Sahar el layaly

I just came from the Black Nights film festival here in Tallinn, where I had the chance to see "Sleepless Nights". First of all I was very eager to see it. As yesterday I talked to one of the actors - Khaled Abol Naga, playing Ali, he convinced me that its controversial and is a good example of new Egyptian cinema generation. The opening titles were OK, the first 10 minutes also, but what happened later, well, not my cup of tea. The first half of the movie seemed to me like an Mexican soap opera - the dialogues, acting and locations (mostly inside). The only good part there was Khaled playing Ali and that's it. The second part of the film changed the atmosphere...mainly because the guys went to the beach house. Still, all the time I could see through the characters and mostly I recognized actors trying to struggle.

When talking about the script itself, well, it was too long and with many "cheesy" elements, especially the ending...

The only good thing were some interesting camera shots.

The controversy...well, maybe for the Arab world. And respect for that! I don't know their culture very good, so I suppose they conceder this (braking up couples) controversial.

After the movie Khaled Abol Naga said that in Egypt they censor most of the movies. That means no sex, religion and so on. This could be a very good explanation why maybe in Europe and rest of the western world, this movie is nothing special.

Definitely one of the FEW good movies that were released lately..

On the contrary..of one of the above comments the so called sexual scenes... & i don't think it should be rated above 18 anyway.. there was no sexual content.. maybe mature content.. & there's a difference.. - so there was no explicit scenes as mentioned in one of the comments above.

the movie tried & definitely for some did solve lots of common problems in the society... & that means that the movie has passed. it sure gave new insights to the cinema , especially these days.. while surrounded by useless romantic comedies or just plain pure comedies which i am fine with.. but that movie was a light in the dark... if few more movies like that one were released.. i'd have better expectation about the Egyptian cinema's future. The script : Excellent The story : Very Good story acting : not all the actors were great but most of them were. let me tell you, the actresses were brilliant all of them..

Hope more of these movies are released.. the kind of movies that face problems & solve them.