The Blue Elephant

After reading the book for many times and watching the trailers for dozens of times, finally watched the much anticipated movie at the theater.

The movie is a masterpiece that's not only as amazing as the novel, but also completes and answers a lot of mystic questions in the mind of the readers.

The cast were amazing, they literally did it the way you visualize it in your mind while reading novel.

The music was great and well implemented, specially at the dream part.

Cinematography was the first time to see in an Arabic movie, though it's well known since movies like 300 and Sherlock Holmes.

A lot of people are wondering does the movie really deserve this score on IMDb, the answer is, compared to our Arabic movies, YES it deserves a 12, although for on international basis, the movie could be 7.5

At last, whether you read the book or not, you will get what your are bargaining for.

the film was very well made and the storyline was very good with a lot of twists and suspense . it's about a psychiatrist (Yehia)works in a sector where they find out if criminals who made ugly murders suffer from a Psychiatric Disease or mental disease or they are healthy to decide their judgment. the DR find out that his old friend (Sherif) has been brought there for killing his wife brutally so he tries to help him and find out what happened to him and what made him do that. and then he find out a strange thing about his friend Sheriff Yehia later tries a drug called the blue elephant which takes him to another dimension see things and hear things which very close to what happened to his friend. there is a good point in the direction of the movie the original story contained a lot of nudity the director managed to reach the point with almost no nudity and that was good

in brief this is the sort of movies that make you change your judgment on characters a lot and get confused and wonder who is right and who is wrong the movie was awesome the acting , sound effects and graphics were perfect i give the movie 8/10 really worth watching

Literally everyone I know that watched this film kept pushing me into watching it. claiming it is some sort of a cinematic achievement. I don't think it is bad, but seriously Egyptians and Indians need to stop over-rating movies made by their countries. They're driven by a sense of patriotism that I cannot understand, which usually leads to many unfair ratings like the 8.2 in the blue elephant. I was impressed with the cinematography but I did not appreciate the slow motion scenes. Also the background music was strongly unrelated in some scenes. The overall emphasis on alcohol addiction seemed like an exaggeration to me and the pacing of the story is all over the place. still, this might be one of the best Egyptian movies I have seen and is an exciting new approach in Egyptian cinema. I enjoyed it but it doesn't belong anywhere near the 8 category.

Al-Pheel Al-Azraq (The Blue Elephant), a film based on the best-selling novel by Ahmed Mourad, is set to premiere in Egypt and several Arab countries,the upcoming Eid Al-Fitr holiday following the end of Ramadan.

Karim Abdel-Aziz, who returns to the big screen as a superstar in the film, expressed how satisfied he was with this production and said he was not surprised the Audience has shown such excitement about the film.

The film hit more than a bird with one stone, its scenario kept almost long-smart dialogs from the novel, let the characters to say and reveal their masks, the film kept all the exciting moments: A doctor returns to work in a psychiatric hospital after several years of the death of his family, throwing him to the section 8 West where there are murderers under observation, there he finds an old colleague accused of killing his wife, the doctor had a love affair with an old colleague, the sister of the accused, a doctor looking for the secret behind the crime while the plot shows us the possibility that the accused killer claim a mental illness, or the illness of the physician or the presence of a mysterious third party committed the crime across the body of the accused killer, Mixing not only between the science and what is ghostly, but the film managed to Show its characters the same degree it shows about the crime, this mixture is good and amazing because it is the most difficult choice for the writer. The film succeeded in showing most of novel's fantasies, The graphic scenes in the film is the best since graphic entered the Egyptian cinema, a global company specializing carried out the world of dreams and hallucinations, I never imagined when I read the novel to see Kareem Abdul-Aziz, to play the role of Yahya Rashid, difficult character and it was a real surprise, his role is the most difficult in my opinion because it does not depend on the apparent emotion , but convey all the time the feeling of fractures can not be healed, in his life only one and single hope, the story of an old love, Khaled El Sawy was fantastic ambiguous and double character, human being led by devil, Nelly Karim performance was quiet, simple and non-artificial. Thanks to The Blue Elephant and its talented makers. Mahmoud Abd El Shakour

Ahmed Mourad's The Blue Elephant novel has been a hit in Egypt and Arab world with a huge amount of controversy among readers from all levels of knowledge, culture and interest. Swinging between the spread success and all the criticism it faced due to the massive attraction of many readers, It managed to be always on headlines between people and of course at every book store and now it made it through to the big screen.

Marwan Hamed, one of Egypt finest directors made good choices of the actors and the settings of the scenes. The shooting seemed nice and smooth in most scenes, a bit fair and out of balance in few but mainly it went mostly good.

All actors Kareem, Nelly and the others were mostly on form giving their good performance except of Khaled El Sawy whose performance was exceptional.

The characters on screen appeared close to the author description in shape and behavior. The stylist must have studied and understood the characters well enough to apply that with such a success on their looks.

Until then the movie was going to be just Good, But it needed a sparkle to make it a Great movie according to the standards of Egyptian and Arab cinema production and driving it a step forward to the International standards.

The sparkle came from VFX team with the DOP who both did a great job reflecting Mourad's toughest scenes of the novel into a visual reality with professional touches by Hamed.

Some side notes about the dialogue, shooting and supporting characters cannot ruin the good work has been done by all the crew.

I have always had a big objection about the story ending, but for now I may leave that to myself and enjoy watching an Egyptian cinema production with such professionalism and high standards.

it's not perfect - like anything will never be - yet it's a big step forward that we should applaud and keep our Self-flagellation on Pause!