The Spat-on Messenger: Youssef Chahine in Conversation with Tom Luddy

Youssef Chahine

Bologna, June 2019. I spotted an Arab name on the badge of the hotel's night porter. When I asked, he turned out to be one—an Egyptian. I mentioned to him that Youssef Chahine's films would be playing in Bologna for the next few days. His face lit up. A floodgate of emotions, about Egypt, his past, and cinema opened, temporarily drowned him in nostalgia, passion and regret. He shared stories of Chahine, of his beloved Alexandria. He even cursed the extra who had forgotten to remove his wristwatch during the battle scene of Salah Eddin (a film about the Crusade, from the Arabs' point of view). According to him, by doing so he had prevented the film from entering the Oscar competition.

Very few directors can make that impact on their people, endowing them with a sense of pride and identity. Chahine's generosity with emotions is contagious. In reaction to a Chahine film, it is as legit to dance or holler as it is to write an essay. In Bologna the scholar and musician Amal Guermazi decided to sing, as her introduction to Al Ard.

Sometimes effortlessly Ophulsian (especially in the '70s, in the fluidity of his carousel-like narratives) and sometimes dialectically Chaplinesque, Chahine brought together the seemingly irreconcilable worlds existing in 20th-century Egypt and gave them a sense of harmony. There was a wise calmness about him. He had every reason to be angry, but instead he gave a sad smile which became the Chahine cinema.

Aligned with Pan-Arabic sentiments, he looked beyond Egypt, too. However, his Algeria-set Djamilah (1958) is nearly impossible to see in a cinema. Telling the story of the Algerian Independence War fighter Djamila Bouhired, it has been absent from recent Chahine retrospectives. It's an anti-French film, in exactly the same manner that hundreds of western films, including some French ones, have been anti-Arab. But it's more than just tit-for-tat—it is a celebration of change in the Arab world, done in the best of Hollywood traditions which Chahine adored. Find the film and show it!  (For the Chahine tribute at Il Cinema Ritrovato, we tracked down a print in Albania but the subtitles were so big, covering almost half the screen, in the process turning them into Godardian onscreen statements.)

Youssef Chahine, The Nile, The Soviets

Youssef Chahine

One of the six* Youssef Chahine films which will be screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2019 is one of its director's epic works from the 1960s and his first film conceived as a co-production between Egypt and the Soviet Union. I haven't mentioned the title of the film yet as it's exactly the reason I'm posting the translation of this interview with Chahine: the confusion about the title of the film.

The film in question is about Aswan Dam which was one of President Gamal Abdel Nasser's most ambitious projects. It was built with the help of Russians after Nasser was turned down by Americans. Chahine was assigned to make a film about it with a cast from both Egypt and Russia and scenes shot around the Nile, as well as in Moscow and Leningrad.

However, the film was banned upon completion and Chahine was asked to do another film on the same subject. The title of the second film which he directed but didn't like was Al-Nas va Al-Nil (People and the Nile, 1972). This film was distributed in Egypt and had some scenes in common with the "director's cut."

For years, that was the only version available until the original film was discovered in and restored by Cinémathèque Française. Chahine started calling his revived film Al-Nil va al-Hayat (Life and the Nile).

Poster for Al-Nas va al-Nil (originally shown in 70mm)

In Bologna, we will be screening the latter version that Chahine liked and approved on June 26, 11AM, Cine Jolly. However, note that the Arabic title of the film in the opening sequence is still Al-Nas va Al-Nil (People and the Nile) even if it is actually Al-Nil va al-Hayat! At this point, I still don't know why.

Back to the troubled history of making this Nile project, Chahine explained the genesis of the film and the problems he had in an interview with newspaper Al Hayat. I have used Google translator and my basic knowledge of Arabic to make this text available to you, as I believe the information given here is important in avoiding the confusion regarding the title of the film.