by Douglas Messerli
Youssef Chahine and
Mohsen Zayed (screenplay), Youssef Chahine (director) إسكندرية ليه,
(Iskanderija... lih?) (Alexandria…Why?) / 1979
Although it might have
made more sense to the English ear to title this film Why
Alexandria? I believe you have to read the title of Egyptian director
Youssef Chahine’s 1979 film not as a true
question, but as a kind
of lover’s plea, something like “Oh my dear beauty, why are you doing all of
these things?” The film itself, in fact, seems to be a kind of search for
answers to that very plea.
The director does combine
numerous kinds of filmmaking: historical documentary footage is conjoined with
panoramic views of the port, Hollywood clips of everything from the MGM lion
and Esther Williams to a tap-dancing Eleanor Powell finale, family home movies,
scenes from a downstairs cabaret, clips of lovers on the run, etc—all of which
do sometimes result in a kind of dizzying rush. But none of these are truly
developed, serving rather as a kind of diorama of individual
possibilities.
Just
as that city is made up of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and people from various
nationalities, so too is Chahine’s film representative of the
inter-relationships of all aspects of the city’s life. A leftist Muslin, Ibrahim
(Ahmed Zaki) is in love with the Jewish Sarah (Naglaa Fathy), underground
figures conspire to murder Churchill while others cry out in support of the
British soldier roaming their streets to protect them from the approaching
Germans. Yet others predict the upcoming Palestinian catastrophe.
Yehia’s
wealthy uncle attempts to buy the love of a New Zealand male officer, but falls
instead for a very young and confused British private about to go into battle.
Yehia’s Victoria school colleagues are in a desperate search for women who they
intend to fuck while crammed with their buddies inside a small car. And Yehia,
very much at the center of all these different desires and identities, survives
by imagining himself living in American films. The year, after all, is 1942,
and entire world is whirling into a kind of mass hysteria, a vision which
Chahine thoroughly captures through his mash-up of these various cinematic
genres.
The
fact that Alexandria…What? manages between all its pushes and
pulls, the nightly bombings and the daily barrage of competing actions to show
such deep affection for the city’s citizens and events is something of a
marvel.
Yes, Yehia’s middle-class family shouts at one another through every game of cards, but his beautiful sister is still dressed for a ball, and Yehia himself, clearly the spoiled son, is educated in
It’s
difficult to blame Yehia for his plea, which also is the sort of cry that many
young and women make at his age: “Why me? Why was I born here and not somewhere
else?”
In
real life, after training as an actor at Pasadena, Chahine realized that there
would be no room in Hollywood for someone like him, and returned to his now
beloved home to become a film director, an extremely difficult task given the
Egyptian cinema’s devotion to lavish musicals and historical films. The very
fact that Alexandria…Why? in 1979 was viewed in Arab movie
houses and won the Silver Bear-Special Jury Prize at the Berlin International
Film Festival is miraculous. Even if the film was later banned in Egypt, it
eventually went on to become one of the most popular of Arab-language
films—this despite its themes of political chicanery and treachery, Jewish-Arab
love, and homosexuality.
Although
Chahine has long been loved in France, he is still little known in the US.
Perhaps it’s time we reevaluate his important career, not just in the context
of Western filmmaking procedures, as did Canby, but within an understanding of
the more multi-narrative tales of Egyptian and other Mideastern literatures.
Certainly, after seeing this film the other day, I am determined to watch
Chahine’s several other films.
Los Angeles, January 21,
2017
Reprinted from World
Cinema Review (January 2017).
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