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قال لي والدي ألا انظر

أول ذكرياتي عن القبل كانت لفاتن حمامه و هي مستلقيه علي صدر عمر الشريف الدامي بعد ان مزقت فستانها لتربط جراحه، فتكرر اسمه و قبل ان تلمس فاتن شفاها بوجه الشريف يقول ابي “لا تنظري!”

ما دلالة القبله عند المصريين؟ أهي بداية حب جميل ام بداية عمل فاضح؟ أول قبله سبقت صراع في الوادي بثلاثين عاماً تقريباً في قبله في الصحراء(١٩٢٧)، و أتخيل ان ردود فعل المصريين لهذا الفيلم تشبه ما حدث عقب إصدار فيلم The Kiss/القبله(١٨٩٦): فيلم قصير من إنتاج ثوماس إديسون مدته ٤٧ ثانيه منهم ٢٠ ثانيه يقبل فيهم چون راميس شفاه ماي ايروين.

الذي تسبب في الضجة و الاضطراب حيثما عُرض، فطالب الأهالي بوقف العروض و إدانة من بداخل السينما بالأفعال الفاضحه. و لكن لانت قلوبهم تدريجياً حتي وصلت القبله في مطلع العشرينيات الي رمز رومانسي لتمرد الشباب علي الزواج المدبر التقليدي ليبدأ عهد الإخيار.

و كذلك في مصر خاصةً بعد إنقلاب ٥٢ الذي جاء و معه ثوره فنيه لم تسبق، فلم يخلو فيلم لشاديه من القبلات و أمام كل أغنيه كتبها عبد الحليم في حبه لناصر كتب عشرون في الهوي و أهل الهوي. و كانت القبلات من النوع المرهف الرومانسي التي كانت تجعل المشاهد يتعاطف مع هذه الشخصيات حتي لو كانت القبله بين زوجه و عشيقها.

و بحلول الستينات التي شهدت زواج شاديه من صلاح ذو الفقار، قران اثمر بخمس أعمال مذهله تبدأ بفيلم أغلي من حياتي(١٩٦٥) و تنتهي بشئ من الخوف(١٩٦٩)، يضيفون شاديه و ذو الفقار قبله من نوع جديد الي الشاشه: قبلة بعد الزواج. لم تخلو أفلامهم -خاصةً فيلم مراتي مدير عام(١٩٦٦) و فيلم عفريت مراتي(١٩٦٨)- من هذه القبله المحبة التي كانت رمز الإخلاص و الحب في علاقتهم علي أرض الواقع، قبله لا علاقة لها بالتمرد، تعطي أمل لما يحل بالزوجان اللاذي تزوجا عن حب و إقتناع.

و لكن لماذا لا يريدني ابي ان اري القبله؟ الم يحب هو الآخر؟ اجابة السؤال الثان ليست بلغز، قصص أصحابه القدامي عنه و عن ‘أيام زمان’ لم تترك لخيالي مساحه كبيره للتخيل و التساؤل، أما السؤال الأول فإجابته تبدأ في منتصف السبعينات.

مع فجر السبعينات تتحول القبله الي اداه لشد الانتباه و رمز الاستسلام للغرائز الحيوانيه، فتظهر ميرفت أمين عاريه في أعظم طفل فى العالم(١٩٧٢) و تقبل محمود يسين بحراره في أنف و ثلاث عيون، ثم فى ثمانينات وتسعينيات القرن الماضى احتلت النجمة نادية الجندى قائمة الفنانات الأكثر إثارة، و بتلك الثورة الجنسيه تتحول القبله من لحظة تقبل و لهفه مشتركه الا منظر إدانه و إشمئزاز.

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Mrati Mudir Aam (1966)

How do you change somebody’s mind regarding an issue? You make them laugh at themselves. You make them see how ridiculous their disposition really is while being very careful not to offend their sensitive egos. So how can you apply that to a heavy problem like misogyny? Being misogynistic is the most illogical thing one could possibly be: it is irrational to think half the population is less deserving of pay when they’re doing the exact same amount of work and it is ludicrous to blame a victim of assault for the way they chose to dress. How do you then get it through the thick skulls of a traditional audience without calling them morons? You simply represent it as a light-hearted yet reprimanding joke placed in the mouths of adored actors at the height of their fame. I think that’s exactly what the creators of Mrati Mudir Aam (1966), starring Shadia and Salah Zulfakar, did. The movie starts in an unusual part of a love story, the lovers are already married and still extremely happy despite the fact that they’ve been married for years with the wife being newly promoted to general manager and soon enough we realize that she will now be her husband’s superior. After the initial comedic reactions from the other workers when they realize their new boss is a woman that range from religious fury to casual cynical sexism, they all meet her for the first time including her husband who wasn’t aware that she was positioned in the same facility that he works in. He is understandably shaken by this disruption to their lives and asks her if they could keep their marriage a secret from their colleagues and what follows are a series of situations the couple are put through where this complication tests their relationship. The movie meticulously deals with several issues all at once, it shows all the different reasons for which a person could be sexist, shows a woman excelling in a leadership role despite the ridiculous situations she’s put in for being female. It candidly displays the effects of the power imbalance produced by a similar situation on a relationship. It‘s also a guide for what a healthy modern relationship should look like, with no gendered stereotypes (where the woman happens to be far more ambitious than the man) and a mutual respect that never wavers. The relationship in this movie is built on equality, it shines through every aspect of their shared lives, the end scene is quite literally both of them pushing their broken-down car down the road and neither have to put in more effort than the other to sustain it. The dynamics are truthful to that of a real relationship with its ups and downs where both parties try their hardest to pursue their own dreams while keeping the other happy. The romance, always alive between them regardless of how many years have passed since they first met, is represented in how gently they treat one another more than through grand gestures of affection.

There are many reasons why this movie is fairly different than anything else that was made in the same period, but i think it was the first to deliver feminism to its audience without them knowing. The first time our protagonist enters her new office she is greeted with an eager secretary dismissing her as a helpless young woman in need of assistance, not giving her a beat to explain that she’s his new boss till she assertively informs him of her identity and as we laugh at his dumbfounded expression we also celebrate her first victory. These kinds of compound feelings play on the subconscious, you automatically root for the underdog and want her to prove every employee who underestimates her wrong so you feel warmth when at the end they react to her departure from her position with tears. When the iconic Abu Elkheir character shows his two faces, the sexist who thinks women “lack in mind and faith” and the brownnoser who tells her she’s the best employer he’s ever had, the hilarious exaggeration of the hypocrite makes you wary of those kinds of people.

A running gag is one of her younger employees reading a sociological book about how to treat women and decides to test the book’s theories on her aiming for a promotion, when he tries the ‘dominant’ technique he is met with fury and is sent to the disciplinary board, cowering away he curses the book’s author who we find out is also a man. The movie even points out the absurdity of jumping to conclusions in a scene where her husband is stuck on the bus and overhears a few men scoff at a woman in a car assuming it’s her husband’s and that he lent it to her to go get the groceries when in fact it was actually our heroine in the office car. In a comedic sense these scenes are a treasure, not only are they subtle nods and prods at our flawed society but most importantly, at their core, they ridicule these practices.

The climax of this trope comes in one of my favorite scenes of all time: A dinner party is held in our boss-lady’s honor and accordingly she takes her husband with her but while she sits with the governor and all the other managers who are mostly men, discussing the proper conduct of a true patriotic communist, he is stuck with their wives chatting away about fashion and food. The wives are keen on his opinions and try to include him as much as possible in their discussions, but when he’s asked about his take on breastfeeding alternatives and he replies: “.. the mother that doesn’t breastfeed doesn’t deserve to give birth”, they immediately ask him if he’s ever given birth before. This joke is the original No Uterus, No Opinion.

These kinds of movies are as important as drama pieces that portray women struggling against patriarchal societies in a tragic light. While the latter sometimes have the power to change judicial laws, the former play on the general public’s subconscious, normalizing the kind of extreme progressive practices shown on screen. This particular movie was made at the height of the Shadia craze, she was starring in as many as 5 movies a year, and it came out following another iconic movie with her costar Zulfakar: Aghla Min Hayaty (1965) that was an intense romantic drama that captured Cairo’s heart so Mirati Mudir Aam was a phenomenal hit. Shadia was the symbol of romance in Egypt for well over two decades so having this movie under her belt is a win in my books. You can rarely find movies made in the last few decades that take such a blasé attitude towards feminism. One example that comes to mind is the now barely-recognized Bebo W Beshir(2011). And what a waste? Our culture is saturated with icons and our society filled with diverse stories to fill libraries. Every once in a while though, great young minds come together to create something that’s never been done before like the extraordinary Ext. Night that was released earlier this year. When I saw this movie in the theatre (it was left in cinemas for all of 3 seconds), I felt hope.