Chaos

I saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Cannes Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award winner and longtime Egyptian director Youseff Chahine was in ill health toward the end of the filming of this picture thus the credit for Khaled Youssef as an additional director. The story takes place in modern day Cairo in a lower to middle class part of town called Shubra. Hatem (Khaled Saleh) is a tormented, sadistic, corrupt policeman who has the run of the local police station and the neighborhood. His weakness is an unrequited love for his neighbor, the beautiful Nour (Mena Shalaby). Nour is a schoolteacher at a nearby school and has her own unrequited love going for the handsome and kind District Attorney Sheriff (Youssef El Sheriff). Sheriff is unhappily in love with the beautiful Sylvia (Dorra Zarrouk) who is a drug taking, night clubbing, living in the fast lane, westernized opposite attraction to the straight-laced Sheriff. Nour shares an apartment with her mother Bahi (Hala Fakir) but also shares a mother-daughter relationship with her headmistress, the still beautiful Wedad (Hala Sedky) who is also Sheriff's mother. Wedad and Bahi share Nour's desire that someday Sheriff will drop Sylvia and marry Nour. It's a great cast with Khaled Saleh in a great screen role as the villainous and brutal Hatem. The Screenplay by Nasser Abdel Rahman is a little implausible at times but the over-the top story, direction and music seem to work. Cinematography by Ramsis Marzouk, Editing by Ghanda Ezz El Din and Music by Yasser Abdel Rahman. This plays well to a western audience and there are some nicely woven comedic moments to the film's dark and sobering moments. I would recommend this and give it an 8.0 out of 10.

All the reviews talk about this film from only a political point of view. Well i think this is not accurate. All these talking about the corrupted policeman "Hatem" who is a sign for the dictatorial political system and the combat between policemen and judgment and this girl "Noor" who is a model for the raped Egypt, well i think all these are not the point, or they are not the main point. I see the film from more human point of view. This man "Hatem" is a pathetic loser who lives a miserable lonely life, despite all the power he owns he has an extreme feeling of deprivation. He is a victim. "Noor" is a sign of what he needs to own. A beautiful young girl living in front of him, he knows her since she was a child and he never stops dreaming of her. What is the result? She is hating him! "Hatem" is not bad person. His inner emotions could be turned to something positive if he found love in return. The film talks mainly, in my opinion, about the chaos in feelings. Remember the relationship between "Sheriff" and his mother, and between "Sheriff" and "Selvia". They resemble an extreme undefined chaos. May be the message of the creators of the film is this: Chaos in feelings leads to chaos in the world. Finally i am not able to consider the film to be one of Chahine's films. Any one who likes Chahine will understand this point. This film has no Chahine's essence.It's well made and well directed but simply it's not Chahine's. you may feel a glimpse of Chaine's in the romantic love story between Sheriff and Noor, the relationship between Noor and her mother which will remind you of Lebleba and Hanan Tork in "The Other", you will also remember the old Chahine in the sexual mania of "Hatem" which also will remind you of the most famous "Qenaui" in "Bab el Hadeed". But as a total, you will not satisfy with the film if you put in mind that you are watching a Youssef Chahine's film.

All the other reviews on this site seem to be delighted by this movie. I don't agree. Perhaps I was watching through western eyes, but it did not strike me as a good film.

The topic is very serious: corruption, police brutality, repression... I generally like movies about these things. So what is the problem? Well, everything has a steady Bollywood feel. The bad guys are soooo rotten. The good guys are simply angelic. Everyone on screen over-acts. And there is a subplot about some prostitutes which I would almost call exploitative. No real nudity, but almost.

This is my first Egyptian movie, and also the first one I saw by Chanine. I know that he is a renowned director and I intend to see more of his movies; I hope that the older ones are better...

the movie is really very amazing and gave people a background about what the police can do with people behind the closed doors but the disappointing on this movie are the scenes in the police station are more than what can happen in real life ,Khaled Saleh acted his role very very good ,Mena Shalaby her role was so beautiful and she done it very good ,Hala Fakher her role was impressive but she gave a funny scenes and she was a comedian woman ,Yossef El-Sheriff was very good in his role and Hala Sedki (Sherif's Mother) acted her role very nice like a mother who can take care about her son and choose the best girl to be his wife ,but by the way the movie is very good and in fact is the weakest CHAHIN movies ever

With the combined power of Youssef Chahine's fearless guts, and Khaled Youssef's spectacular narrative style, "Heya Fawda" can only be perceived as a cinematic up-boost to Egyptian Cinema. Both directors reveal their touches in this socio-political story, by addressing wide-spread concerns in Egyptian society, yet through a moving drama, manipulated by a story-line that contradicts the pessimistic perception of Egyptians as passive and manipulated by the dominance of corruption and oppression.

The plot takes us through the different desires of life, starting from power and self-fulfillment, to love and its different forms ranging from the innocence of virginity, to the sadistic extreme of possession. Nonetheless, it contemplates the definition of a villain by arousing paradox feelings in regards to societal and psychological changes driven by one's background, loss, and deprivations, and the justification to those ends. The film portrays society in its turning points... From a psychoanalytical retrospect, Hatem, resembling Darwin's child who lives their entire life oppressed by the fear of castration and is driven by his lust for such needs until they erode even the purest of his sentiments, pushing him into society's greatest evils. However, the political implications of Hatem's character run beyond that to reveal the part of society that is reluctant to change; that by which the darkness of capitalism have disrupted forever and turned everything in it into "chaos". On the other hand, Nour and Cherif's characters reveal the future, or the dream of one... They both live the nightmare and are poisoned by the same water, yet they rise upon that and raise their voices higher than the pollution eating up the hopes of an improved tomorrow... Even when they're at their utmost break, they find a way to fight the havoc and see a glimpse of justice and light to the fatal incidents that dominate their lives, or in the bigger picture, society.

There is no doubt that Chahine and Youssef's merging together, brings out the best in them. "Heya Fawda" is one of the few Arabic movies that are reluctant to the melodramatic exaggerations, which turn the film into an obnoxious experience that offends the viewers' intelligence; nonetheless, the deep metaphors give a further meaning to this multi-genre movie making it almost complete. The film is rather a documentary encapsulating passion, suspense, politics, drama, and psychoanalysis in a few hours; it is simply the "Egyptian Society" uncovered.