2 Egyptian film reviews
Feb. 6th, 2008 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonNot just one review, but two, as I watched another film last night. I suppose really these aren't so much reviews as collected thoughts. Both are rather lengthy.
A Man in Our House, filmed in 1961 and starring an intense young Omar Sharif, is the story of Ibrahim Handy, a student who becomes a political activist and ultimately an assassin for his cause, which was the overthrow of the government of the King of Egypt, a puppet of the British. The movie takes place in the 1940s, presumably after the end of WWII. Ibrahim kills a high political figure and goes into hiding in the home of a fellow student, a non-activist, and his family of humble, hardworking and good-hearted Egyptians. The family does not want to get involved, but they see themselves as patriots and thus obligated against their survival instincts to help him. Much of the movie is set in their apartment and the tension is palpable. Naturally feelings grow between Ibrahim and the family's spunky and spirited daughter, complicating matters. Meanwhile, the family worries about betrayal by a cousin, who wants to marry the other daughter and isn't above a bit of blackmail. And the police are closing in...
The opening scenes of the film showed a great crowd protesting the king's rule, and looked like something that could have been lifted out of the news today, the Arab street walking and shouting and chanting with fists upraised, the police with riot shields and clubs beating them back. It was almost uncanny. Partly it was just setting the scene for Ibrahim's action, but partly it was to introduce the theme that resistance is justified in the face of a corrupt regime, a theme that is reinforced throughout the film. Even those who do not want to get involved are forced, when they examine their hearts, to be true patriots and resist, even just by hiding a man. This was, according to the internet, a tremendously popular movie in Egypt and the surrounding countries, and watching it I wondered to what extent it shaped the social consciousness of the nation, or perhaps rather its means of expression, in the same way that say movies about the 1960s may have influenced how Americans show their displeasure with their government today. Certainly sacrificing everything for your country was idealized and glamorized in A Man in Our House. Ibrahim is a very romantic figure, never wavering in his commitment to his cause yet able to win the love of a girl who I'd say symbolized the hopeful optimistic future of Egypt as well as the best qualities of its past. It was easy to forget that he was a murderer, until the end of the film when dramatic events unfold. I don't think he could be called a terrorist, as his targets were the tools of the regime, but I had to question the killing of soldiers who were probably conscripted or in the army because they were poor--aren't they part of the Egypt he wants to save? It was troubling to watch, and I'm curious as to how Egyptian audiences would have seen his actions. I thought the director made a point of casting very young looking fellows as the soldiers, so I think the discomfort was supposed to be there, but I'm not sure.
Apart from things that happen to the characters, the film is quite sad as a historical artifact. There is such a sense of optimism throughout the film that the true patriots, who really are all the Egyptian people, will win in the end and have a noble, respectable, honest country that can hold its head high as a nation, independent and successful. It's clear that the characters have embraced modernity in many ways--cars, suits, women choosing to wear veils outside or not, riding in cars with strange men--but maintain a deep connection to their Egyptianess--wearing traditional clothing in the home, expressing traditional values, and above all in their religion. I thought religion was actually rather beautifully treated in this film. Ibrahim wasn't on a mission from Allah, in fact he did not own his own Koran until the mother of the family gave him one, but he hoped Allah's will was with him. Most of the film takes place during Ramadan, so there is ample opportunity to show how observant the family Ibrahim hides with is. Religion is always there as a backdrop and a basis of faith in the rightness of the patriot's cause, but not in a fundamentalist, warrior of god kind of way, just a quiet, committed faith that this is what Allah would want patriots to do, and so Ibrahim and the family do what they know in their hearts is right. I think Ibrahim even feels himself sullied by the need to kill, but perhaps I'm reading into him what I want to see. I did mention that he was quite a romantic figure, didn't I?
Finally, the acting--Omar Sharif is of course excellent, the perfect intense student activist, tormented by the knowledge of how much danger he is putting the honorable family into but feeling compelled to do so in order to be able to continue his activities to save Egypt. I can't find a credit for the daughter anywhere, but she too was compelling and believable as an independent yet loyal daughter, willing to do everything she could for Ibrahim and his cause even though it put her in danger. They never kiss or embrace, but a moment where their fingertips brush against each other is filled to bursting with the intensity of their emotion for each other, coupled with the knowledge that they may never be free to be together. Classic movie romance.
The director, Henry Barakat, is one of the greats of Egyptian cinema, and this is beautifully shot, even all the interior scenes in the apartment. I felt like I knew what it was to live there by end of the movie.
All in all, I highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in Egyptian politics, Middle Eastern politics at large or in learning about the lives of middle class Egyptians in the middle of the 20th century. It is truly heartbreaking to think how far Egypt has come from those hopeful days, where things now have come full circle right back to the repressive regime that locks people away for speaking their minds, sending out the police in their riot gear against their own people.
Sometimes called The Call of the Nightingale, The Cry of the Nightingale, The Curlew's Cry, and other bird/vocalization variations.
It's hard to say much about this movie without getting into its plot, but the plot is really subservient to the movie's message. Also directed by Henry Barakat, this is a film that strikes the Western viewer as being ahead of its time in its condemnation of the treatment of women, especially poor rural women, in Egyptian society. Whether it was really ahead of its time or if that is my Western bias showing, I don't know. I do know that it was based on a very popular novel by Taha Hussain and won buckets of awards in Egypt when it came out, so clearly it contained a message that resonated with Egyptian audiences when it came out in 1959. Maybe it was exactly at its time.
I think I have to sum up the plot before commenting, otherwise what I say may not make any sense. In a nutshell, this is the story of Amna, a girl from a small Bedouin village in the countryside of Upper Egypt. Her father is killed because of his adulterous ways, and the patriarch of the extended family, in the name of the family's honor, drives Amna's mother, her sister Hanady and Amna from the village, saying that their continued presence in the village only serves as a reminder of the shame that the husband brought upon the family. He is a very, very bad man, cruel and unforgiving, and he without a doubt represents all that is truly shameful about the treatment of rural women. Amna's mother takes her daughters to the nearest city to look for work. The girls were so sheltered in their rural life that they are terrified at the sight of a locomotive, thinking it some kind of monster. Once in the city, the girls find work as domestic servants, Amna in the home of a very nice family with a daughter her own age and Hanady in the home of an engineer with no family. Amna clearly enjoys her new life with gusto, making fast friends with the daughter, dressing in more European clothing and no longer covering her face when she talks (much to her mother's horror) and even learning to read Arabic and speak a little French. Hanady, on the other hand, is quickly seduced by the engineer and disgraced. The mother immediately marches them back out into the countryside to a trading outpost, where they await word as to whether the patriarch (whom everybody calls uncle) will let them come back to the village or not. The uncle agrees, and escorts them back. On the way, he stabs Hanady to death, an honor killing. Amna is horrified and cannot be contained by village life any longer. She leaves and her mother goes insane. She returns to her nice family and plots her revenge against the engineer. Finagling her way into his employ, at first planning to poison him, she discovers that no matter how great her hatred, she is not capable of murder. The engineer repeatedly tries to force himself on her but she is always able to escape. On the advice of a city Bedouin woman who has become a mother surrogate, she decides to make him fall in love with her, reject him and thereby make him miserable. The plan works, only it backfires because in learning to love Amna, the engineer becomes a better man, realizing how terrible he had been, and as he becomes a better man, she falls in love with him. They finally realize their love for each other in a passionate kiss, but then she breaks away, telling him that she is Hanady's sister and had come only to get her revenge. She leaves the house, he follows and just as it seems she may walk away for ever, the uncle shows up to kill her for her dishonoring of the family. He's also angry at her because he had to return the dowry he was going to get for her from a man in the village. The engineer takes the bullet meant for Amna, tragedy ensues, the end.
It sounds terribly melodramatic and in some ways it is, but what really makes it work is Amna's voiceover narrative, spoken after all these events have happened. Amna is played by Faten Hamama, who was not only stunningly beautiful but was a very talented actress as well. Every quiver of her lip and flash of her eyes spoke volumes. In the beginning of the film, she begins to recount her story, and the camera shows only her and the things her eyes can see in the frame, without any of the other protagonists who ought to be present. Between the cinematography and her delivery, it is immediately absorbing and creates an indelible impression of her misery and determination. In some ways it's a hard movie to watch (it's surprisingly blunt, notably when the engineer is on the verge of raping Amna) but the character is so luminous and compelling that it's entirely worth it (she's surprisingly complex, notably for being able to see the change in a man who was once on the verge of raping her). Many of the characters are nice sketches of Egyptians of various social classes.
Other random observations--more strongly than in A Man In Our House, there is a need to find a balance between traditional and modern Egypt. The uncle clearly represents what is wrong with traditional Egypt; as Amna observed, he killed the victim for the crime while the perpetrator walked free, too much sense of honor run out of control. Yet the engineer, who is certainly modern in his suits and sharp haircut, has no moral compass and is adrift, taking his pleasure where he likes without regard for the consequences, no honor at all. While drunk he admits to Amna that he knows he is not a good person and doesn't even like himself, but feels there's nothing he can do about it. So while adherence to all the old ways is wrong, some values must be kept. Amna herself I think is the embodiment of how to navigate the new Egypt; she is modern in many ways in her trim dresses and upswept hair, but at heart she is still the good baladi girl who cares deeply about others and their welfare and has her own personal sense of honor.
The Bedouin village and trading post scenes are fascinating for the costuming alone--the women are old school, with facial tattoos and long braids. There's a brief bit of dancing at the trading post by the substitute mother figure, a hagallah type dance as far as I can tell.
So, obviously, I recommend this one highly as well. It's probably more watchable in some ways than A Man in Our House, which at 159 minutes is a bit of a marathon. This one's just over 2 hours. The cinematography is beautiful--some stills can be found here, but they don't begin to convey how lush and detailed the film is. Amna's character is going to stick with me for a while.
A Man in Our House, filmed in 1961 and starring an intense young Omar Sharif, is the story of Ibrahim Handy, a student who becomes a political activist and ultimately an assassin for his cause, which was the overthrow of the government of the King of Egypt, a puppet of the British. The movie takes place in the 1940s, presumably after the end of WWII. Ibrahim kills a high political figure and goes into hiding in the home of a fellow student, a non-activist, and his family of humble, hardworking and good-hearted Egyptians. The family does not want to get involved, but they see themselves as patriots and thus obligated against their survival instincts to help him. Much of the movie is set in their apartment and the tension is palpable. Naturally feelings grow between Ibrahim and the family's spunky and spirited daughter, complicating matters. Meanwhile, the family worries about betrayal by a cousin, who wants to marry the other daughter and isn't above a bit of blackmail. And the police are closing in...
The opening scenes of the film showed a great crowd protesting the king's rule, and looked like something that could have been lifted out of the news today, the Arab street walking and shouting and chanting with fists upraised, the police with riot shields and clubs beating them back. It was almost uncanny. Partly it was just setting the scene for Ibrahim's action, but partly it was to introduce the theme that resistance is justified in the face of a corrupt regime, a theme that is reinforced throughout the film. Even those who do not want to get involved are forced, when they examine their hearts, to be true patriots and resist, even just by hiding a man. This was, according to the internet, a tremendously popular movie in Egypt and the surrounding countries, and watching it I wondered to what extent it shaped the social consciousness of the nation, or perhaps rather its means of expression, in the same way that say movies about the 1960s may have influenced how Americans show their displeasure with their government today. Certainly sacrificing everything for your country was idealized and glamorized in A Man in Our House. Ibrahim is a very romantic figure, never wavering in his commitment to his cause yet able to win the love of a girl who I'd say symbolized the hopeful optimistic future of Egypt as well as the best qualities of its past. It was easy to forget that he was a murderer, until the end of the film when dramatic events unfold. I don't think he could be called a terrorist, as his targets were the tools of the regime, but I had to question the killing of soldiers who were probably conscripted or in the army because they were poor--aren't they part of the Egypt he wants to save? It was troubling to watch, and I'm curious as to how Egyptian audiences would have seen his actions. I thought the director made a point of casting very young looking fellows as the soldiers, so I think the discomfort was supposed to be there, but I'm not sure.
Apart from things that happen to the characters, the film is quite sad as a historical artifact. There is such a sense of optimism throughout the film that the true patriots, who really are all the Egyptian people, will win in the end and have a noble, respectable, honest country that can hold its head high as a nation, independent and successful. It's clear that the characters have embraced modernity in many ways--cars, suits, women choosing to wear veils outside or not, riding in cars with strange men--but maintain a deep connection to their Egyptianess--wearing traditional clothing in the home, expressing traditional values, and above all in their religion. I thought religion was actually rather beautifully treated in this film. Ibrahim wasn't on a mission from Allah, in fact he did not own his own Koran until the mother of the family gave him one, but he hoped Allah's will was with him. Most of the film takes place during Ramadan, so there is ample opportunity to show how observant the family Ibrahim hides with is. Religion is always there as a backdrop and a basis of faith in the rightness of the patriot's cause, but not in a fundamentalist, warrior of god kind of way, just a quiet, committed faith that this is what Allah would want patriots to do, and so Ibrahim and the family do what they know in their hearts is right. I think Ibrahim even feels himself sullied by the need to kill, but perhaps I'm reading into him what I want to see. I did mention that he was quite a romantic figure, didn't I?
Finally, the acting--Omar Sharif is of course excellent, the perfect intense student activist, tormented by the knowledge of how much danger he is putting the honorable family into but feeling compelled to do so in order to be able to continue his activities to save Egypt. I can't find a credit for the daughter anywhere, but she too was compelling and believable as an independent yet loyal daughter, willing to do everything she could for Ibrahim and his cause even though it put her in danger. They never kiss or embrace, but a moment where their fingertips brush against each other is filled to bursting with the intensity of their emotion for each other, coupled with the knowledge that they may never be free to be together. Classic movie romance.
The director, Henry Barakat, is one of the greats of Egyptian cinema, and this is beautifully shot, even all the interior scenes in the apartment. I felt like I knew what it was to live there by end of the movie.
All in all, I highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in Egyptian politics, Middle Eastern politics at large or in learning about the lives of middle class Egyptians in the middle of the 20th century. It is truly heartbreaking to think how far Egypt has come from those hopeful days, where things now have come full circle right back to the repressive regime that locks people away for speaking their minds, sending out the police in their riot gear against their own people.
Sometimes called The Call of the Nightingale, The Cry of the Nightingale, The Curlew's Cry, and other bird/vocalization variations.
It's hard to say much about this movie without getting into its plot, but the plot is really subservient to the movie's message. Also directed by Henry Barakat, this is a film that strikes the Western viewer as being ahead of its time in its condemnation of the treatment of women, especially poor rural women, in Egyptian society. Whether it was really ahead of its time or if that is my Western bias showing, I don't know. I do know that it was based on a very popular novel by Taha Hussain and won buckets of awards in Egypt when it came out, so clearly it contained a message that resonated with Egyptian audiences when it came out in 1959. Maybe it was exactly at its time.
I think I have to sum up the plot before commenting, otherwise what I say may not make any sense. In a nutshell, this is the story of Amna, a girl from a small Bedouin village in the countryside of Upper Egypt. Her father is killed because of his adulterous ways, and the patriarch of the extended family, in the name of the family's honor, drives Amna's mother, her sister Hanady and Amna from the village, saying that their continued presence in the village only serves as a reminder of the shame that the husband brought upon the family. He is a very, very bad man, cruel and unforgiving, and he without a doubt represents all that is truly shameful about the treatment of rural women. Amna's mother takes her daughters to the nearest city to look for work. The girls were so sheltered in their rural life that they are terrified at the sight of a locomotive, thinking it some kind of monster. Once in the city, the girls find work as domestic servants, Amna in the home of a very nice family with a daughter her own age and Hanady in the home of an engineer with no family. Amna clearly enjoys her new life with gusto, making fast friends with the daughter, dressing in more European clothing and no longer covering her face when she talks (much to her mother's horror) and even learning to read Arabic and speak a little French. Hanady, on the other hand, is quickly seduced by the engineer and disgraced. The mother immediately marches them back out into the countryside to a trading outpost, where they await word as to whether the patriarch (whom everybody calls uncle) will let them come back to the village or not. The uncle agrees, and escorts them back. On the way, he stabs Hanady to death, an honor killing. Amna is horrified and cannot be contained by village life any longer. She leaves and her mother goes insane. She returns to her nice family and plots her revenge against the engineer. Finagling her way into his employ, at first planning to poison him, she discovers that no matter how great her hatred, she is not capable of murder. The engineer repeatedly tries to force himself on her but she is always able to escape. On the advice of a city Bedouin woman who has become a mother surrogate, she decides to make him fall in love with her, reject him and thereby make him miserable. The plan works, only it backfires because in learning to love Amna, the engineer becomes a better man, realizing how terrible he had been, and as he becomes a better man, she falls in love with him. They finally realize their love for each other in a passionate kiss, but then she breaks away, telling him that she is Hanady's sister and had come only to get her revenge. She leaves the house, he follows and just as it seems she may walk away for ever, the uncle shows up to kill her for her dishonoring of the family. He's also angry at her because he had to return the dowry he was going to get for her from a man in the village. The engineer takes the bullet meant for Amna, tragedy ensues, the end.
It sounds terribly melodramatic and in some ways it is, but what really makes it work is Amna's voiceover narrative, spoken after all these events have happened. Amna is played by Faten Hamama, who was not only stunningly beautiful but was a very talented actress as well. Every quiver of her lip and flash of her eyes spoke volumes. In the beginning of the film, she begins to recount her story, and the camera shows only her and the things her eyes can see in the frame, without any of the other protagonists who ought to be present. Between the cinematography and her delivery, it is immediately absorbing and creates an indelible impression of her misery and determination. In some ways it's a hard movie to watch (it's surprisingly blunt, notably when the engineer is on the verge of raping Amna) but the character is so luminous and compelling that it's entirely worth it (she's surprisingly complex, notably for being able to see the change in a man who was once on the verge of raping her). Many of the characters are nice sketches of Egyptians of various social classes.
Other random observations--more strongly than in A Man In Our House, there is a need to find a balance between traditional and modern Egypt. The uncle clearly represents what is wrong with traditional Egypt; as Amna observed, he killed the victim for the crime while the perpetrator walked free, too much sense of honor run out of control. Yet the engineer, who is certainly modern in his suits and sharp haircut, has no moral compass and is adrift, taking his pleasure where he likes without regard for the consequences, no honor at all. While drunk he admits to Amna that he knows he is not a good person and doesn't even like himself, but feels there's nothing he can do about it. So while adherence to all the old ways is wrong, some values must be kept. Amna herself I think is the embodiment of how to navigate the new Egypt; she is modern in many ways in her trim dresses and upswept hair, but at heart she is still the good baladi girl who cares deeply about others and their welfare and has her own personal sense of honor.
The Bedouin village and trading post scenes are fascinating for the costuming alone--the women are old school, with facial tattoos and long braids. There's a brief bit of dancing at the trading post by the substitute mother figure, a hagallah type dance as far as I can tell.
So, obviously, I recommend this one highly as well. It's probably more watchable in some ways than A Man in Our House, which at 159 minutes is a bit of a marathon. This one's just over 2 hours. The cinematography is beautiful--some stills can be found here, but they don't begin to convey how lush and detailed the film is. Amna's character is going to stick with me for a while.
