Nasser '56 -- plus

If you liked Nasser '56, you'll love Anwar Al-Qawadri's Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Though it lacks the Nasser '56 "suspense element", it does not restrict itself to one year of the late president's career but, rather, runs the entire event gamut of 1935-1970, features more historical figures and it's in colour. Definitely better value for money.

If, however, you did not like Nasser '56, but still insist on seeing Gamal Abdel-Nasser, thinking "camp" may ease your way through. Though the director may not have had Warren Beatty's transposition of the comic strip Dick Tracy on to the screen on his mind when making this film, having purchased his/her ticket, it will not hurt the film viewer to think in comic-strip-become-feature-film terms.

The setting was mostly antiseptic somewhere anywhere. Spanking clean interiors; London signified by the tolling of Big Ben; Israel by its flag; the countryside by a colourfully clad fellaha on a donkey and, more specifically, Upper Egypt by tahtib dancers; home by pyjamas; long ago by vintage cars -- and by sporadic documentary footage.

Who needs dramatic structure and pace in the age of music videos? Cut and paste is the name of the game, all the better if you have high-tech equipment with which to play. Old fashioned editing notions that would serve narrative progression are discarded in favour of faintly post-modern "assemblage". Cut from Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion (the latter, the "voice of reason" in the film) strolling through a garden discussing Nasser's foreign policy, to Nasser at his desk reading his Philosophy of the Revolution, from Abdel-Hakim Amer's betrayed visage to the pyramids, from phone call to phone call, interior to interior. It was all a bit MTV. Where a chunk of history is the subject matter of the story being told, best, so it seems, to abandon the strenuous notion of "climax", which, in turn, presupposes a beginning, middle and end, and let events speak for themselves. They might, in a film like this one, speak so quickly that -- before you can say "Dick Tracy" -- 1967 has come and gone. But that's life. Time flies. And history? It is, as Ford and satellite television news after him would tell us, "one damn thing after another." If, however, you still insist on climax, you will, if you look very carefully, find one in Gamal Abdel-Nasser: Nasser '56 in three succinct scenes, in 5 minutes -- in colour, with a more sophisticated lighting technique and in dolby.

Better value than Nasser '56 in terms of the number of historical events covered. So, too, in the number of characters portrayed. More foreigners (played credibly by foreign actors) speaking in English, Arab leaders like Abu Ammar and King Hussein, and more women. A broader political perspective and a "human touch." Balancing Nasser's comment to Abdel-Hakim Amer that "the life of public figures has nothing private about it", balancing the speech-after-speech, plan-after-plan, political-commentary-after-political-commentary thrust of the screenplay were the domestic moments of the film. Holding him in her arms in the garden, Mrs Abdel-Nasser tells her husband that "war is one thing, your health another." And better, more intimate, is Lady Eden in bed: "I feel the Suez Canal is running through the middle of our bedroom." Memorable lines.

One Cairo street during Gamal Abdel-Nasser's funeral (photo from Al-Ahram archives)

Risqué though the presence of some women in this film seems to have been to some of its viewers, Gamal Abdel-Nasser is still uncontroversial, good, clean, family-viewing fun. Those of us who were charmed by the boy scout feel of Nasser '56 will not be disappointed by Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Boys will be boys. One of them might skip going to the movies so that he can study; another might party late. They can still be best friends and, furiously puffing on their cigarettes, both Earnest and Dandy can join the other guys at the conference table and take votes. Ben Gurion, like an elder brother, can patiently try to humour boyish Moshe Dayan out of his zeal. Over a cup of coffee Khalid Mohieddin can try to simplify Marx for the less intellectually inclined of his revolutionary mates. As President Mohamed Naguib, Gamil Ratib was suitably paternal, Hisham Selim as Field Marshal Abdel-Hakim Amer was a real charmer, the rest of the boys did their best with the script, and the gals in their supporting roles were supportive.

Khaled El-Sawi as Nasser himself fit perfectly in the "smooth 'n easy" tenor of the film. Sharp edges he did not have. The thrilling-chilling voice that we may recall --and only recall (as with Nasser '56, there were no recordings of that voice in this film, though there was, predictably, Umm Kulthoum's a-plenty) -- in Gamal Abdel-Nasser becomes soft; tone, reassuringly soap opera; and, in the more dramatically tense moments, inflection, melodramatic. The pointed, telegraph-like delivery style that had millions hold their breath to listen was abandoned in this film in favour of more mellow tones. Comportment, too, was not intimidatingly that of a charismatic third world leader who knew he had charisma. The hand raised like an unsheathed sword here sways as if in accompaniment to a Abdel-Halim tune. A rounder, more cuddly version of the man of 1960s Egypt's dreams and nightmares.

But the real star of this movie was the music. So pronounced it was that the film could have sported a title one would usually associate with a CD: Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the Soundtrack. Music was luxuriously draped over everything, continually reassuring by its preponderant presence that the real setting of Gamal Abdel-Nasser is the cinema, that history and virtual reality are like two peas in a pod. Men made history and the masses cheered them on, always, always to the accompaniment of music. History in dolby.

Unlike with Nasser '56, in Gamal Abdel-Nasser we did get the documentary footage for which we were waiting: the crowds in the streets protesting against Nasser's 1967 resignation, the mourners following Nasser's coffin as densely packed in Tahrir Square as pilgrims around the Kaaba. These images are neither smooth nor easy. They are powerful in what they say and do not say. They do not need to be made glossy to have an impact. Still, gloss proved irresistible and the music which accompanied, instead of intensifying, strangely had the effect of smothering any frisson the footage of Abdel-Nasser's funeral may have provoked, muffling any potential subliminal sound the image may have made, softening any edge it may have had.

Gamal Abdel-Nasser neither glorifies nor demystifies, appraises or critiques, is not a rigourously objective study of an important political period of Egypt's history, can hardly be accused of anything as political as a "vision" or as intentional as the sullying of reputations. It is Nasser '56 Plus: encyclopedic, in colour, in dolby stereo. Edutainment for the CD rom computer generation. Put away the toy soldier figures of the last Nasser film and bring out the remote control and the mouse. This Nasser already suggests something in gestation. Let's see what emerges nine months from now. Nasser Again and Again maybe? In the meantime we can ponder the question "To what purpose/ Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose leaves?" To what purpose indeed.