Alexandria...Why?
by Youssef Chahine
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ahmed Zaki, Ezzat El Alaili, Farid Shawqi, Mahmoud El-Meliguy, Naglaa FathyDirector: Youssef Chahine
Writer: Youssef Chahine
Producer: Abdel Hamid Daoud
Producer: Mahmoud Bakr
Producer: Mohamed El Gohari
Producer: Mohamed Hassan
Producer: Raouf Abdel Hadi
Writer: Mohsen Zayed
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Arabic (Original Language); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-08-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Fox Lorber
Movie Reviews of Alexandria...Why?
Movie Review: Alexandria... Why?
Summary: 5 Stars
Well actually the correct English translation should be "Why Alexandria.." This film depicts a time when the world seemed to pivot on one point , one place Alexandria, just prior to Rommell's last stand at Alamein. You could argue as Chahine the director has that our lives now are spin offs of that moment.He certainly was ,and I certainly am. I have a personal attachment to this film being one the extras in a scene at Victoria College. (I was a student there during filming.) The characters are real, Chahine's family,acquaintances and the diaspora from Alexandria that are now all over the world. He captures in this film the passive cynicism of the Egyptian who is watching history roll along, who is faced with a new life elswhere; with his final departure to America. This symbolizes a departure to the future , to a new way of living, different from the struggles of thousands of years of battles. A non violent existence eminating from a climactic battle in the empty desert. He also shows the all encompassing effect of Hollywood on world culture that still lives with us now, I respect Chahine for his passive cynicism of himself above all.
Summary of 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 Story and Alexandria Again and Forever, which became known as the Alexandria Trilogy. --Sean AxmakerSimilar DVD Movies
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