Middle Eastern Film Studies

Cairo Station Review Directed by Youssef Chahine 1958 ‧ Drama/Crime ‧ 1h 35m IMDB 7.7/10       Rotten Tomatoes 100%    My Rating  ★★★ Youssef Chahine's 1958 film Cairo Station is quite the experience from the start to finish of the fairly short runtime. The film is a quite dramatic character study on the odd Qinawi (played by Youssef Chahine himself) and his infatuation with a woman named Hannouma (played by Hind Rostom) who is simply not interested in him. Qinawi's intense passionate feelings towards Hannouma leads him towards a crazy pathway all happening within the chaotic setting of Cairo Station in Egypt. The movie begins with a narration introducing Qinawi and how he was a bit of a homeless strange man living in the station and starts the film off with a foreshadowing quote: "Poor Qinawi, how could anyone have forseen his end?" A very intriguing start for sure and one that grabs the audience right away and keeps us waiting to see this char

Promises Film Review  Directed by: Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg, Carlos Bolado 2001 ‧ Political cinema/Documentary ‧ 1h 46m IMDB     Rotten Tomatoes 8.4/10                      96% My Rating  ✰✰✰✰ ✰    "Promises" is a deep and intimate look into the lives of young Israeli and Palestinian children living during a relative time of peace from 1997-2000 in an effort to try to bring young people together and realize they aren't so different from one another. It is one of the most humanizing and powerful documentaries I think I've seen yet because it doesn't focus too much on the complicated specifics of the politics and war between Israeli and Palestinian people and more so just shows an individual look at the reality of being a child in this harsh environment. This documentary is simultaneously both very hopeful but also brutally realistic in demonstrating how change for the people in Israel/Palestine will not come about easily. The do

Where Do We Go Now? Film Review Directed by Nadine Labaki 2011 ‧ Drama/Comedy-drama ‧ 1h 50m IMDB         Rotten Tomatoes       Roger Ebert 7.5/10                        52%                     2.5/4 My Rating  ✰✰✰✰  "Where Do We go Now?" is a wonderfully clever film dealing with real tragedies about the religious violence and tensions between Muslims and Christians in an isolated village in Lebanon.  The village this film is set in is surrounded by land mines and only one pathway to travel out of the village as well as a graveyard of people killed in the religious violence between Christians and Muslims. This sets a bit of an uneasy atmosphere where the people of this village try to avoid the events from the past from occurring again and manage to peacefully coexist with one another. That is, until outside media comes into the town and propagates information about violence between different religious sects happening outside of the town which cau

Captain Abu Raed Film Review Directed by Amin Matalqa  2007 ‧ Drama ‧ 1h 50m IMDB            Rotten Tomatoes           Slant Magazine                                          7.2/10                     80%                            1.5/4 My Rating  ✰✰✰ Captain Abu Raed is a heart warming tale about an elderly man working a lower class job in an airport as a janitor and how he saves and inspires the life of a young troubled kid. The first half of the film felt rather slow but it built up the character of Abu Raed fairly well in a way where we are able to understand why he is the way he is and how his upsetting past shaped him and his reactions to the people around him. Abu Raed makes up stories for the children using an old air pilot's hat he found in the trash at the airport and makes up stories of his fake travels to entertain these children. One child saw through his fables and tried to expose Abu Raed for the liar that he is and makes a point of

Wadjda Film Review  Directed by Haifaa al-Mansour   2012 ‧ Drama/World cinema ‧ 1h 38m IMDB     Rotten Tomatoes    Metacritic  7.5/10             99%                    81%  My Rating  ✰✰✰ ✰ Haifaa al-Mansour's film Wadjda is a humble film about a young girl living in Saudi Arabia navigating several roadblocks in her quest to buy the bicycle of her dreams. A very simple plot but told from a perspective people in the West don't usually have access to. Sure we have plenty of "coming of age" films told from a perspective we recognize and can relate to but something very special about this film is how well it is able to make the viewer feel like they are part of the story. There are very few characters but I think this is a good thing since the writer can deeply develop the few characters they have instead of having too many characters at once but with little character development (a trend Western cinema has really gotten worse with recent

The Square Documentary Review  Directed by Jehane Noujaim       2013 ‧ Drama/History ‧ 1h 48m  IMDB          Rotten Tomatoes    Metacritic  8.1/10                100%                   84% My Rating  ✰✰✰✰ The Academy nominated documentary "The Square" is an absolutely harrowing and yet inspiring look into the demonstrations leading into the revolution happening in Tahrir Square from 2011-2013. The documentary follows a few of the activists who stayed in Tahrir Square until President Hosni Mubarak left and continues to follow their journey as the people of Egypt try to establish a different type of government rule. Unfortunately this divided the country into different sects or groups with their own specific interests in mind. This documentary more closely follows just two groups: the liberal youths and the Muslim Brotherhood. One group is clearly more in the spotlight and more sympathized with while the other was sort of shunned and looked down u