Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Deluding the voyeurs

By Youssef Rakha

The pomp and circumstance of the Cairo International Film Festival's closing ceremony put an end to the civilised press screenings at the Opera House. They gave way, instead, to an almost entirely uncivilised series of encounters downtown, which were not, on the whole, particularly cinematic. And for three days the festival's most instantly identifiable phenomenon held exclusive sway: the jostling all-male crowds that block the entrances to movie theatres continuously, not only before and after but during screenings. Their appearance, from a distance, may be harmless, even civil: one is almost reminded of activists' sit-ins. Nonetheless one cannot help the feeling that there is something obscene about it. Whatever their intentions, these people are neither sophisticated art lovers nor respectable entertainment seekers. To all intents and purposes there are absolutely no women among them. They are evidently after something. In fact a few minutes of eavesdropping are sufficient to reveal just what that might be.

Emadeddin Street is a seminal thoroughfare with more theatre complexes than most, two of which participated in the festival: the Cosmos and Karim cinemas. Early in the day the compact crowd outside the latter bespoke festival. It was penetrated only by a familiar-looking poster, the cryptic phrase "HOLY SMOKE!" -- in red block capitals -- hovering somewhere above the assembled heads. The schedule identified it as a fringe offering to be screened in one of the Serag Mall theatres five hours later, claiming (contrary to the testimony of various members of the crowd), that the film to be screened here now should be either Two Women (Iran) or A Sigh (China). The Arabic titles vary widely in approach: they might be a literal translation of the English title, or they might be a completely random catch phrase. Even when one has a specific film in mind, it may be difficult to locate it on any given schedule. The predicament is complicated further by both administrative incompetence and the cinemas' proclivity for breaking free of the schedule, the more fully to cater to the expectations of festival devotees.

FARE TRENDS: Hard core devotees of the 24th Cairo International Film Festival who relished the most recent work of New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion (Piano, Potrait of a Lady) were not, it seems, attracted by either its feminist undertones or sophisticated artistry. Instead Campion's latest contribution, Holy Smoke (1999), received a unique airing in which it was erroneously promoted and viewed as pornography. In popular downtown film theatres (Miami, Karim etc.), the film ran more frequently than scheduled and was evidently the festival's greatest popular success. This is but one example of how festival fare offers a rare opportunity to catch up with the best of world cinema. Yet unless they also offered the lure of sex, such treats were sadly ignored -- a fact that underlines the discrepancy between the standpoint of film lovers and festival devotees, two distinct species of Egyptian viewer. Festival films have been known historically to fit into one of two categories: (innocuous) "story" and (pornographic) "scenes." And, judging by the official competition awards (see below) -- announced Saturday evening, three days prior to the end of the festival the jury, unlike the public -- seems to have appreciated both. The success of a topical debut from the Chahine school (the only Egyptian film to have entered the official competition) reflects the current plight of the industry. No amount of praise for Khaled Youssef's cinematic reflection on the Gulf War and its repercussions in Egypt can detract from the fact that very few films, let alone debuts, are being produced at all. And what little is accomplished in the way of innovative and new cinematic conceptions (Yousri Nasralla's Al-Madina and Atef Hatata's Al-Abwab Al-Moghlaqa, to mention two examples) has often, inexplicably, failed to find its way to Egypt's most important cinematic event. This is the basis of the complaint that fringe fare was all too often superior to official competition fare. Along with the tribute programmes (Abbas Kiarostani, Roland Joffé, Being John Malcovitch), in fact, many fringe screenings put the audience in contact with the major celebrities of the contemporary world of filmmaking. That both official competition and awards should emphasise films from outside the West must ultimately be regarded as positive, however, since it is only fitting that cinematic festivals in this part of the world should challenge the long-standing Western commercial hegemony over the industry, encouraging broader exchanges. The main winners: Chinese filmmaker Feng Xiaogang's A Sigh best film (golden pyramid); best actor (Zhang Guoli); best actress (Xu Fan, with Dominique Blanc); best script (Wang Shuo); special tribute to the film's child actress, Wu Shi Egyptian filmmaker Khaled Youssef's The Storm: special jury and best film (silver pyramid) award; the Ministry of Culture's best Arabic film award Frech filmmaker Roch Stephanik's Stand-by best director; best actress (Dominique Blanc, with Xu Fan) South Korean filmmaker Mun Il Chang's The Happy Funeral Director best debut award Russian filmmaker Dmitry Svetozarov's Fourteen Rainbow Colours jury award for creative art; special tribute Icelandic filmmaker Rangar Bragason's Fiasco special tribute

Festival devotees provided all the help they could with identifying the present options: the film they were there to see, Holy Smoke (which had been screened again and again at the Miami cinema for the last few days) was English, it seemed. The setting wasn't all that great but it was very heavy on "scenes," for which read sex. Is it right to be here just for the "scenes," though? Responses ranged from scornful jeering to pseudo-rational persuasion: "That's the only time when we get to see this kind of stuff. It's foreign, and maybe we don't want it in our homes. But we still get the urge to see it nonetheless -- we're human, you know -- that's why we have to satisfy that urge while we can. That way it doesn't cost us too much, only two weeks a year." They refused to identify themselves. These festival devotees, it seemed , were happier to remain anonymous.

Further down the road, outside the Karim cinema, a smoother flow of young men gave the festival a more civilised countenance. But the usual police officer-led security team was positioned very prominently alongside the theatres' weekly schedule of screenings, scribbled by hand on a piece of cardboard, pasted onto the wall adjacent to the officer's seat. So it was impossible to read the schedule without feeling constantly under surveillance, Kafka-style. The ticket-booth attendant was equally forbidding. His look of derision -- a response to my interrogative accent -- turned to downright scorn as soon as I failed to identify my film of choice. "But the titles --" "Please! Totter over to the schedule, will you. But don't come back here until you know which film you want to watch." He turned to a colleague: "These people..." Meanwhile, younger and palpably less cultured movie-goers were confidently enunciating the right Arabic titles, handing the attendant money, collecting tickets and moving on right past me. Could it be that the numerous unofficial guides to the festival provide enough practical know-how and accurate data for even the least experienced viewers to find their way around? It could.

While the official competition awards paint a positive picture, the average fringe viewing experience makes Roland Joffé's "unequivocal yes" seem less than airtight. Italian filmmaker Sandro Cecca's Winds of Passion (1999) proved a vapid regurgitation of previously and better discovered European film territory. Yet the experience of attending the Miami theatre 6pm show to see it is indispensable to understanding the mechanism of pornographic desperation, if only because its calculated and incredibly low dose of what would otherwise be termed erotica was for the most part profoundly unerotic. By the end of the film the audience had been repeatedly teased and seen only a little nudity: some had left, some had adjusted to the unexpected, contenting themselves with the (melodramatic) "story," while some, lamenting the money they spent on the ticket, remained disappointed. What the Karim cinema interviewee described as "satisfying the urge" is the same mechanism whereby the motivation to experience a film is reduced to a crude desire to see nudity. The pornographic carrot in front of the festival devotees' noses -- and this is, perhaps, the saddest part of the story -- is not in fact pornographic.

Past the security check point an attendant seemed to condense the popular wisdom of the festival in response to my companion's protestations about his bag being hand searched: "This, sir, is cinema; this is the festival. You never know what might happen." Judging by the determination with which plain-clothes security men randomly felt trouser pockets, in addition, one would have thought there were terrorists among the festival devotees who, alone and in small droves, were unobtrusively seating themselves. As soon as the lights went out a spuriously reverent voice intoned in classical Arabic: "It is believed that in this film there are to be found 32 scenes." Everyone laughed audibly. But by the time "the end" appeared on the screen an ominous silence was reigning, broken only by the occasional muttering noise: nothing audible or comprehensible. Outside a middle-aged man asked about the film: I shook my head; he nodded and went away. Silently, I had communicated my disappointment with the lack of "scenes" while also, I hoped, implying that the "story" was not gripping enough to be worth it.

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