Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 October 2000 Issue No. 502
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Down at the café, again

By Youssef Rakha

Just before the Banquet for Seaweed controversy assumed such frightening proportions a group of writers and artists had agreed to form what was called an independent tagamu (assembly), hoping to throw a few pebbles into what they perceived as the stagnant pond of literature and the arts, and to revitalise culture. In a nostalgic gesture, they settled on Café Riche as the perfect venue for their first meeting.

Riche had been a stronghold of the intellectual Left during the 1960s. For the likes of Radwa Ashour and Ibrahim Mansour, two of the tagamu's principal initiators, the mere mention of the place tapped memory mines of boundless depths.

At the time Riche was in the process of reopening but, although the owner saw in the tagamu an excellent opportunity for reconfirming its place in Egyptian cultural life, only one of the speakers, who in their own right formed an impressive array, thought of mentioning the café. Then the crisis erupted and the tagamu championed its cause. Mansour insisted that the next meeting should be held in the Cairo Atelier, so as to emphasise the tagamu's role as an outlet for all writers and artists, not merely for members of the Generation of the 1960s, to whom Riche's most recent heyday belongs. Soon the tagamu's initial flood of energy was reduced to a mere trickle, then it died out completely.

Riche reemerged, but not as the intellectual-political venue its owner had envisaged; and Mansour slipped out of the scene. When he next made an appearance, it was in a newly acquired capacity as a documentary film figure engrossed in his work -- a source of much well-meaning amusement in literary circles over the last few weeks.

photo: Randa Shaath

A little known documentary film maker, Gamal Qasim, had offered the National Centre for Cinema a 20-minute film project about Riche. The project was accepted but only on condition that it be expanded into at least a one-hour feature. Riche is too complex and important a subject to be dealt with in a cursory way, documentary filmmaker and head of the centre, Kamel El-Qalyoubi, insisted. Qasim was only too happy, it seems, but as the project expanded it became clear that Mansour, hitherto a mere interviewee, would have to assume greater responsibilities in the film's conception and development.

"It's something to keep one busy, of course," he concedes. "But you must realise I've never been involved in anything of the kind before. It's a positive thing, though, the feeling that you're always doing something and doing it correctly, you know." Yet it remains unclear what Mansour's role actually is: "general supervisor," the target of the jokes, leaves the questions unanswered, though it is the official term being used. "I am now responsible for collecting the source material and working on the general framework of the film. But I'll appear in it too, that's important." In collaboration with the director? "Naturally he must agree, he must respond positively to my suggestions. But El-Qalyoubi said to me the other day that everything must go through me too.

"I don't know if this is universally true, but I feel the most important thing about a documentary is the camera work -- and that the point of the film be clear." But what is there to be said about "the history of Café Riche," the theme of the film as he puts it? "I can say nothing about the quality of the film or my expectations for it. But you know that Riche was, since the end of World War I, a centre for the arts, as well as a political centre." In reminiscing about famous figures and events that the café witnessed through the ages, there is conviction in Mansour's voice, but there is nothing new. "There is a lot of previously filmed footage that we're unearthing, and photographic archives."

Concerning the one relevant aspect of the café's history, however, Mansour refuses to place himself at the centre. Increasingly perceived as the greatest living authority on the Generation of the 1960s, he is repelled by the thought. "This is I think the most interesting period of Riche's history," he cautiously asserts. "But," he is quick to add, "it is our good fortune that the people responsible for that are still alive and can be talked to. We're still working on informal little grants, you know," he digresses. "El-Qalyoubi assured me that the official budget will be drafted very soon." And when will the actual filmming begin?

"Let us just say that this is a long term project," he nonchalantly points out.

In the course of the filming Mansour will be interviewed as one of the people who made the Riche legend in the 1960s. But at this point he is more comfortable functioning in the less presumptuous capacity of the project's "general supervisor." And regardless of the how much one might criticise his propensity for disappearing just as suddenly as he appears (regardless, too, of whether a proper budget for the film will finally be approved), anything that keeps this veteran busy is as interesting, and cheering, as a cultural event can be.

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