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Reviews
Malcolm X (1992)
One man and Islam's role against racism... America as we know it today!
It's a biography showing how an Afro American subjected to ultimate discrimination was initially saved from the world of crime and prejudice by a "missinterpreted" Islam and became a leader to which a "Nation of Islam" was grown and a new perspective and respect gained to those once oppressed people.. However, this version of him was mislead into believing that prophet Muhammed (PBUH) was actually guiding him - resurrected from death and living amongst them as a black man. Consequently, all his charisma was directed against the whites believing that Islam came to empower blacks and that Allah's prophet was black and that it was time for them to rise after 400 years of suppression. His followers increased by time and his word became highly credible and this caused envy and divisions within this "Nation of Islam" where the so-claimed Muhamed started tensing things up with him after once appointing him to be his voice to the people. It was then that Malcolm started doubting the beliefs he taught and that this man to whom he was ready to sacrifice himself was no more than a hypocrite; therefore, he split from the group, publicly announcing his independence as a leader and his formulating an Islamic group of his own to which he would lead after fulfilling his pilgrimage duties. Nonetheless, his trip to Mecca was the actual light that lit his path back from where he was deviating. Once back at America, his preaches took a different direction and he started preaching of equality rather than supremacy, and it was then that he proclaimed his errors and tried to call for real peace. Unfortunately, it was too late.. The diversities within what was once one group calling for their rights to breathe the same air were exploded with the intrusion of power and the fight over the spotlight. Malcolm's verdict was now defined and he was assassinated in front of his family in one of his preaches in New York. However, his death that day was the birth of hope; it was a significance of how one man could rise from the dumps and choose to fall and meet his death so that others could forever value their gift of life and to search for truth rather than live blind folded under others' rules.
Heya fawda (2007)
Passion, Politics, and Suspense.. A living drama of the Egyptian Society...
With the combined power of Youssef Chahine's fearless guts, and Khaled Youssef's spectacular narrative style, "Heya Fawda" can only be perceived as a cinematic up-boost to Egyptian Cinema. Both directors reveal their touches in this socio-political story, by addressing wide-spread concerns in Egyptian society, yet through a moving drama, manipulated by a story-line that contradicts the pessimistic perception of Egyptians as passive and manipulated by the dominance of corruption and oppression.
The plot takes us through the different desires of life, starting from power and self-fulfillment, to love and its different forms ranging from the innocence of virginity, to the sadistic extreme of possession. Nonetheless, it contemplates the definition of a villain by arousing paradox feelings in regards to societal and psychological changes driven by one's background, loss, and deprivations, and the justification to those ends. The film portrays society in its turning points... From a psychoanalytical retrospect, Hatem, resembling Darwin's child who lives their entire life oppressed by the fear of castration and is driven by his lust for such needs until they erode even the purest of his sentiments, pushing him into society's greatest evils. However, the political implications of Hatem's character run beyond that to reveal the part of society that is reluctant to change; that by which the darkness of capitalism have disrupted forever and turned everything in it into "chaos". On the other hand, Nour and Cherif's characters reveal the future, or the dream of one... They both live the nightmare and are poisoned by the same water, yet they rise upon that and raise their voices higher than the pollution eating up the hopes of an improved tomorrow... Even when they're at their utmost break, they find a way to fight the havoc and see a glimpse of justice and light to the fatal incidents that dominate their lives, or in the bigger picture, society.
There is no doubt that Chahine and Youssef's merging together, brings out the best in them. "Heya Fawda" is one of the few Arabic movies that are reluctant to the melodramatic exaggerations, which turn the film into an obnoxious experience that offends the viewers' intelligence; nonetheless, the deep metaphors give a further meaning to this multi-genre movie making it almost complete. The film is rather a documentary encapsulating passion, suspense, politics, drama, and psychoanalysis in a few hours; it is simply the "Egyptian Society" uncovered.