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Week15 of ArabCinema

Our group project was a success and I am proud of my group colleagues for having done great research and having done a great presentation. It was interesting learning about every country that was mentioned and how each had their own respective history that affected their cinema. This has been a very interesting course for me and I look forward to writing my final paper reflecting on my perception of Arab cinema before and after having taken this class. 

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Week14 of ArabCinema

This week my group and I began working on our presentation for Iraqi Cinema. The four of us split the lecture into different parts, with me researching how Iraqi cinema came to a halt during Saddam Hussein’s rule. It was interesting to learn just how involved Saddam and the government were with making films.

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Week13 of ArabCinema

Unfortunately our class did not meet this week, however, that did not stop us discussing with our groups about our project. My group in particular will be exploring Iraqi cinema, which unfortunately does not have as many films as the other Arab countries due to historical reasons. And yet, this solidarity is why Iraqi cinema is unique and will make for an interesting topic to share with the class.

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Week12 of ArabCinema

We moved on to the more distinct Arab countries of North Africa this week - Tunisia and Algeria. It was interesting to me to learn that these two were former French colonies and as a result have similar upbringings. I was also amazed to learn that Algeria was not only the largest country in the Arab world, but also in the entire African continent as well as the Mediterranean region. Probably the most important thing we learned today was how much influence the French had on these two countries, such as French affecting their dialects.

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Week11 of ArabCinema

This week we began learning more about the Arab world, more specifically the Levantine region. We began learning about how film in Syria and Jordan came to be and how the history of cinema in those countries contrasted Egypt and Lebanon. It was fascinated to learn how many Syrian actors fled to Egypt for better job opportunities while still representing Syria.

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Week10 of ArabCinema

This week our class viewed the critically acclaimed 2005 Palestinian film “Paradise Now”, directed by dual citizen of Palestine and Israel Hany Abu-Assad. This film sheds light on Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. It bares resemblance to the western film released around that time, “Letters from Iwo Jima.” Like the western film, Paradise Now doesn’t portray both sides in a black-and-white view and instead displays society as being more morally grey. While the Palestinians live oppressed, not all despise Israel enough to agree to terrorizing the nation. 

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Week9 of ArabCinema

‘Where Do We Go Now?”(2012) was the Lebanese film screened this week in our class. At first I found myself lost in this movie as it appeared to be about the general lives of a Lebanese village. By the end of the film, however, the story became clear to me: the message was ultimately about preserving peace and love within the community. When the son of a Christian mother gets killed in a crossfire near the end, she does her best to hide the tragedy in order to prevent more violence and death. This was definitely one of the best films we have watched so far.

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Week8 of ArabCinema

Youssef Chahine returns to our course once more this week with his 1979 film “Alexandria why?” So far this movie has been very interesting as it compares and contrasts to his previous film “Cairo Station”. Like that movie, this movie features many different characters with different storylines. However, Cairo Station is definitely the more focused film and in my opinion the better edited film. The transitions in Alexandria Why? are very harsh jump cuts that I wasn’t a fan of.

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Week7 of ArabCinema

This bulk of this week was watching our first Lebanese film, “Caramel”(2007), which was about a woman and her friends whom work in a salon. The other subplot in this movie was of a sewing woman who lives with her elderly mother and develops an attraction to a frequent customer. Overall I enjoyed this movie more than ‘The Yacoubian building’ as it was more light-hearted and emotional.

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Week6 of ArabCinema

This week we concluded the 2006 Egyptian film we started the prior week, “The Yacoubian Building”. It bared some resemblance to “Cairo Station” in that it takes place in one setting yet includes many characters with different lives. During the latter part of this week we began to learn about cinema in Lebanon and how it compared and contrasted to Egyptian Cinema. 

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Week5 of ArabCinema

The premise of this week was exploring Egyptian cinema even further. On Tuesday we had an Egyptian director visit our class and tell us about his experience in filmmaking. It was a fun experience to see other students ask him questions concerning what we’ve discussed in our class as well, such as how politics has had a heavy role with Arab films. Then on Thursday we begin to screen the film “Yacoubian Building” which seems to be about different personal situations occurring in a specific building. 

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Week4 of ArabCinema

This week we watched the 1958 film ‘Cairo Station’ directed by Youssef Chahine. This was a very intense drama that almost reminded me of the style of Andy Warhol. For example, the extreme close ups of the character’s faces to emphasize their mood. I did some further research on the film and was surprised to learn that the main character, Qinawi, was played by Youssef himself. Overall this was a great first-hand introduction to Arab film for me.

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Week3 of ArabCinema

This week I learned many more aspects of Arab cinema. It was very interesting to learn how much power cinemas had to the point that films even affected society and politics. An example of this was the 1975 Egyptian film ‘I need a Solution’, which dealt with with women’s issues such as the right to divorce and even contributed to changes of laws. I was also surprised to learn how much censorship productions faced under Nasser and his successors so as to not paint Egyptian culture in a bad way. 

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Week2 of ArabCinema

This weeks two lectures introduced opened my eyes to the importance of music and female figures in Arab Cinema. I was surprised to learn how early on into the introduction of cinema in the Arab world women became major figures and even directors such as Aziza Amir, who starred in the first feature film ‘Layla’ and came to be considered the mother of Egyptian cinema. It was also interesting to learn about the four greats of Egyptian music: Mohammed Wahab, Om Kaithoum, Abdel Hafez and Farid Al Atrach. 

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Intro to Arab Cinema

During my first week of ‘Cinema of the Arab world’ I was fascinated to learn many new things. In our first two classes, we learned a little about the history of cinema in the Arab world and how each country was affected differently from one another during the introduction of film. I was surprised to learn that Egypt is the most significant Arab country in regards to film as well as learning how diverse the Arab world is, geographically and racially. It was also interesting learning how European colonialism heavily affected the development of certain Arabic countries during the rise of cinema.