movie review: two classic films by Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine

(This review is part of a series related to my professional development project of attending the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.)

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Dawn of a New Day (1964)

Cairo Station (1958)

(Egypt; directed by Youssef Chahine)

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I had never heard of Youssef Chahine until the Karlovy Vary IFF’s tribute/retrospective. As it turns out, Chahine was possibly the most influential Egyptian director of the 20th century and is credited with launching the career of Omar Sharif.

I saw two of Chahine’s films at the KVIFF: Dawn of a New Day (1964) and Cairo Station (1958). While I liked Cairo Station a bit more and think it’s a better film, it’s undeniable that Dawn of a New Day is an equally fascinating document of a rapidly changing Egypt in the 1960s.

Dawn of a New Day opens at a Cairo high society function, a charity gala to raise money for an orphanage. The obviously wealthy crowd of men and women drink, smoke, flirt, eat fancy food, tease each other about their love lives, and show off their fancy clothes. One of the organizers (Sanaa Gamil) chivvies the orphans into performing a song about how grateful they are for the society women’s fundraising efforts. We learn that she is unhappily married to a feckless, unfaithful society playboy (played by Chahine himself!) who runs through their money and denies her from becoming a mother, something she desperately wants.

At this charity event, she meets a handsome young university student (Hamdy Gheith) and there is instant attraction. However, in addition to their age difference, he is poor and she is married–both insurmountable obstacles. The rest of the film is devoted to the question of whether she can stand up to her husband and finally leave him, and whether she can turn her back on her lavish lifestyle and good time Charlie friends and take a job to support herself and her young beau while he finishes school.

The film is very romantic, melodramatic, and exciting; the plot has a lot of moving parts–for example, the woman’s brother is an investigative journalist (Saifuddin Shawkat) who decries the excesses of the wealthy classes even though like his sister, that’s how he grew up. He implores her to be less selfish and to think of others and try to work towards social equality. However, despite his efforts at journalistic integrity, the owner of the newspaper where he works keeps refusing to print his articles which remind those in power of their responsibilities under the constitution.

It’s a little melodramatic and silly to a modern sensibility, but it’s still very enjoyable and the actors throw themselves into their characters completely. Plus, it features jaw-droppingly beautiful shots of Cairo in the 1960s. Apparently it was quite scandalous when it was first released, and I’ll admit, I was a little shocked to see such an open portrayal of women’s sexuality in a country that has lately been in the news for the growing gulf between the progressive and the puritanical.

Bab el Hadid (Cairo Station), made seven years earlier, shows the beginning of Chahine’s interest in many of these same themes. The film centres around the lives of workers in the bustle of Cairo’s central train station: concession and newspaper stand workers, porters, and young women who flout the rules and race to sell cold soft drinks to passengers on the train cars while they’re temporarily parked at the station. There is a subplot where a wealthy man who has a monopoly on the concession stands threatens violence to the disgruntled workers who want to form a union. There is another subplot where Qinawi, a mentally ill man (Youssef Chahine), is rescued from the street by a kind newspaper seller. Qinawi becomes obsessed with Hanuma, one of the soft drink sellers (celebrated Egyptian actress Hind Rustom) and begins stalking her. She, like most of the others, is dismissively scornful of him because of his mental illness and underestimates his delusions. She dreams of escape from the scrabble and hustle of the train station and is engaged to be married to one of the union organizers, who is pro workers’ rights but views women as inferior, and is dismissive and cruel to his fiancée.

Though it sounds like there might be too many plot threads for a coherent narrative, Chahine does a good job of weaving them together, and the result is a tight and well paced narrative with just the right amount of suspense. I really enjoyed this film and was surprised when the introduction mentioned it was poorly received on first release and did not do well at the Egyptian box office, though again, like with Dawn of a New Day, Chahine’s progressive politics may have been ahead of his time.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to see these films, and I wish they were more widely available, because I think Cairo Station in particular is a classic that deserves to be seen by more people. If you ever get the chance to see one of Youssef Chahine’s films, don’t hesitate! You won’t regret it.