The sound of the song is particularly robust yet greatly sinister and this adds to all previously mentioned aspects of the film and the nature of it being ominous. December 2014, .

A cleric and his follower watch appalled as a line of young men and women jive through the station concourse: the … Cairo Station went on to achieve international recognition and it was screened at Cannes when Mr. Chahine received life achievement award at Cannes in 1998 [In 1951, Cannes invited Chahine to show his film ‘Nile Boy’].

The film opens with an excellent montage and voice-over proclaiming ‘Cairo Station as the heart of the capital’. The voice-over that serves as a prologue perfectly sets up the central character Qinawi (played by Youssef Chahine himself), his defeats and the irrepressible sexual frustration. The 1950s were one of the most turbulent decades in Egyptian history. The reputation of the film only grew and now it is the considered the ‘Citizen Kane’ of Egyptian cinema.

However, the film during its release didn’t fare well with critics and audiences. Qinawi is obsessed with plucky Hanouma and at few occasions he obscenely leers at her. The previously mentioned underlying themes are mostly reflected through the acting, location, sound and mise-en-scene of the sequence. ( Log Out /  In addition to this, the discomforting interior of the shed reflects negatively on Qinawi and this further exemplifies the previously mentioned sense of rapidity.

On the pictures there is a bottle cap, which indicates Hanouma (as mentioned she is a drink vendor) and his love for her, and that he is thinking of her as he looks at this picture. This film therefore could be considered rapidly paced.

In the next scene, Qinawi is in his shed and sticks pictures of a woman on his wall as he thinks of Hanouma and stares at it. He corners her and offers his own marriage proposal. Furthermore, the director’s approach to escalate tension by playing with light and darkness brings Fritz Lang (“M”, 1931 – an earlier examination of a disturbed individual) and Hitchcockian elements to the surface (obsession and voyeurism are the recurring themes in the works of Lang, Hitchcock and Michael Powell). Following this, Madbouli provides a newspaper selling job and shelter for Qinawi –. This relates to Michel Chion’s theory of value added sound in order to enrich an image and create an impression in the viewers mind. The day the narrative is set begins at 7.30 a.m. with a shot of group of middle-aged men, cloaked in business suits and traditional garb, waiting in line at the ticket counter. In this close-up, Madbouli denotes the young man as being “lame”. This particular film takes place over the course of a day, and outlines the story of Qinawi (played by Chahine)- a poor, somewhat pathetic and sexually repressed newspaper vendor in the heart of Cairo, Cairo Station (train station).

Within a few short minutes, Chahine achieves in showing viewers his then controversial realism, the major underlying themes and societal matters, as well as a sense of characters.

The audience was in shock at its release and was criticized harshly because of how negatively the film portrayed Egypt, since at that time nationalism was the common belief. Cairo Station (77 minutes) is a riveting character study which distinctly combines stark social realism with genre styles. The narrator is Madbouli, a genial elderly man who runs a newsstand in the station platform. Somehow, those entirely different styles co-exist to create an experience that’s incredibly captivating. By honing in on this realist depiction of sexual repression, Chahine may have been trying to outline the societal matter, as a whole. Once more, Chahine is presenting us with the rapidity of the setting, which in turn implies rapidity of the film as a whole. The melodramatic film is one which reflects upon aspects of poverty, obsession and sexual repression in a seemingly insignificant character in which the train station is the embodiment of Cairo. Perhaps, the movie maintains its classic status because of Chahine’s elegance in neatly pulling the broad and narrow perspectives; the layers pertaining to the study of individual and society never tries to reduce each other’s importance. This sense of rapidity would make sense because the movie as a whole takes place in only one day in which a multitude of events unfold. Hanuma has a fiancé, however this does not stop Qinawi from being overly enticed by essentially everything she does. The fact that there are a lot of people emphasizes the location being the “heart of the city”. This added value of sound enriches the excitement and lust that he feels towards Hanouma. He gives impassioned speech before the workers, hoping to pry them out from the dominance of corrupted old leader Abu Gamel. Due to this controversy it was banned in Egypt for over 20 years. ‘We will be very kind to our children’ he expresses to Hanouma. Mr. Chahine (1926-2008) directed 36 feature films between 1950 and 2007, and Cairo Station (his 11th movie and as some say it is ‘Chahine the auteur’s 1st film’) was acclaimed as his first great artistic breakthrough. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Among the other idiosyncratic episodes in the movie, the one which indirectly sets up the narrative course is the infamous news story about the discovery of woman’s torso in a trunk (with heads and limbs missing). Qinawi now works as newspaper vendor and dwells in a decrepit tin-shed that’s affixed with pictures of scantily clad women. The sequence being analyzed is a scene towards the beginning of the film. ( Log Out /  In one such jubilant, stylized scene, Hanouma raucously dances to the tune of a rock n roll group and even winks at the camera (or may be at the conservative audience group). The shot works to establish the setting in which the entire film takes place.

He is shot again in a close up with the Kuleshov effect staring at the picture with gleaming eyes as if he is hypnotized, and once again his lust is shown and intensified. We not only equate the relation between these two controlled shots, but also understand the course of action he is about to take. There’s a close-up shot of his face juxtaposed with the shot of railway track, slightly bobbing up and down as string of locomotive wheels move upon it. Though brief and simple, this sequence is significant and dense in the sense that it intensely portrays his sexual obsession and lust. The accelerating pace of mid-twentieth-century culture is evident everywhere in Cairo Station, and its impact on women is dramatic. In this particular scene, the viewer is introduced to the setting and main characters present throughout the film. It was rebellious and subversive in a sense that Cairo Station was realistic and tragic throughout and filmed in a rather grimy setting showing impoverished characters. The sounds that are heard are those inevitably linked with train stations of which include a steam horn and the sound of trains coming and going.

Before Cairo Station, the Egyptian film culture revolved around simple characters, jovial plots and was used solely for the purpose of entertainment. It was one part social commentary in the vein of Italian neorealism, one part lighthearted comedy, and one part psychosexual horror. What looks like a typical street vendor becomes very significant in this case. It conveys the broadened perspective of a society, striving to move forward while at the same time deep-rooted in poverty and social ills. Often a figure of derision, Qinawi keeps on receiving emotional and physical bruises. He is filmed using the Kuleshov effect when giving these creepy, perverted stares towards women throughout the film. This series of medium-shots is where the story begins to further develop. Conclusively, I would argue that this scene although brief, holds a lot of implications pertaining to the intention of the film.

He takes in poor Qinawi, whose limp is often a source of ridicule. It bended the genre convention, portraying poverty, sexual oppression, mental frustration, and social movements. Once again, Chahine conveys a grim sense of what it is like as a moreover impoverished citizen.

Abu Sery, the station’s alpha male who makes a living from carrying baggage, is trying to convince the other carriers to unite under a union to protect their interests. The movie itself was extremely significant for Egyptian cinema as director Youssef Chahine presented Egyptians with a type of film they had never experienced before. The solitude of the beautiful yet distressed damsel which lingers in the film’s final shot painfully echoes alongside the subjugation of Qinawi.

znscr.parentNode.insertBefore(zergnet, znscr); This shot acts as an embodiment of the city as a whole as the subtitle reads “heart of the city”. Through this we are visually able to see his mentally frustrated state.

This is where the emphasis would be on the fact that he is a “miserable” young man, and where the main character of the film is introduced to us. The Cairo station is framed as a place of motion and emotion with its occupants ranging from peddlers, beggars to police officers and rich, well-clad passengers. Although the mid or low-level shots of Chahine champions and empathetically regards the plight of the poor, he doesn’t tediously villainize the other social classes.

The frustration mentioned in addition to the mise-en-scene of this shed completely covered with cutouts points to specifically sexual frustration and obsession. To see such a pathetic character and base the entire film off of him would be another factor in making this film quite different than those preceding it in Egyptian cinema. Cairo bustled with life amidst numerous crisis and structural changes (at the same time international crisis sparkled when Mr. Nasser nationalized Suez Canal Company). The sadness in his eyes when he says those words suggests of toughest childhood Qinawi has experienced. The bucket is used throughout the film as a motif as a symbol of Hanouma. This in itself, with the addition of the look of the Madbouli, creates an image of the social class represented in the film and seems to negatively connote it. In this transforming backdrop, directors like Yousseh Chahine were set to transcend the rigid boundaries of national cinema. We are able to get a pretty good look of what Qinawi’s home looks like in this scene. Cairo Station (77 minutes) is a riveting character study which distinctly combines stark social realism with genre styles. Cairo Station was entirely different from the typical melodrama films that were produced at that time. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. In the next scene, Qinawi goes to his shed full of women’s pictures and tacks pictures of a woman on his wall. While the late 1950s Egyptian movie-goers were appalled over the distressing resolution and the frank exploration of psychosexual behavior, the foreign critics of the time belittled it for the hybridized film-form (confirming neither to neo-realist standards nor melodrama). His plan fails and in the end is dragged away in a straitjacket to an asylum. As Madbouli senses a troubled atmosphere he states that he thinks Qinawi is “frustrated” and the more frustrated he gets, the more obsessed he becomes. The sequence being analyzed is the opening sequence from minute 0:00 – 4:00.


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