The first of four films in my random marathon retrospective on Egypt's greatest filmmaker is, for all simple intents and purposes, Youssef Chahine's 8 1/2 (with a bit of The Wall thrown in), as I begin, finding him already in meta-pensive, heightened-reality, cinema-guilt form. But where Fellini's doppleganger was simply out of ideas, Chahine's substitute, master director Yehia, is troubled by something far worse: selling out. He's worried that he's committed the worst sin a director can make, compromising his ideas, and so, after being put into surgery thanks to a stress-induced heart scare, he descends into his unconscious and is put on trial by the youthful embodiment of his conscience.
The trial, which comprises a good section of the film, is gloriously melodramatic, an amateur theater jump-off point to a grand descent into the history of Yehia, and the history of Egypt, as we are privy to, in flashback, experiences of sex, blood and history, presented as objective exhibits testifying both for and against the strength of his character as he faces himself, as he decides whether he deserves to continue on. We visit his life as a fresh-faced revolutionary, a desperate director, and above all, as a man. It's rare to see a director so thinly disguise his emotions and experiences on screen, and we get the feeling that Chahine does not exist in this world because Yehia does (in the most extreme example, Yehia is informed through gossip that he has won Best Actor for Cairo Station, a Chahine film known as his great masterpiece).
I've read that this is in fact a sequel to another film involving Yehia, and that it "assumes a level of familiarity with his work" (yes Adnanz, I saw your review because it's the spotlighted review on the film's page), which I think makes my reaction a testament to the talent Chahine possesses that I missed nearly every single reference to his other works, yet was still engrosses throughout the film's running time, and by the end, even though the ending was predictable and preordained, I still found myself invigorated and moved when it finally went ahead and occurred. I find a comparison from another world of cinema in Kevin Smith's Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, a film that assumes slavish memorization of all the films in his View Askewniverse to attain the complete experience, but still worked as a very entertaining comedy for people who came into the film wholly ignorant to the existence of Jay & Silent Bob. Along those parameters, I have a feeling I may revisit An Egyptian Story again in the future; once and if I am able to further educate myself in the output of Youssef Chahine, I imagine this film will prove even more rewarding than it already is, and for that, I can't wait.
{Grade: 8.5/10 (B+) / #6 (of 27) of 1982}
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