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Berlin
The 74th Berlin International Film Festival will take place from Feb 15 - 25, 2024 / EFM : Feb 15-21
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Alex Deleon reviews the Youssef Chahine Retrospective in Berlin
Hend Rostom and Youssef Chahine as Qenawi in "Cairo Station" By Alex Deleon Youssef Chahine (1926-2008) was the leading Egyptian film director all through the second half of Twentieth Century active in the industry from 1950 until his death. He was the only Egyptian filmmaker to achieve international recognition with films at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Moscow and received a lifetime achievement award at Cannes in 1997. He wrote most of his own scripts and was a competent actor appearing in four of his own films. Altogether Chahine was the auteur of about forty films 21 of which have been on view at the Arsenal cinema all through the month of March in a rare retrospective entitled "Youssef Chahine, Again and Forever. The Arsenal Cinema which is a central venue of the Berlin Film Festival is a kind of German Cinematheque and continues to screen unusual film series such as this throughout the year providing Berliners with what amounts to a year-round film festival. I was able to view five of the Chahine films, a limited but enlightening sampling of his career. Most were 35mm prints with English subtitles. Brief notes follow.
This is an early film showcasing the vocal talent of the famous singer Leila Mourad who plays a double role as the heroine snd then her aging mother. This is pure melodrama from Chahine's early period when he had not yet hit his stride but nevertheless shows flashes of the brilliance to come. The famous singer is believed to have been killed in a train wreck early in the film but survives and is cared for by some peasants who nurse her back to health. Meanwhile her nefarious husband who has embezzled a large sum from his company to pay off gambling debts cashes in on her life insurance. When he finds that she is still alive he is appalled and has to hide her to keep from being exposed and ruined. She goes along with this deception for a while but finally the separation from her beloved little girl is too much and she threatens to expose the husband's criminal activity. He flees the country taking the little girl with him, thus setting the scene for part 2 in which the child has grown up and is the spitting image of her long lost mother. (Again actress Leila Mourad). Leila will reappear now as an old lady in white hair, but is not recognized until the final melodramatic confrontation and reunion with her daughter. Kind of fun with an incredibly intricate plot of the kind Chahine would handle later with much better control.
Personal Quote: I am young. I am only 81 years old. I hope I can keep working for another 10 years. Old age is to let oneself become old.
25.03.2019 | Berlin's blog Cat. : FILM
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Berlin 2019: The dailies from the Berlin Film Festival brought to you by our team of festival ambassadors. Vanessa McMahon, Alex Deleon, Laurie Gordon, Lindsay Bellinger and Bruno Chatelin...
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