An Egyptian Story (Youssef Chahine, 1982)

Nour El-Sherif and Mohamed Mounir in An Egyptian Story

Cast: Nour El-Sherif, Oussama Nadir, Mohsen Mohieddin, Yousra, Ahmed Mehrez, Mohamed Mounir, Ragaa Hussein, Seif Abdelrahman, Hanan, Layla Hamadah, Magda El-Khatib, Ragaa Al-Gidawy. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine. Cinematograpby: Mohsen Nasr. Art direction: Gabriel Karraze. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Gamal Salamah. 

An Egyptian Story is the middle film of Youssef Chahine's autobiographical "Alexandria trilogy," and it may be the most accessible to people not familiar with his work. Perhaps inspired by Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), it centers on the memories and fantasies of a film director, Yehia Choukry Mourad (Nour El-Sherif), who is Chahine's alter ego, as he undergoes open heart surgery. Some of the action takes place in a set designed to resemble Yehia's chest cavity, where a trial takes place. The defendant is Yehia's "inner child," played by young Oussama Nadir, who is on trial for killing the mature Yehia -- though he isn't really dead yet. Key events of Yehia's life take place in flashbacks that are sometimes realistic, sometimes surreal. In the first film of the trilogy, Alexandria ... Why? (1979), Yehia was played by Mohsen Mohieddin, who appears in this film as Yehia as a young man. In the third film, Alexandria Again and Forever (1990), Chahine himself takes the role as the aging Yehia. Because of the trial setting, the narrative of An Egyptian Story is more linear than the first and third stories in the trilogy, and might be the one to watch if you're just getting started with Chahine's work or if, like me, you're not well versed in the history of Egypt in the 20th century that serves as the backdrop of Yehia's story. Chahine doesn't spare himself in any of the films, revealing much about his ego and ambition, his neglect of his family, and even hinting rather broadly at his bisexuality. Those more familiar with his work may find An Egyptian Story a little less colorful and creative than the others, but it's still a remarkable movie.  

Alexandria: Again and Forever (Youssef Chahine, 1989)

Youssef Chahine and Zaky Fateen Abdel Wahab in Alexandria: Again and Forever

Cast: Youssef Chahine, Youssra, Hussein Fahmy, Amr Abdulgalil, Hesham Selim, Tahiyya Karyuka, Huda Sultan, Seif Abdelrahman, Abla Kamel, Manha Batraoul, Zaky Fateen Abdel Wahab. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Youry Nasrallah. Cinematography: Ramses Marzouk. Art direction: Mahmoud Mabrouk. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Mohamad Nouh. 

As with so many of Youssef Chahine's films, I find myself sorely lacking in a background in Egyptian history and politics. In this case, my ignorance of the film industry strike in 1987 made my comprehension of a central section of the narrative difficult to follow. What I can grasp is that Alexandria: Again and Forever is a very personal film about the writer-director's life, including his relationship with a favorite actor named Amr (Amr Abdulgalil). The film opens with the director Yehia Eskendarany (Chahine) trying to coax a performance out of a recalcitrant Arm in Yehia's film version of Hamlet. We gather that the relationship between Yehia and Amr is more than just that of director and actor: Chahine's bisexuality was widely known. As the film goes on, Yehia either tries to or imagines (things aren't really clear) casting Amr as Alexander the Great, and he also turns his attention to the actress Nadia (Youssra), who becomes his imagined Cleopatra. Meanwhile, everyone in the Egyptian film industry is involved in a strike against government interference. And throughout the film, there are musical interludes. It's all very watchable, and as a self-portrait of the director, it has been likened to Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), a potent comparison. But it's one of those movies I'll have to reserve judgment on simply because of ignorance.  

Alexandria ... Why? (Youssef Chahine, 1979)

Mohsen Mohieddin in Alexandria ... Why?

Cast: Mohsen Mohieddin, Farid Shawqi, Ezzat El Allaili, Gerry Sundquist, Naglaa Fathi, Yehia Chahine, Ahmed Mehrez, Youssef Wahbi, Leila Fawzy, Seif Abdel Rahman, Ahmed Zaki, Mahmoud Al Meledji. Screenplay: Yussef Chahine, Mohsen Zayed. Cinematography: Mohsen Nasr. Production design: Abdel Fattah Madbouly. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Fouad El-Zahry. 
 

Adieu Bonaparte (Youssef Chahine, 1985)

Patrice Chéreau in Adieu Bonaparte

Cast: Michel Piccoli, Mohsen Mohieddin, Salah Zulfikar, Patrice Chéreau, Mohamad Atef, Ahmed Abdelaziz, Abla Kamel, Hassan Husseiny, Huda Sultan, Dahlia Younès, Christian Patey, Gamil Ratib. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Yousry Nasrallah. Cinematography: Mohsen Nasr. Production design: Onsi Abou Seif. Film editing: Luc Barnier. Music: Gabriel Yared. 

Youssef Chahine's Adieu Bonaparte is about a clash of empires: the nascent one that will be led by Napoleon Bonaparte and the crumbling one that saw Islamic culture spread across much of what was Eurocentrically called "the known world." But its point of view is primarily that of the people caught between these two powerful forces, the people of Egypt, when French forces under the command of Bonaparte, not yet emperor, clash with the Ottoman Turks who then ruled Egypt. Mostly it's about the relationship between a fictional character, the young poet and interpreter, Aly (Mohsen Mohieddin), and the French general Maximilian Caffarelli (Michel Piccoli), an intellectual who had lost a leg in an earlier conflict when the French annexed a territory belonging to Belgium. (The movie repeats a witticism that Caffarelli doesn't care what happens because he'll always have one foot in France.) Caffarelli befriends Aly and his brother Yehia (Mohamad Atef) partly because he's sexually attracted to the young men, but also because he has a curiosity about Egyptians and their culture. Meanwhile, Bonaparte (Patrice Chéreau) suffers a defeat when Admiral Nelson destroys his fleet and forces him to stay in Egypt. Chéreau gives a wonderful performance as the preening but determined man who would be emperor, and Piccoli is equally fine as Caffarelli. Mohieddin holds his own with the French stars, as Aly struggles with his admiration for Caffarelli and his loyalty to his brother Bakr (Ahmed Abdelaziz), a leader in the struggle for Egyptian self-determination. It's a handsomely filmed production, with fine work by cinematographer Mohsen Nasr and an epic score by Gabriel Yared. But it's also often hard to follow, with its swarm of characters, many of them members of Aly's family, and its historical backstory. Chahine has a tendency to overload his narratives with incidents that distract from or seem only tangential to the main story.    

Saladin the Victorious (Youssef Chahine, 1963)

Ahmad Mazhar in Saladin the Victorious

Cast: Ahmad Mazhar, Salah Zulfikar, Nadia Lutfi, Hamdy Gheith, Layla Fawzi, Ibrahim Ehmarah, Zaki Tolemat, Mahmoud Al Meleji, Umar El-Hariri, Ahmed Louxor. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Abderrahman Charkawi, Naguib Mahfouz, Youssef El Sebai, Mohamed Abdel Gawad. Cinematography: Wadid Sirry. Film editor: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. 

Youssef Chahine's Saladin the Victorious is not quite like any other historical epic about the Crusades that you've seen, and not just because it looks at its subject from the "other side" of the usual Hollywood versions. Oh, it has the usual cast-of-thousands battle scenes, the romantic subplot, the hissable villains,  the stirring soundtrack, the opulent sets and costumes. And it has the historical inaccuracies and anachronisms we've come to associate with the genre. There's no evidence, for example, that the Arabs used Greek fire against siege towers in defending Jerusalem. Handheld telescopes were not commonly used to spy on the enemy until 500 years later. And in a scene set at Christmas, the muezzin's call to prayer segues into Christians singing "Adeste Fideles" ("O Come All Ye Faithful"), the tune of which has been traced to the 18th century but no earlier. Chahine also departs at one point from the conventional documentary style of storytelling and shows simultaneous meetings of the opposing camps not with a split screen but by putting them side-by-side on an obvious soundstage set, using the lights to switch back and forth between the two groups. It's a neat trick, but a theatrical, not a cinematic one. Chahine obviously wants his movie to do more than to tell a rousing story, and he's helped by an attractive performance by Ahmad Mazhar in the title role. It's a film designed partly to promote Arab unity in the mid-1960s, when Egypt and the Middle Eastern countries were flexing their muscles and taking on the colonialist powers. Chahine ignores the fact that the historical Saladin was a Kurd, not an Arab, but even that serves his more humanistic aim, to persuade people to set aside religious and ethnic differences in favor of peace and human unity. Saladin's chief opponent, Richard I of England (played by Hamdy Gheith in an unfortunate red wig) loses his bigotry and hot-headedness in the face of Saladin's peace-making. Yes, it's a message movie, but a watchable one.   

The Sixth Day (Youssef Chahine, 1986)

Dalida in The Sixth Day

Cast: Dalida, Mohsen Mohieddin, Shouweikar, Hamdy Ahmed, Sanaa Younes, Salah El-Saadany, Mohamed Mounir, Youssef Chahine, Abla Kamel, Hasan El-Adl, Maher Esam. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Hasan Al Geretly, based on a novel by Andrée Chedid. Cinematography: Mohsen Nasr. Production design: Tarek Salaheddine. Film editing: Luc Barnier. Music: Omar Khairat. 

The French-Italian pop star Dalida, who was born in Egypt, plays Saddika, a middle-aged woman living in a village during the cholera epidemic of 1947. She takes in washing to support her second husband, who is disabled, and her small grandson. Saddika catches the eye of Okka (Mohsen Mohieddine), who is 20 years younger. He's a street performer who works with a trained monkey, and he idolizes Gene Kelly -- to whom the film is dedicated. Okka doesn't have Kelly's talent as either a singer or a dancer, as a fanciful musical interlude demonstrates, but he is energetic in his wooing of Saddika. When her grandson is stricken with cholera, he helps her hide the child from the public health authorities. A bounty is awarded to anyone who reports a cholera victim, and the village is alive with people willing to snitch on their neighbors. Saddika may have good reason to conceal the boy's illness: The sick are taken to a site in the desert that is rumored to be nothing more than a death camp. The film's title comes from the belief that if you survive six days with the disease you're in the clear. Saddika and the boy end up on a river boat accompanied (reluctantly on her part) by Okka. The Sixth Day is mostly coherently narrated, and it has some fine moments of comedy and suspense, but it also contains some incidents that don't quite fit the main story. I'm not sure, for example, what's going on in a scene in which a drunken British soldier is hustled into a bright red car whose passengers are women. Dakka witnesses the incident, but it's not clear what it has to do with his story or Saddika's. I suspect that it's a scene in Andrée Chedid's novel that Youssef Chahine didn't quite integrate into his screenplay. 

The Other (Youssef Chahine, 1999)

Hanan Turk and Hani Salama in The Other

Cast: Hanan Turk, Hani Salama, Nabil Ebeid, Mahmoud Hebeida, Lebleba, Hassan Abdel Hamid, Ezzat Abu Ouf, Amr Saad, Ahmad Wafiq, Edward Said, Hamdine Sabahi, Tamer Samir. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Khaled Youssef. Cinematography: Mohsen Nasr. Production design: Hamed Hemdan. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Yehia El Mougy. 

Youssef Chahine's The Other is a mess of a movie, but in a way the mess is its message. It begins with a symbol of unity: the United Nations building, where Adam (Hani Salama), a UCLA graduate student working on a thesis about religious terrorism, meets with a friend to prepare for their interview with Edward Said, the celebrated Palestinian-American literature professor at Columbia. During the interview, Said reiterates his concern about the way contemporary civilization is torn by disunity, by the tendency to treat one's opponents as "the other" instead of recognizing their common humanity. And so Chahine introduces his theme, which amounts to an exploration of such immense topics as global capitalism, cultural appropriation, and terrorism. Chahine tries to develop his theme through a love story: Adam falls in love at first sight of the pretty Hanane (Hanan Turk) waiting in an airport. She's a journalist out to interview a man who wants to build an interfaith retreat on his land in the Egyptian desert. Adam is on his way to visit his parents in Egypt, who just happen to be backing the project. So he facilitates the interview and wins Hanane's heart. Unfortunately, Adam's cynical and corrupt parents are only looking to make money off the project, acquiring the land and then selling it to a hotel company. Margaret, Adam's mother (Nabil Ebeid), is an American who married a wealthy Egyptian, Khalil (Mahmoud Hebeida), for his money. Her real -- and creepy -- love is for her handsome son, and naturally she is appalled when he marries Hanane, who comes from a lower class family. The complications ensuing from this familiar star-crossed lovers trope are perhaps enough for a romantic drama, but not to develop Chahine's larger theme, especially since he underscores the love story with a kind of "Ballad of Adam and Hanane" sung off-screen during key moments in their relationship. There's also an extended scene of dancing and singing at their wedding, partly to emphasize Margaret's distaste for the whole thing. And when Margaret causes a break between the couple, it stirs Adam, whom we have seen as smart and affectionate, to violence: He strikes Hanane and rapes her. The scene feels inconsistent with the characters, especially when Hanane, whom we have seen as tough and independent, forgives him. In short, The Other provides an object lesson on the danger of overreaching.   

The Devil of the Desert (Youssef Chahine, 1954)

Omar Sharif and Maryam Fakhruddin in The Devil of the Desert 

Cast: Omar Sharif, Maryam Fakhruddin, Lola Sedki, Tawfik El Dekn, Hamdy Gheith, Abdelghani Kamar, Salah Nazmi. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Hussein El-Mohandess. Cinematography: Alevise Orfanelli, Bruno Salvi. Art direction: Maher Abdel Nour, Hussein Helmy, Abdel Mohem Shokry. Music: Fouad El-Zahry. 

In The Devil of the Desert (aka Devil of the Sahara or Shaytan Al-Sahra), Omar Sharif plays Essam, a masked avenger not unlike Zorro, except that instead of leaving the letter Z as his calling card, he leaves a twisted palm frond -- or as the subtitles call it, a "knitted frond," a phrase that elicited puzzled amusement every time I saw it. This frond is also a way of communicating his whereabouts to his followers, chief among them the "gypsy"* Shaden (Lola Sedki). But it's only one of many things that puzzled and amused me about Youssef Chahine's movie. Basically, it's a lively romp, an adventure movie that could have played in the Saturday matinees of my childhood. Essam even has a comic sidekick, and he swashbuckles his way through the plot twists while trying to decide between the sultry Shaden and the lovely Dalal (Maryam Fakhruddin). Unfortunately, it needed a better fight choreographer -- Sharif sometimes seems to buckle when he should swash. It also suffers from clumsy editing, a muddy soundtrack, and a few too many unnecessary scenes, including three musical numbers. So much is stuffed into its 110-minute run time that it's a surprise when it ends in a breathless rush. It left me feeling that Chahine was bored with the film and wanted to get on to something better.  

*Many Romani consider "gypsy" an ethnic slur. It was derived from the fact that their people were once thought to be descended from an exiled Egyptian tribe. I use it here because it's the way the subtitles to The Devil of the Desert translate it, and being ignorant of Arabic, I don't know what word is used in the film.   

The Emigrant (Youssef Chahine, 1994)

Khaled Nabawy and Youssra in The Emigrant

Cast: Khaled Nabawy, Youssra, Mahmoud Hemida, Michel Piccoli, Hanan Turk, Safia El Emari. Screenplay: Youssef Chahine, Rafiq El-Sabban, Khaled Youssef. Cinematography: Ramses Marzouk. Production design: Hamed Hemdan. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Mohamad Nouh. 

How refreshing to see a historical epic set in ancient Egypt that doesn't look like it was filmed at Cinecittà or on a Burbank back lot and that features actors who look like Egyptians and not A-listers in dark makeup. That's because Youssef Chahine's The Emigrant was filmed in Egypt with Egyptian actors -- with the exception of French actor Michel Piccoli, who does look a little out of place in his long white patriarchal beard. Piccoli plays Adam, the father of Ram (Khaled Nabawy) and his treacherous brothers. They're thinly disguised variations on Jacob, father to Joseph and his brethren, whose story is told in the book of Genesis and in the Quran. Chahine's movie ran into a little trouble with the censors because of where that story is told: A Muslim fundamentalist recognized the obvious parallel between film and scripture, and invoked the Islamic proscription against depicting figures mentioned in the holy book. And as if not to be outdone, a Christian fundamentalist protested that the story in the film was not close enough to the biblical account. Nevertheless, The Emigrant was a box office success in Egypt. There are other changes from the source: In the film, there's no coat of many colors, and Ram makes his way in Egypt not by exercising the gift of prophecy but by native smarts, charisma, and a thirst for knowledge. The captain of Pharaoh's guard to which Ram is sold in slavery is not called Potiphar but Amihar (Mahmoud Hemida), and his wife, who lusts after Ram, is a priestess called Simihit. She comes by her desire for Ram honestly, for not only is he good-looking but her husband is impotent -- he was one of the eunuchs who guarded his master's household. It's not one of Chahine's best films, but it's a thoroughly satisfying one, marred only by a little muddling in the narrative -- Chahine cuts back and forth in the story too often and too abruptly, especially confusing to anyone who doesn't know the story on which it's based. Nabawy's lively and appealing performance made him a star.      

The Blazing Sun (Youssef Chahine, 1954)

 

Omar Sharif in The Blazing Sun

Cast: Omar Sharif, Faten Hamamah, Zaki Rostom, Farid Shawqi, Abdulwareth Asar, Hamdy Gheith. Screenplay: Ali El Zorkani, Hilmi Halim. Cinematography: Ahmed Khorshed. Art direction: Maher Abdel Nour. Film editing: Kamal Abul Ela. Music: Fouad El-Zahry. 

With his big brown eyes and gleaming smile, Omar Sharif was a natural for the movies, and making his film debut, billed as Omar El Cherif, in Youssef Chahine's The Blazing Sun, he proved he could act too. Chahine's melodrama gets off to a bumpy start with some clunky exposition and a bit of scenery chewing from the villains in the piece, wealthy landowner Taher Pasha (Abdelwareth Asar) and his nephew Reyad (Farid Shawqi), but once Sharif appears on the scene and encounters his leading lady, Faten Hamamah, things begin to come together with enough plot twists, suspense, and romance to satisfy even a jaded movie-watcher like me. Sharif plays Ahmed, trained as an engineer, who returns to his village to help his father, Saher Abdel Salam (Abdulwareth Asar), and the peasants harvest a sugarcane crop. But Taher Pasha and Reyad are conniving to keep the peasants from making money and getting uppity. Reyad, whom we first see shooting a cat running across the lawn of his uncle's palatial estate, suggests dousing another poor cat in gasoline, setting it on fire, and letting it loose in the sugarcane. The Pasha is somewhat less sadistic: Just flood the fields, he says, and Reyad complies. Saher and the peasants are ruined. Meanwhile, the Pasha's beautiful young daughter, Amal (Hamamah), is returning home after an absence of many years. While Reyad is driving her from the station, Ahmed spots her and calls out her childhood nickname, "Potatoes." She's delighted to see her childhood boyfriend again, especially since he now looks like a 22-year-old Omar Sharif, much to Reyad's disgust. And so everything is set up for a fateful conflict, which involves a wrongful murder conviction, several other deaths, and a Western-like showdown in the ruins of the temple at Luxor. Handsomely photographed and well-acted, The Blazing Sun doesn't have as much social comment as other films by Chahine that I've seen, but it's thoroughly entertaining.

The Land (Youssef Chahine, 1970)

Mahmoud Al Meleji and Ezzat El Alaili in The Land

Cast: Mahmoud Al Meleji, Nagwa Ibrahim, Ezzat El Alaili, Hamdy Ahmed, Ali El Sherif, Yehia Chahine, Salaah El-Saadany, Tawfik El Deken. Screenplay: Hassan Fuad, based on a novel by Abderrahman Charkawi. Cinematography: Abdelhalim Nasr. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Ali Ismail.

I will only betray my ignorance of Egyptian history, literature, politics, and culture, not to mention the Arabic language, if I venture to say more than that I found Youssef Chahine's The Land both stirring and baffling. I may have been baffled occasionally because The Land is based on a novel, and Chahine chose to include some sections that may have worked better on the page, such as the opening sequence about a boy's infatuation with the pretty Wassifa (Nagwa Ibrahim). Chahine spends much time establishing a backstory for the boy, but he disappears from the rest of the film after his sequence ends. But narrative flaws like that one shouldn't deter anyone from watching the film, which is often quite beautiful and features some impressive performances, particularly that of Mahmoud Al Meleji as a farmer struggling with the intractable demands and corruption of government authorities, with the ambitions of his landlord, and with the apathy and ineptness of some of his fellow farmers. The action moves through incidents both comic and brutal, and ends with a masterly final scene that evokes the work of Eisenstein and Dovzhenko. The rest of the film isn't on a par with its ending, but that's probably asking too much. 

Cairo Station (Youssef Chahine, 1958)

Cast: Farid Shawqi, Hind Rustum, Youssef Chahine, Hassan el Baroudi, Abdulaziz Khalil, Naima Wasfy. Screenplay: Abdel Hai Adib, Mohamed Abdel Youssef. Cinematography: Alevise Orfanelli. Art direction: Gabriel Karraze. Film editing: Kamal Abul Ela. Music: Fouad El-Zahry. 

Movies usually treat train stations as venues for the passengers' romantic meetings and partings, but they rarely focus on the lives of people who work there. Youssef Chahine's absorbing Cairo Station is different. It swarms with indigenous life, that of the people who serve the passengers, loading their luggage or selling them newspapers and food and drink. It focuses in particular on a porter, Abu Siri (Farid Shawqi), his girlfriend, Hanuma (Hind Rustum), who peddles soft drinks, and a crippled newspaper vendor, Qinawi (Chahine). Abu Siri is something of a bully, but his chief aim, besides courting (and sometimes abusing) Hanuma, is to organize a labor union for the other luggage handlers. Hanuma doesn't have a license to ply her trade, so she and her fellow drink vendors are always scurrying to hide from the police. Qinawi is the lowest of the lowly, living in a shed that he decorates with cutout pictures of women that remind him of the object of his desires, the voluptuous Hanuma. Eventually, Qinami's desire will turn into a sinister obsession, especially as he's goaded by other men at the station who mock him for not having a woman. But the darkness of the plot of Cairo Station is not what makes it an exceptional film, it's the vivid portrait of the station, as lives work themselves out amid the never-ending movement of people and trains.