Alexandria...Why?
Set in the Egypt during and after World War II, Youssef Chahine's autobiographical drama of his youth in Cairo is a bright, bustling mosaic of a country embroiled in conflict and struggling with its identity. Centered on the story of high school student Yehia Mourad (Mohsen Mohiedine), Chahine's cinematic alter ego, it's national history through a personal perspective and the first film autobiography ever in Egyptian cinema. As the strains of nationalism set Arabs against British soldiers, political factions against one another, and races and cultures at odds, Yehia escapes through theater and the movies, dreaming of Hollywood as he stages his own plays and theatrical reviews until he's swept up in student activism. No stranger to challenging conventions and taboos, Chahine features an interfaith romance between a Jewish woman and a Muslim activist and a homosexual relationship between Yehia's wealthy uncle and a young British soldier among his many stories. In fact, he packs the film so full that the colors threaten to bleed together, but Chahine masterfully keeps the film coherent and clear while driving it forward at a racing pace. The action at times abruptly jumps from one thread to another, as if matching Yehia's torn loyalties between art and political action, but the tonal shifts only add another layer of richness to the passion Chahine has lavished on this film. It won the Special Jury Prize at Berlin in 1979 (Chahine's first major festival prize), and was followed by two other autobiographical films,An Egyptian StoryandAlexandria Again and Forever, which became known as theAlexandria Trilogy.--Sean Axmaker