The Land (1969)
(Al-ard)
Country: EGY
Technical: col 130m
Director: Youssef Chahine
Cast: Mahmoud Al Meleji, Nagwa Ibrahim, Ezzat El Alaili, Hamdy Ahmed
Synopsis:
Tenant farmers along the lower Nile chafe at the tyranny of the local Bey, who tries to reduce their irrigation periods and diverts a road across their land so that it can stop outside his mansion.
Review:
Made in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, and reflecting Egypt's profound loss of face, and faith in its leaders, Chahine's rural epic is set in the 1930s and looks back to a period when nominal freedom from the British yoke was followed by an autocratic rule of vested interests that afforded little better for the peasantry. Centring on one village and its various layers of social dignity, from sheikh down to unwashed, it is a cri de cœur for the oppressed everywhere which ends with a nod to Battleship Potemkin. Bathed in warm Mediterranean colours, the characters nevertheless remain rooted to the earth that is watered with their sweat and blood. Meanwhile two men and a boy long for the love of the beautiful Wassifa. It is a technical marvel, with subtle evocation of different times of day, its tracks, cranes and push-ins achieved without ever once losing sharpness of focus. Concerted action rather than self-interest is seen to be the only hope, and yet even that yields to superior force in the film's crushing climax. The rationale governing the rationing of irrigation might have done with more explanation for the uninformed viewer.
(Al-ard)
Country: EGY
Technical: col 130m
Director: Youssef Chahine
Cast: Mahmoud Al Meleji, Nagwa Ibrahim, Ezzat El Alaili, Hamdy Ahmed
Synopsis:
Tenant farmers along the lower Nile chafe at the tyranny of the local Bey, who tries to reduce their irrigation periods and diverts a road across their land so that it can stop outside his mansion.
Review:
Made in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, and reflecting Egypt's profound loss of face, and faith in its leaders, Chahine's rural epic is set in the 1930s and looks back to a period when nominal freedom from the British yoke was followed by an autocratic rule of vested interests that afforded little better for the peasantry. Centring on one village and its various layers of social dignity, from sheikh down to unwashed, it is a cri de cœur for the oppressed everywhere which ends with a nod to Battleship Potemkin. Bathed in warm Mediterranean colours, the characters nevertheless remain rooted to the earth that is watered with their sweat and blood. Meanwhile two men and a boy long for the love of the beautiful Wassifa. It is a technical marvel, with subtle evocation of different times of day, its tracks, cranes and push-ins achieved without ever once losing sharpness of focus. Concerted action rather than self-interest is seen to be the only hope, and yet even that yields to superior force in the film's crushing climax. The rationale governing the rationing of irrigation might have done with more explanation for the uninformed viewer.
(Al-ard)
Country: EGY
Technical: col 130m
Director: Youssef Chahine
Cast: Mahmoud Al Meleji, Nagwa Ibrahim, Ezzat El Alaili, Hamdy Ahmed
Synopsis:
Tenant farmers along the lower Nile chafe at the tyranny of the local Bey, who tries to reduce their irrigation periods and diverts a road across their land so that it can stop outside his mansion.
Review:
Made in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, and reflecting Egypt's profound loss of face, and faith in its leaders, Chahine's rural epic is set in the 1930s and looks back to a period when nominal freedom from the British yoke was followed by an autocratic rule of vested interests that afforded little better for the peasantry. Centring on one village and its various layers of social dignity, from sheikh down to unwashed, it is a cri de cœur for the oppressed everywhere which ends with a nod to Battleship Potemkin. Bathed in warm Mediterranean colours, the characters nevertheless remain rooted to the earth that is watered with their sweat and blood. Meanwhile two men and a boy long for the love of the beautiful Wassifa. It is a technical marvel, with subtle evocation of different times of day, its tracks, cranes and push-ins achieved without ever once losing sharpness of focus. Concerted action rather than self-interest is seen to be the only hope, and yet even that yields to superior force in the film's crushing climax. The rationale governing the rationing of irrigation might have done with more explanation for the uninformed viewer.