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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Interview Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Plain talk
By Mursi Saad El-Din
A question that is often raised is just how far films reflect the real image of a country. Certainly there is a tendency among new Egyptian films to concentrate heavily on violence, drugs and illicit sex, something that has raised great consternation among both critics and audiences. These films, they argue, portray a decadent society, preoccupied with money making above all else. And as such they represent a skewed vision of Egypt.
In response filmmakers insist that they are bound, commercially, to provide audiences with the kinds of films they want to see -- i.e., that the audience itself dictates the content and theme of films.
I am pleased to note, though, a slight bucking of this trend with the return to films that follow older formulas. Indeed, a recent survey has illustrated the continuing popularity of older films, of a cinema that drew heavily for its plot lines on literary works by writers such Ihsan Abdel-Quddous and Youssef El-Seba'i. And in a recent poll the majority of those questioned expressed a preference for Arab TV stations that concentrated on vintage Egyptian cinema.
Egypt, though, is by no means the only country whose image is compromised by the trend towards excessive violence in cinema. I have just read an article in The Sunday Times headlined Creating the New Face of Britain, which alleges that a small group of Oxford cronies appears to be responsible for the way in which Britain is viewed by overseas audiences. The article discusses films and TV programmes that depict, and exaggerate, the most unsavoury aspects of contemporary life in England. Such films, the writer suggests, while they can be contextualised by domestic audiences, and accepted for what they are -- i.e. a slice of a none too representative life -- tend to be misinterpreted by foreign audiences.
The article mentions two films which I have not seen -- Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral -- films that have achieved great popularity in the United States. Bryan Appleyard suggests that these films, by tailoring themselves to American audience expectations, and thus ensuring their success in the global market, have in the process subverted any claims they might possess to represent life in Britain with any degree of realism.
What surprised the writer is the fact that these successful films have suddenly made such a peculiarly specific version of Englishness internationally marketable. Such films, which purport to depict modern Englishness, succeed only in portraying an unconvincing stereotype.
In many ways this is what is happening in our own film industry. It is trying to find a market, not simply in Egypt but in the Arab countries. Just as British films are tailored to the American market, so Egyptian films seek to appeal to Arab audiences outside Egypt. Egyptian films dealing with drugs, violence, sleaze and illicit sex are not, therefore, a reflection of Egyptianness but of an image created by producers simply because it is saleable. What is really worrying is that when we look into such films and see ourselves as less than we really are, then a danger arises. It is a danger to which the young are particularly vulnerable: that on some level we may come to believe more in the veracity of the filmed image that in our own experiences.
