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Black-and-white documentary glimpses of Rommel's desert campaign alternate with Esther Williams' Technicolor pirouettes for the razzmatazz introduction—Teutonic forces proclaim "Alexandria, you're mine," but the city is Youssef Chahine's from the beginning, as fervidly distinctive as Fellini's Rome. The teenage stand-in (Mohsen Mohieddin) performs Shakespeare and yearns for Hollywood, stages mock-glamorous musicals and arranges cheeky revues. His family hangs on to a veneer of respectability while living above a rowdy cabaret, "elegant, but with our furniture in the street." Joys and failures of the burgeoning artist, just one strand in a mosaic of saturated passions, a raucous burlesque punctuated by curfews and blackouts. The approaching Nazis are viewed by as a welcome change in oppressors ("Hitler will turn you into belly-dancers!" a local bellows at the British), bumbling guerrilla fighters occupy themselves with a scheme to sink Churchill's submarine and use foreign prisoners as contraband. Forbidden couples brought together and torn apart: The Pasha's brother (Ahmed Mehrez) purchases a callow Brit (Gerry Sundquist) for patriotic execution but falls in love with him instead, the Muslim communist (Ahmed Zaki) and his Jewish beloved (Naglaa Fathi) deliver newborn hope in the face of prison and exile. (Her father moves to Palestine and preditcs an American presence eager "to protect the oil.") An air raid kills the lights, the camera follows the patriarch (Mahmoud Al Meleji) in the darkened living room and contemplates the animated searchlights slicing across the sky, Chahine's pop diorama of memory. Braiding national and personal identity, the cinéaste directs the last laugh at himself, the crossing of the sea greeted by Lady Liberty, painted and chortling. With Farid Shawqi, Mohsena Tawfik, Ezzat El Alaili, Layla Fawzi, Seif Abdelrahman, Youssef Wahbi, and Yehia Chahine.
--- Fernando F. Croce |