Ays Krim fi Glim

Lovely movie about dreams lost and found of generation x, great performances especially by actress Simone and great settings and directing as expected from Director Khairi Bishara. Amr Diab songs Ays Krim fi gleem (Ice Cream in Gleem - an Alexandria district) and Raseef nemra khamsa (platform no.5) speak for our generation. The satirical touches of Ashraf abdel Baki and the naturalistic acting debut of Gehane Fadel were definite pluses. Even though Sabrine (the model) appeared only in one scene, she was delightful and it's unfortunate that her star quality has not been further used in the Egyptian film industry.

So this is a very great movie. Generation-X can personally relate to it as Dina explains. With all their bounces and pains and identity-crises. But there's more to it, the movie subliminally chronicles how neo-Marxism (Zeriab), Socialist-Nasserism (Nour) and Capitalism (Ziko) all came into play in the modern history of Egypt. There was great critique debate whether the movie is pro-marxism or pro-capitalism --honestly, it's very hard to tell, because you can see different motivations at every act of the film-- but I think this is what makes it so real. For example, at one point, it shows how the "immoral and inhumane" capitalist Ziko is willing to invest in the neo-Marxist fellas if it meant making money. And at another point, it shows that if it weren't for capitalism those fellows would have never succeeded anyway.

By the end of the movie, you get the impression that it bogs down all those agendas and finally reigns the success and prevalence of pure individual dreams that don't have any agenda ---may be a little bit buttressed by Nasserism, but you can't really realize that as a jarring connection.

Although this may appear mundane and/or tasteless to some --because it betrays the concept of drama, but I see the movie as a neutral 'research paper' that succeeded in chronicling the events of late 80s-early 90s with the ethics/objectivity of a historian rather than a dramatist. (which may tell you why this is the only screenplay ever written by the screenwriter -he never sold anything to cinema afterwards)