Iskanderija... lih?

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.

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.

The movie starts with black-and-white stock footage of Rommel's desert advance towards Alexandria in World War II. Mohsen Mohieddin plays Yehia, Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's teenage alter ego, avidly daydreaming Hollywood musical comedies to block out family drama and wartime trauma. His extended family, always fighting for the most trivial causes, hangs on to a facade of elegance while living on top of a cabaret. The young protagonist performs Shakespeare at his English school and yearns working in Hollywood. He stages mock musical revues and arranges impudent skit shows. Meanwhile, in Alexandria, the approaching Nazis are viewed as a welcome change in oppressor, Egyptian nationalists hatch a silly plot to capture Churchill and British soldiers become the main article of contraband, trafficked among rebels for assassination potential. Mohieddin's rich uncle buys a young Brit (Gerry Sundquist) and falls in love with him. A Muslim Communist (Ahmed Zaki) and his Jewish girlfriend (famous Egyptian actress Naglaa Fathi) are more successful in bridging the various frantic tensions, even as her aged father prophesizes an increased American military presence in the region after the war to "protect the oil."

Examining identity both personal and cultural, the filmmaker directs the final laugh at himself, as his eager alter-ego finally crosses the Atlantic to be greeted by a winking Statue of Liberty. Youssef Chahine's love for his hometown of Alexandria is as fervidly distinctive as Fellini's love for Rome. Comparisons to the oeuvre of the Alexandria- based Greek poet Constantin Cavafis are also profitable. Among the movie's weak spots: it's too long, and with its many plots, it is sometimes sloppy. Also Chahine had obviously a very low budget at his disposal, which shows. Perfidia, the Latin classic, is heard several times on the movie as a sort of leitmotif.

A dense, difficult, and, unfortunately, sloppy film from Egypt. It deals with a group of characters in Alexandria during (and shortly after) WWII, and is kind of a portrait of an artist type of story. The main character is a teenager, Yehia, an aspiring actor and filmmaker who knows that Alexandria will stifle his creativity if he doesn't get out. He strives to go to England or America. Then there are half a dozen other plotlines running concurrently. All of them are interesting, including a terrorist plot to kidnap Churchill and turn him over to the Nazis when they arrive in the city, a wealthy family that decides to move to Palestine and finds that the land is being occupied by the Jews, and a man who abducts British soldiers and kills them as an act of patriotism, that is until he befriends a particularly innocent-looking one. The movie jumps around breathlessly, and it's almost impossible to follow it completely. Still, there are so many moments of grace and beauty, so many good performances, that I did end up approving of it, if just a little. 7/10.

Yussef is one of the masters of Egyptian Cinema, and I think he got himself a good reputation abroad, specially in France and Russia. He was always criminally ignored by Hollywood, though he studied Cine art in NY. However, he developed this Fellini complex recently. He keeps talking about his youth, his sexual complexes, his relations with parents, his study of Cinema, conflicts with the totalitarian governments.. etc. Yussef comes from a very marginal society in Alexandria, being Catholic (most of Egyptian Christians are Orthodox), from a fairly rich family, being educated at Victoria college. Till now his Arabic language is not perfect. From this marginal area he tries to give us a very complex panorama of the Egyptian society during WW II, when Germans were about to conquer Alexandria, and the British were about to flee. Some Egyptians thought that Romel would be their liberator from the British occupation. Here, you find a complete mess from Egyptian Islamists (Muslim brothers), Jews, communists, aristocrats, Catholics, British soldiers, Nazis ... etc... Very complex that U spend 1 hour trying to figure anything... U got only 3 seconds for every character to understand his attitude and problem. Then, in the second hour, things get better and U begin to appreciate this director. The movie gets emotion and U care for characters...

The final shot shows Miss Liberty while the young man stands on board on his way to US to study Cine art. Then we see Miss Liberty's face closer and we discover it's the face of a prostitute heavily covered with make-up, and she laughs loudly and obscenely. This summarizes his memories about his USA experience. Americans won't like this scene, but they will like it in East Europe and Russia. My opinion is that Mr Shahin is a genius film director, but is a very bad script writer. However, it's impossible to convince him otherwise because he has always done what he thought was right, and he is 80 now ... No hope for change !