{"id":2462,"date":"2007-12-15T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2007-12-15T11:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/?p=2462"},"modified":"2007-12-15T11:58:07","modified_gmt":"2007-12-15T11:58:07","slug":"2007-12-15-creative-chaos-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/?p=2462","title":{"rendered":"Creative Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-src=\"v5\"><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u00c2\u00a0I just saw the movie that everyone is talking about in Cairo these days:\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1085799\/\">Heyya Fauda<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Chaos). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the latest by Youssef Chahine, but unlike a lot of his work lately, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eminently entertaining. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also very political. The film opens with actual footage of the many street protests and altercations between demonstrators and riot police that shook Cairo in the last few years. One of the main characters is a police officer who steals, bullies and tortures his way through the film. In one scene, the officer re-enacts a well-known joke about President Hosni Mubarak: he buys something and of course is told it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free for him, but he says no, he insists on paying. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How much is it?\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd The scared storekeeper says: \u00e2\u20ac\u015325 piasters for you, ya-basha\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd (a few American cents). To which the officer replies: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, no. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pound. Give me four.\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><o>\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The movie also has the almost obligatory allegory of Egypt as a victimized young woman, as well as explicit nods to (if not outright mentions of) the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s national party, the tension between the police and the judiciary, and what Chahine clearly views as the hypocrisy of the Muslim Brotherhood. It all ends with a cathartic scene in which a great throng of Egyptians attacks a police station. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as riveting as revenge fantasies generally tend to be. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><o>\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The movie has been predictably championed by the opposition press and criticized by state hacks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a masterpiece\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit has some pretty unconvincing moments\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut it has strong performances and great momentum. What I found most interesting is the way it manages to be a commercially successful thriller (the screening I saw was packed) with some substantive political content. I was genuinely surprised that some of this stuff made it past the censors. People laughed loudly at all the jokes about police prevarication, clapped at some moments of revolt, and by the end were calling for the odious police officer to off himself, already.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div data-src=\"v5\"><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u00c2\u00a0I just saw the movie that everyone is talking about in Cairo these days:\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1085799\/\">Heyya Fauda<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Chaos). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the latest by Youssef Chahine, but unlike a lot of his work lately, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eminently entertaining. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also very political. The film opens with actual footage of the many street protests and altercations between demonstrators and riot police that shook Cairo in the last few years. One of the main characters is a police officer who steals, bullies and tortures his way through the film. In one scene, the officer re-enacts a well-known joke about President Hosni Mubarak: he buys something and of course is told it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free for him, but he says no, he insists on paying. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How much is it?\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd The scared storekeeper says: \u00e2\u20ac\u015325 piasters for you, ya-basha\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd (a few American cents). To which the officer replies: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, no. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pound. Give me four.\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><o>\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The movie also has the almost obligatory allegory of Egypt as a victimized young woman, as well as explicit nods to (if not outright mentions of) the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s national party, the tension between the police and the judiciary, and what Chahine clearly views as the hypocrisy of the Muslim Brotherhood. It all ends with a cathartic scene in which a great throng of Egyptians attacks a police station. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as riveting as revenge fantasies generally tend to be. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><o>\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The movie has been predictably championed by the opposition press and criticized by state hacks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a masterpiece\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit has some pretty unconvincing moments\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut it has strong performances and great momentum. What I found most interesting is the way it manages to be a commercially successful thriller (the screening I saw was packed) with some substantive political content. I was genuinely surprised that some of this stuff made it past the censors. People laughed loudly at all the jokes about police prevarication, clapped at some moments of revolt, and by the end were calling for the odious police officer to off himself, already.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[102,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amrani.cc\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}