Alexandria... warum?

The first part of Youssef Chahine's semi-autobiographical trilogy concerns a young student and his frustrated dreams of being an actor in WWII-era Alexandria. While not as stunning as CAIRO STATION, it's a warm and easily relatable story with strong characters (charming lead performance by Mohsin Mohieddene) and flashes of brilliance, including Fellini-esque fantasias and clever use of stock footage and ironic music. The amateur play scenes are standouts. The problems arise when it comes to the other stories interwoven with the main plot. These cover such controversial material as an aristocrat who "buys" a drunken Allied soldier to kill him for amusement but falls in love with him instead, a group of inept Communists plotting to capture Churchill, and a Jewish girl impregnated by a Muslim boy. Each of these subplots could well be a fine film on their own, but the transitions between them are too abrupt, and rightfully pegged in other reviews as "sloppy" and "messy". It leads to a lot of confusion and the nagging feeling that Chahine is piling too much on his plate.

Yehia has big dreams of Hollywood, utterly preoccupied with the American Dream. His classmates are lighting their cigarettes while he's entranced by the glitz and glamour of cinema, before paying for another ticket to see the same movie again. He's obsessed with acting and filmmaking but confined by financial circumstances. Though I can't say I identified with any of the remaining characters nearly as much, I still think their storylines are all given, to varying degrees, enough consideration to be of interest. Some people are mislead and blinded by the status quo, with their only concern being to change it, oblivious to the danger that may entail. Case in point, we see people anticipating an imminent German invasion in hope it would liberate them from the British occupation. Others are pretty content with things as they are for they're technically surviving, and thriving, on sleaze. And then there are people who are simply passive, some of them are yet to be disillusioned.

Besides the main storyline revolving around Yehia, the script attempts to juggle multiple subplots but hits only a few barricades in the process. For one thing, it lacks a smooth flow due to muddled editing, resulting in some distracting shots. For another, it's unpolished when it comes to its tonality, as if the film regularly tries to attune itself to the characters focused-on at certain moments, coming across as out of place. Additionally, Chahine seems to adopt here more than one cinematic style, the thing that made the movie feel inconsistent. Then again, I think Chahine successfully managed, by and large, to squeeze all these characters, with their own plot threads, under the umbrella of WWII, which provides the backdrop of the story.

Alexandria... Why? Is an ambitious and clever effort, which shows in every inch of its mosaic structure and artistic decisions. Cheerful music played over scenes interspersed with footage showing destruction to emphasize that war has become an essential part of their life, while underscoring the nefariousness of their world in a comedic light, and POV shots that involve us in Yehia's dreams. It's a film of cosmopolitan proportions; centring around British occupation yet flicking through other parts of the globe, all while being quintessentially Egyptian, even giving singularity to each household of different cultures and classes. Occasionally, it may feel a pretentious, jumbled mess or a pastiche of Italian cinema - with Fellini being the main inspiration, for sure - Mostly, though, it's a dramatic allegro of making the most of one's opportunities, executed at full throttle with a comedic vein running throughout, cemented by a genius ambiguous ending.

I love this movie simply because every time i watch it, i can see myself, my life and my family in every scene. I can see my depression and my dreams, how hard it was to commence a dream and how much it took to start. I can see my parents waving. I can see my sister in Beirut while the war started and we try the best to get her out. I can see how my parents managed to save every penny to send me here to study what I want. I can see my poring job and my girl, my friends and how we became apart. In short this movie is all about me. My roots in Alexandria. I miss it very much. I have been here over two years now. But I am sure I will be back one day.

I was quite impressed with "Alexandria, Why?" It is just the second film I've seen from Egyptian master Youssef Chahine, but I can already see why many scholars have praised his work tremendously. This film captures both its' time and setting quite eloquently. It is clearly inspired by Italian neo-realism and uses dubbing as many Italian films of the yesteryear have so often done. The film is perhaps an autobiographical one as it depicts a young man in World War II Egypt who wants to immigrate to California and become a filmmaker. I sense the reason this film is so rated so poorly here is because it has a production value which is very minimal in scale. You realize that many shots are shot in a studio and backdrops, particularly ones with the Meditterranean shore, are ones from stock footage. This is something which is more often in B-movies from the '60s here. But, I am sure this was due to inherent financial limitations which Chahine had too work around. If one compares this film with ones from Turkish and Indian films made in this era, it seems as though Chahine effectively utilized what he had. And, if you compare it with films from other African countries, like Senegal, well it seems like an MGM production! I imagine if George Lucas had the film's producer, these things would have been remedied but as it is, very little artistic integrity is compromised here. We are drawn into the characters' lives and we are captivated by their struggles too find love and freedom. In the end, some things are sacrificed too achieve one desire over another and thus we are left with the brutal reality of the immigrant experience. And, the result is one sterling film which suggests that if an artist truly believes in their work, they can achieve the same artistic merits as filmmakers from more developed nations.

Youssif chahine is considered to be The best director in the Egyptian movies history, not only because he makes a good movies but also he say what many of Egyptians want to, in this master piece he talks about Alexandria in the world war 2 where was a cosmopolitan society that Muslims, Christians, Jews, Italians live in. But because of the war every team hate the other and all of them began their own war which is based on the power of money and hateness.Among these crowded conflicts which you can not see but you feel it very well, there is someone who does not care about anything but his dream to be a movie director ,Yehia, who find himself in an universal conflict that he forced to be in it, and it framed his awareness , so don't ask yehia (who plays the role of the director Youssif Chahine) why you always talk about:hating war, love peace, missing the cosmopolitan society....etc?