to be dead. Chahine deftly blends Hollywood movie tropes with Egyptian style. 

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