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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Mahmoud Hemeida:
The penguin takes flight
A feeling for life so strong that it transcends barriers of class and convention, carving out -- for better and worse -- a new realm of experienceProfile by Fatemah Farag
You will no doubt appreciate that it was with great anticipation that I awaited the morning of my meeting with Hemeida. He is not just a debonair superstar who is, in addition to tall, also slim and elegant, has poise, slick hair, a perfect jaw-line and an arresting smile. No. Hemeida is all these qualities at a time when the lead actor in Egyptian cinema is almost invariably short, fat, and/or over 60.
Once better known for his starring roles in the B-movies that prevailed throughout the '70s and '80s, Hemeida is recognised today as more than just a pretty face. He has proven to be a very talented actor as well as a movie producer with the guts to stand out and make movies on the novel merit that they are interesting and artistically worthy, box-office value relegated to a position of lesser concern.
I had seen Hemeida in person once before at the opening of his box office failure yet number one winner at the National Film Festival: Gannat Al-Shayatin (Fallen Angels' Paradise). He walked into the crowded room and whisked everyone off their feet; there could be no ignoring his presence. Even from afar, I could tell that the wicked hint of a smile across his face and the intensity of the look in his eyes could wreak havoc. So, it was with slow and deliberate steps that I made my way towards his office, trying to remember all those anxiety control tips I had learned at various survival courses: breath deeply, focus, focus, focus... and for God's sake, try to keep the pen steady in your sweating palms!
Act I, Scene 1: A modest first-floor flat situated at the end of a dingy entrance to a customary middle-class building in the residential district of Heliopolis. Sleepy employees sit behind desks in a dimly lit outer room. They are joined by an anxious reporter. Despite the laid-back feel of the place, you can tell everyone is waiting for something to happen.
All of a sudden there is a tense stir and three men run out of the office, muttering something inaudible under their breath.
Man 1 runs back in and opens the door to the inner sanctum of the apartment: Hemeida's office. He is followed by Man 2, who is now carrying a small briefcase under his arm. Man 2 proceeds to the inner sanctum, where he places his charge on the desk. Prior to Man 3's entrance, viewers can hear a shhhhh sound like someone spraying something. Man 3 enters carrying a canister of air-freshener, the contents of which he is spraying over everything: desks, chairs, walls, employees and reporter.
Entrance: the Man himself, Mahmoud Hemeida, walks in.
Born: 7 December 1953 at 7.00am in Heliopolis to an agricultural engineer with a penchant for teaching. Hemeida's early life was divided between the urban household of his mother's family and the rural roots of his father. "My mother was from an aristocratic family. Medhat Assem [well-known composer and once senior official of the Broadcasting Authority] was her uncle. My father's family was from Fayoum. When I went to the village, I became a farmer and was very attached to my grandfather, Hagg Hemeida. He was an awesome man who radiated power. When I came back to the city I would become the perfect society gentleman. I learned both ways of life and they both became part of me. There is no conflict or paradox: I am really both things," Hemeida explained to me after I was finally settled across from him in the inner sanctum.
This duality in his social and cultural breeding is obviously important to Hemeida. He sees in it a key to understanding who he is: the sequence of almost random events that have drawn the map of his life -- his ability to accept people as they are, and his ability to live highly diverse social experiences.
"During those years I worked every job you could possibly imagine. I wanted to discover myself and break beyond my family limitations. So I worked as a day-labourer on construction sites carrying loads of cement up scaffolding, and eventually I became a professional dancer"
The quest to "live life to the full" began early -- as early as his university years. "We had been living in Beni Suef [where his father, the agricultural engineer, was posted]. Then my father got this big flat in Cairo because 'Mahmoud was entering the university.' I was his oldest son and I was his ideal. During my high school years I was chosen 'exemplary student' in a nationwide competition. I was the boy other boys were afraid to smoke in front of and I was very strong both physically and intellectually. Suddenly, I came to Cairo and found myself in a zoo."
The young paragon and pride of his family was in for a shock. "This new university community was filled with people who had no concern but to serve their interests. I was shocked early in life by the reality of society and I shifted not 90 degrees but 180 degrees. There was no compromise."
And so the once model student was to spend 11 years at the university before graduating, the first seven of these an unsuccessful haul at the Faculty of Engineering. And the once proud father? "We didn't speak to each other for four years."
"During those years I worked every job you could possibly imagine. I wanted to discover myself and break beyond my family limitations. So I worked as a day-labourer on construction sites carrying loads of cement up scaffolding, and eventually I became a professional dancer."
His portfolio as a dancer includes the Reda Dance Troupe as well as dancing at cabarets on Pyramids Road. "That was a very tough life because we [the troupe] were different from the surrounding milieu and so it was like standing against a whole society. Our dancers were not allowed to accept noqta [tips] and we always took the women dancers home ourselves. It was tough but we learned a lot."
As Hemeida experienced life outside the university walls, within them the saga of his ongoing degree continued. He eventually graduated with a degree in accounting. Accounting? "I was a prisoner to the middle class, which considers the profession of actor as something demeaning. When I decided to transfer out of the Faculty of Engineering, I promised my father I would bring home a decent certificate."
Not that acting was alien to Hemeida. He dabbled in it as a child, at school and at the local Cultural Palace. "I remember at the age of 11 I played a lead part in the school play, which was Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. I was Shylock. I was given first prize in a nationwide competition and among the members of the Judging Committee was Nabil El-Alfi [well known theater director]. Later he told my father that I had talent and suggested that I eventually be enrolled at the Academy. I am the one who said no. Anyway, I do not know that acting is a profession that can be taught and learned."
So Hemeida graduated and settled into a job as an accountant and then worked as a salesman at a major soft-drinks company. He also got married and started a family, doing films on the side.
Then came the turning point. "It was a night during the Gulf War. I woke up and I said to myself, 'Tomorrow will be your last day at work'." And so it was. "At that point I decided I would become a true professional, nothing even on the side. I must respect what I am doing, which means giving it my full attention and nothing else." But what a time to take such a decision, a family man leaving a steady job and throwing himself full throttle into an ailing industry. He laughs: "Have you ever heard the line of colloquial poetry that says, 'Barr al-khatar wahdu howa barr al-aman' (Only the shore of danger is safe)?"
Fair enough, but what is all this talk of respect for cinema from a man who has starred in quite a few sub-standard movies? Hemeida scoffs at what he seems to consider intellectual pretension. "There is a difference between really respecting something and respecting it for ostentation. The truth of the matter is that cinema is an industry that feeds people -- I see the workers whose lives depend on this. That is much more important than the role I was playing. Cinema is an industry and must continue to produce if it is to survive. There was a time when the Gulf market dictated what we made."
Hemeida muses over the role of cinema makers in society. "I do not like relationships that are authoritarian. This really used to bother me some time ago. I would sit at [Café] Riche [a downtown bar, once a headquarters for left-leaning intellectuals] and ponder such things. Now I know that the bottom line is that I try and do my best and that I must search until I find people who think like I do. All of this talk about who is wrong and who is right, I think, is unimportant."
He recounts a conversation to push the point home. "Someone with a lot of money came to me and told me we want to produce respectable movies, so I asked 'And what are those?' He started criticising the other movies on the market. To that I say, one should not underestimate people who are working, instead we should just do what we want to do. I do not understand what all this talk of 'principles' is about. What does a 'principled' person look like, anyway?"
This from a man whose first production is a movie in which from beginning to end he plays the role of a corpse being carried around by his friends. Not one word of dialogue -- nothing. But Hemeida seems uncomfortable with too much talk of how his movie is in fact a good example of the break from crowd-pleasers with little artistic quality. And even more so, with the fact that, invariably, such movies prove to be a financial liability.
"I made the movie because I liked the idea," he says almost defensively, adding, "Do you know that the Indians make some very artistic films? Do you know that in the US there were 2,000 films made in the past two years, both independent and underground movies, that were not distributed? Why is our situation supposed to be so much better? The issue here is not this society or that, the issue is that there is a way to deal with such films and that is what people should be discussing."
As Hemeida sits coolly behind his desk, a man of action as opposed to too many words, his demeanor is never quite serious nor yet cynical -- always somewhere in-between. It is unsettling; one is never quite sure, 'is he serious?' and more importantly, 'was that raised eye-brow a signal of interest or is he having me on?'
I get ready to leave his office and then it hits me; I have been conducting this interview in the offices of a company actually called Penguin Productions! I smile coyly and attempt to throw him off-balance. "And why would anyone call their company Penguin? Some secret fetish, perhaps?"
"Oh that!" he says with a smile that has my palms sweating again. "Well, when I first established the company there were two partners and we were at the lawyer's office trying to choose a name. They kept on coming up with names that had Hemeida somewhere in them. And then I remembered a verse of poetry by Fouad Haddad which says 'And we are pigeons with wings and sandals' -- indicating that the birds' flight, that is their freedom, is hindered, and the penguin is the king of birds -- for he cannot fly."
photos: Sherif Sonbol
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