Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture Page

Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998): The events of the film, a psychological thriller (starring Nicholas Cage and Gary Sinise), takes place in Atlantic City's boxing arena, the venue for one last match before the stadium is renamed The Millennium. Despite the many cameras and the 14,000 spectators around the arena, not a single witness can explain how the US secretary of defence is assassinated. De Palma, whose previous film corpus included homages to Antonioni, Eisenstein, Powell and others, now pays homage to Japanese director Akira Kurosawa who died last year. The essential crux of Kurosawa's Rashomon -- an irresolvable crime despite the many potential witnesses -- is reversed in Snake Eyes to fit i the American scheme. Hence, the truth not only has to be discovered, but Ricky Santoro (Cage), a police detective, has to see it with his own eyes -- and so do we. The film's one-night, one-place events are standard fillings of hundreds of other Hollywood films, but the stylistic innovations in Snake Eyes are quite worth seeing. Now showing at Odeon 1.	Effat Nagi (1905-1994): Effat Nagi is well-known for her assemblages and her magical paintings. The Doll in the picture, one of two assemblages, comes from Upper Egypt, and was used to decorate the front window of a hair-dresser's shop. Nagi put together other objects, like the lotus and fertility figures. The doll thus has a historical and cultural impact on the viewer, embodying the cross-currents of the Pharaonic and the Coptic. With her distinctive colour palette, Nagi binds the work into a lyrical piece. The work was first exhibited in the Egyptian Academy in Rome, in 1970. It is referred to in Mokhtar El-Attar's book on modern Egyptian art, and is now at the Safarkhan Gallery in Zamalek. It is worthwhile to observe and study the works of Effat Nagi, who by her paintings and assemblages has been able to portray the Egyptian culture in a very personal yet universal manner.
	Poor little rich girl and prince charming: Today, noontime television (Channel One, 1.30pm) offers you the chance to re-experience the charm of the famous post-war duet: actor and director Anwar Wagdi, the darling of Egyptian cinema, and his beautiful collaborator and sometime wife, the angelic singing legend Laila Mourad. In Laila Bint Al-Aghnia' (Laila, Daughter of the Wealthy), the rebellious poor-rich-girl (Mourad) runs away from the bridegroom imposed on her by a spiteful stepmother, and winds up living incognito in a tiny Delta village, before a dashing young journalist (Wagdi) comes to her all-too-romantic rescue. This film is emblematic of Wagdi and Mourad's stupendous collaboration, and includes an endearing performance by the charismatic Lebanese actor Bishara Wakim.
Rocking the casbah with Rachid Taha From Orani origin, the cradle of rai music, Rachid Taha has recently become one of the top stars of French pop music. Along with Sheb Khaled, Sheb Fadel and a handful of other Arab singers based in France, Taha's band Carte de Séjour, established in 1981, laid the foundations for what has come to be called Arab rock, inspiring such French bands as Négresses Vertes and Mano Negra. Almost a decade later, feeling that the time had come for him to address, alone, the most baffling of all issues -- that of origins -- Taha decided to go solo. His existential investigation, expressed through his music, took on a modernist vision, synthesising his sensible relationship with a solid musical heritage and his unquenchable thirst for self-discovery, taking part in what he terms "the culture of exile". With Diwan -- his latest album which pays homage to the greatest of Arab singers -- he proposes an interpretation of this culture characterised by an invaluable quality, namely the authenticity of the damned. Rachid Taha will give a concert at the Cairo International Conference Centre on 3 May, 9.30pm.

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		Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875