The film Yacoubian Building, which has been getting lots of publicity, has passed the Egyptian censor unscathed.
The film is based on the novel of the same title by Ala' al Aswani. As I said earlier about the novel, although it does criticized the government, it does not criticize the Islamists and it is homophobic. I haven't seen the film, but the fact that it did not disturb the censor, is a disturbing sign.
On a related note, Egypt decided to ban The Da Vinci Code film and book for fear it may offend and anger Egyptian Christians.
3 comments:
That book is just a ticket to stardom and fast cash to its author; Aswani, who is a dentist by occupation.
Not that I am denying the right for anyone who has got the gift of writing to make his voice heard, but personally I saw no creative writing in that book vulgarly soaked with sex, religion and politics.
It's all commercial.
So why wouldn't that "novel" be a best-seller?
And disregarding the directing and the scenario, why wouldn't a movie based on it be a hit?
How many arabs actually have READING listed in their hobbies anyway?
Those who do, won't be proud to have Yacoubian's Building on their book shelves.
i would disagree with amal on the last sentence:
"Those who do, won't be proud to have Yacoubian's Building on their book shelves. "
literature CAN be commercial and that may not lower its level.
Poello Choello is seen as a commercial writer by critics for instance.
The novel:
The novel is classical. It's not from the literature that tries to stand on the border between verse and prose, that is it doesn't have any poetry sense. that's not new in egyptian novels and u can refer to San3allah ibrahim's novels that are full of the three taboos u talked about.
About the film:
I saw the trailer. What I know that the director marwan hamed is a talented young director and was known from a short film called "lili" based on a novel by youssef idrees that talks about a relationship between a "Sheikh" and a beautiful seductive woman.
the fact that it has no problems with censorship authorities may be refered to Imad Adeeb's (the producer) large relationships with politicians inside the egyptian system. Note that imad eddeen adeeb was the responsible of the propaganda section of mobarak's presidency elections.
another reason is the money put in such a film (23 million egyptian jeneh). Nobody put such money randomly without being sure his work or product will be served in the way he WANTS!
a last thing on the film, i have read critic reports telling that it can be a good commercial film in the way that it talks about corruption in a vague way and mentioning a "big head" without showing it..
this film may return alot of money. this will help the egyptian cinema industry. always, any industry needs both things little and high value things. some times the little things (commercial) funds the other respectable high-valued things. life is not dark nor can be so bright..and by the way i have the book in my shelves.
;)
Amal and Hilal,
I believe the novel is pretty reactionary. This is my main problem with it. I don't mind if a novel is not written well, or if has sex, religion, and politics. It depends on what it does with them. What matters to me is the "cultural work" a book does. On the surface, the book is offering a superficial critique of Egyptian society. In fact, it really uses some of the typical motifs we grew up watching in Egyptian movies (and the novel is much indebeted to popular Egyptian films even at the level of technique). I mean all the characters are stereotypes: the poor pretty young woman, the exploitative merchant, the corrupt politician, the hypocritical Sheikh. He addes the Islamist and the homosexual, and what the book says about both is politically troubling, at least to me.
The book points out to corruption, but it remains vague. This explains why the book was not censored. There is a rape scene during the prison torture of one of the characters. I was surprised that this passed censorship (of course you can always blame it on bad rotten apples but I doubt this is the way the readers have been processing it).I'd be interested to see how the film handled that particular scene. I'd also be interested to see how the film represents the homosexual love scenes on the screen. Some of them were explicit in the book.
I think what Hilal says about Imad Adeeb's relations with the regime and the protection he secured for his film makes lots of sense and explains a lot.
Post a Comment