Middle Eastern Film Studies

The Syrian Bride Review  2004 ‧ Drama/Political drama ‧ 1h 37m IMDB  7.4/10             Rotten Tomatoes 88%            Roger Ebert 3/5 My Rating  ★★  The Syrian Bride (directed by Eran Riklis) is a drama about the plights of a family navigating bureaucratic troubles in order to marry their daughter Mona to a television comedian Tallel from Syria. In order to marry him she will not be able to return to her homeland of Israel and is very troubled by the thought of leaving her family behind. There are a lot of other subplots within the family members like Tallel's brother who married a Russian woman and because of this he is not on good terms with his family and also the story of the sister of the bride and how she wants to go back to school but her husband won't let her. These side plots are a bit confusing and don't really add much at all to the main story as they intertwine togethe...

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 ...