Friday March 29th, 2024
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7 Ways Egyptian Cinema Has Changed Over the Years

Egyptians films have been integral to our culture for the past century, but is quantity winning over quality?

Staff Writer

We don’t mean to sound overly nostalgic, but there is a good reason such nostalgia exists in respect to Egyptian cinema. Just think of how much we continue to reminisce on the Golden Era of Egyptian film throughout the decades, as we find ourselves being pushed through the far-less-valuable-than-gold Sobky era. It's not that all films today are horrible, but there's definitely something to be said about the deterioration of quality over the years. Now it's that time of year again where you have to sit through a million and one commercials and end up forgetting the entire storyline of your mosalsal, and if that isn’t bad enough, in the past week we had to deal with trailers for aflam el Eid.  

It’s fair to say that some contemporary films are valued cinematic masterpieces; 3omaret Yacoubian is one, and let’s not forget when the era of aflam el shabab started – like Se3eedi fel Gam3a el Amrekeyya. Today, when a great film comes out, it just feels like it's the intelligent, nice, and beautiful sister who is somehow overshadowed by her airheaded, loud, and ugly sister. That's just one glimpse at how the general culture of films as artistic pieces and the act of moviegoing has changed over the decades. How else has it changed? We take a look at seven ways in which cinema has changed from then to now. And no, this is not your grandma writing this.

Stories

Say what you want about the cheesy lines in old movies, and Emad Hamdi’s ‘mesa2 el kheir ya neina’ line, but they're a far cry from this era of unknown talentless storytellers who all use the same cookbook for the recipe of every film: 2alsh, jokes that spew a reaction equivalent to ‘lol’ when you have nothing to say, and dialogue that makes you wonder if the Egyptian language went through a system update when you overslept the other day.

Back in the day, we used to have world-renowned novelists being the original storytellers - and that shows you the type of quality; Naguib Mahfouz who talked and criticised politics and society and Ehsan Abdelquddus, who focused on women’s emotions and feelings and everyday life. You'll notice, though, that the rare gems that come out of contemporary Egyptian cinema are often based on literary novels and not originally written as movie scripts.

Directors

Can you name the directors behind some of your favourite black and white films? We sure as hell can: Ali Badrakhan, Helmi Rafla, Niyazi Mustafa, Youssef Chahine, Fateen Abdelwahhab… Now, can you name more than one of today's talented directors, particularly one who is making a Eid movie? We may need more time than a mosalsal commercial break to remember this one. Memorable movies made you want to know who the director was so you can watch more of their stuff; now we can barely even think of one.

Actors

Okay, can we agree on one thing? Black and white is a great visual effect on images (moving and still) and it probably made people more beautiful, but did it also make them more talented and committed? Today, actors treat acting as just a job, whereas actors back then treated acting as a career that is in constant need of development and progression. It wasn’t about how much they’re paid per job; it was about how much it paid and served their career as a whole, so they put a lot more soul in it. It shows.

Posters

Ever notice how old film posters usually involve just two of the actors, or maybe even one? It was usually just the main character that was used to sell the film as a whole. Today, all the actors are in the poster, and the main character gets to bring bent okhto into it, too. Seriously, while teamwork is praiseworthy, this actually shows the lack of teamwork involved when actors feel the need to appear and make themselves seen in the poster rather than just be part of the movie. If you don’t show up in the poster, it’s worse than not showing up in the film. Plus, these new posters are nothing more than poor Photoshop.

Theatres

If you hate someone who is claustrophobic, throw them in a movie theatre on the first day of Eid. Okay, el lamma 7elwa - but el khan2a isn’t! Today, Egyptian theatres are crowded and you may hear more about people’s life stories than the actual story of the film. It’s great that everyone can afford going to the movies, but what’s not great is the culture that has come around it. Movie theatres should be treated like a sanctuary for those who worship films. Back then, it is estimated that there were 300+ movie theatres and, today, we have just over 100. Not sure why, but what we do know is that back then we also had different types of cinemas: open air, regular, and class cinemas. Heliopolis kids went to open air cinemas, and the working class went to the third class ‘terso’ cinema. Okay, wait, it’s not as classist as it sounds. It was so that everyone can enjoy films, so actually while names like Terso sounds classist, it was actually doing the opposite – it was to include the working class in the art scene just as much as everyone else. And guess whose movies were always there? The King of Terso: Farid Shawki; one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screens for decades was the working class hero. We can agree, though, that you have some actors like Mohammed Ramadan today who have managed to win the hearts of many men in this country - but let’s all sit in peace and enjoy the film, shall we?

Soundtracks

Music is a reflection of what the people want to hear; fair enough. If they want to hear mahraganaat, we’re all for that. But now music is used as a way to fill in the gaps and elongate the duration of the film as opposed to complement the actual story. This is a film; if you include music, you need to have a purpose for it like everything else in the film. Back then, you had the Cinderella Soad Hosni’s songs attracting audience as a gimmick but also working within the context of the film. Do we need to remind you of Abdelhalim? El 7ob kollo wel mo7n kollo, yes. But the music worked so well within the context that we begin imagining our own love stories within its words. Embarrassing, but that’s how well it worked.

Value

Do we really need to explain this? This is not about moral values, but the value upon which a movie's success is based. The majority of films now are incredibly concerned with how much they make at the box office as a measure of success, as opposed to way back when it was a factor but not the standard upon which a film's success is based. It was actually about how much the film stuck with you – like Ismail Yassine's series, or how many people came out of it smiling, and how many people named their kids after the characters or the actors. Yes, we can confirm that any middle-aged Enji, Laila, Nadia, and Mona probably got her name when her mom swore by it after a day out at the movies and drooling over Roshdy Abaza.