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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439
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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 Focus Interview Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Escape to Lotus Island
LAST TUESDAY, on the Mediterranean island of Jerba in Tunisia, the Jerba Historical Films Festival opened with the screening of Kawkab Al-Sharq, the much-talked-about film celebrating the life and work of Egyptian singing legend Umm Kulthoum. There for the occasion were director Mohamed Fadel and actress Fardous Abdel-Hamid, who plays the semi-divine diva, a woman from the provinces who came to be the very symbol of musical identity throughout the Arab world.
Farid ShawqiEstablished in 1990 in this magical spot, referred to by Homer as Lotus Island, the Jerba festival has steadily gathered momentum, drawing to its ever broader range of categories more and more film-makers and critics, not only from the Arab world but from Europe and beyond, and in the meantime both extending the scope of its activities and acquiring an appealing Mediterranean identity. Besides the 12 films participating in the official competition, this year the festival hosts 14 short films as well as a special screening of eight long and six short Syrian films. Highlights include the honouring of the late Egyptian actor Farid Shawqi with a screening of six films reflecting the various stages of his work.
Spoilt for choice
ERNEST HEMINGWAY would have been 100 yesterday. A century after his birth graced the world, his sunrise is still better than his sunset. For the special form of self-advertisement at which he was past master, though, he lived too long. He was one of the young minotaurs who came out of the Great War: fine while the hair on chest and head lasts, but when it begins to gray and fall, they lose status and become rather absurd. And status was something he really cared about. He finally put an end to it all on 2 July, 1961.
This week in London, the last volume of Michael Reynolds' monumental five-part biography appeared. Entitled Hemingway: The Final Years, the book covers the last two decades of the great one's life. Reviewing the book in this week's Sunday Times Books section, John Sutherland wrote: "One feels in reading Hemingway that human activities such as war, sport and love are incomplete without literature [...] Reading him, we understand better 'how it is'. Finally, that is all that matters."
During his life, Hemingway sang the physical. With his chum, Gertrude Stein, who later cooled on him, he began the celeb cult. What has now become international suffering was, for these people, life itself. War, the bull, the torero and his sumptuous floozy beside him, and plenty of fast fist work all around: these set him up as a world icon. And the books -- he had his grandeur, and always the dark poetry of Prometheus, which won him the Nobel for literature in 1954.
The Predators -- Mimic (Guillermo Del Toro, 1997)
A LETHAL VIRUS transmitted by cocroaches threatens the children of New York City. Entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) and her scientific team invent the "Judas Breed", a new species of bugs -- half-termite, half-mantis -- conveniently characterised by two features: being unable to reproduce, the life expectancy of the whole species is only 180 days; and having the ability to mimic its prey, hence infiltrating the cocroaches' nests, it eats the virus-carrying insects and terminates the plague.
Three years later, however, a "mimic" is discovered in the subway system by two bug-loving children. Upon consultation with her mentor, Dr Gates (F. Murray Abraham), Tyler's suspicions are confirmed. Tyler, her husband Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam), the children and the rest of the scientists, all venture into the most obscure corners of New York's underground network to investigate the survival and evolution of the mimic species. Meanwhile, the "Judas Breed" bugs start to mimic their next victims, human beings, and stroll down the streets unnoticed.
Mexican director Del Toro is especially talented in the monster/horror genre, and with Mimic he could be easily trapping himself in one of Hollywood's pigeonholes, especially as Sorvino's role of the heroic female who faces fierce creatures is a continuation of the pattern established after Alien and its three sequels, The Relic and Starship Troopers.
The Predators-- Mimic is currently showing at Renaissance II, screen 4
