I liked some of Youssef Chahine's other films, but this one is close to being an intergalactic stinker.
The acting performances are total garbage. Plot-wise, the editing makes the thing hard to follow as if they put random scenes together.
The directing is very inconsistent, sometimes it looks amazing, but what I remember most precisely is that the director has a tendency to break the 180-degree rule, he probably broke it 20 times.
Finally, most of the dialogues are flat, boring, useless. If it wasn't for the quite original homosexual subtext between a British soldier and an Egyptian, that film would get a 0/10 for the screenplay.
The directing is very inconsistent, sometimes it looks amazing, but what I remember most precisely is that the director has a tendency to break the 180-degree rule, he probably broke it 20 times.
Finally, most of the dialogues are flat, boring, useless. If it wasn't for the quite original homosexual subtext between a British soldier and an Egyptian, that film would get a 0/10 for the screenplay.