Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
TaryBiggBall
It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Griff Lees
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
Andres Salama
The movie starts with black-and-white stock footage of Rommel's desert advance towards Alexandria in World War II. Mohsen Mohieddin plays Yehia, Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's teenage alter ego, avidly daydreaming Hollywood musical comedies to block out family drama and wartime trauma. His extended family, always fighting for the most trivial causes, hangs on to a facade of elegance while living on top of a cabaret. The young protagonist performs Shakespeare at his English school and yearns working in Hollywood. He stages mock musical revues and arranges impudent skit shows. Meanwhile, in Alexandria, the approaching Nazis are viewed as a welcome change in oppressor, Egyptian nationalists hatch a silly plot to capture Churchill and British soldiers become the main article of contraband, trafficked among rebels for assassination potential. Mohieddin's rich uncle buys a young Brit (Gerry Sundquist) and falls in love with him. A Muslim Communist (Ahmed Zaki) and his Jewish girlfriend (famous Egyptian actress Naglaa Fathi) are more successful in bridging the various frantic tensions, even as her aged father prophesizes an increased American military presence in the region after the war to "protect the oil."Examining identity both personal and cultural, the filmmaker directs the final laugh at himself, as his eager alter-ego finally crosses the Atlantic to be greeted by a winking Statue of Liberty. Youssef Chahine's love for his hometown of Alexandria is as fervidly distinctive as Fellini's love for Rome. Comparisons to the oeuvre of the Alexandria- based Greek poet Constantin Cavafis are also profitable. Among the movie's weak spots: it's too long, and with its many plots, it is sometimes sloppy. Also Chahine had obviously a very low budget at his disposal, which shows. Perfidia, the Latin classic, is heard several times on the movie as a sort of leitmotif.
Allan Khaleel
I love this movie simply because every time i watch it, i can see myself, my life and my family in every scene. I can see my depression and my dreams, how hard it was to commence a dream and how much it took to start. I can see my parents waving. I can see my sister in Beirut while the war started and we try the best to get her out. I can see how my parents managed to save every penny to send me here to study what I want. I can see my poring job and my girl, my friends and how we became apart. In short this movie is all about me. My roots in Alexandria. I miss it very much. I have been here over two years now. But I am sure I will be back one day.
zetes
A dense, difficult, and, unfortunately, sloppy film from Egypt. It deals with a group of characters in Alexandria during (and shortly after) WWII, and is kind of a portrait of an artist type of story. The main character is a teenager, Yehia, an aspiring actor and filmmaker who knows that Alexandria will stifle his creativity if he doesn't get out. He strives to go to England or America. Then there are half a dozen other plotlines running concurrently. All of them are interesting, including a terrorist plot to kidnap Churchill and turn him over to the Nazis when they arrive in the city, a wealthy family that decides to move to Palestine and finds that the land is being occupied by the Jews, and a man who abducts British soldiers and kills them as an act of patriotism, that is until he befriends a particularly innocent-looking one. The movie jumps around breathlessly, and it's almost impossible to follow it completely. Still, there are so many moments of grace and beauty, so many good performances, that I did end up approving of it, if just a little. 7/10.
Johnny Vinther Jensen (prometheus-dk)
One cannot help but agree with the title of this film. Why indeed? Why spend more than two hours watching this mess of a film. The only reason I can think of that the Jury gave this movie the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, is that is is different from anything else at the festival. And it is, it is a refreshing view through the eyes of a moviemaker NOT from the west. Unfortunately Youssef Chahine is not up to the task. He has severe difficulty figuring out which story he wants to tell, there are many stories in this film that would make great movies in their own right, but the constant intermingling of them, which might have worked in the hands of a more experienced director, fails in this film. For the first hour you are thrilled with the movie. One of the many stories involves an Egyptian aristocrat who picks up young English soldiers and kills them, one of them however invokes his pity and he ends up falling in love with him. For the first part of the movie this story is well told and interesting, but in the second half it becomes obvious and cliché and the good beginnings are ruined. This is one of his early movies and, although I haven't seen any others, I firmly believe that his production has improved vastly with experience, but you should definitely not see this as your first movie by him.
