Youssef Chahine

Youssef Chahine is widely considered as one of the foremost cinema directors in the Arab world whose work transcended the region’s borders to reach a global audience. Although most commonly celebrated internationally for his post-Nasserist semi-autobiographical Alexandria Quartet—Alexandria....Why?) (1978), An Egyptian Tale (1982), Alexandria Again and Again (1990), and Alexandria-New York (2004)—which delve into such themes as homosexuality and liberalism in Arab society, Chahine was also the cinematic poet and chronicler of marginalization and social inequity in Egypt. In fact, Chahine, through films with an overt sociocultural and political message such as Bab al-Hadid (Cairo Main Station) (1958), Al Nasser Salah ad-Din (Saladin) (1963), and Al-Ard (The Land) (1969), was the pioneer of social realism in Arab cinema and his work played a fundamental part in what was the most important project of national identity creation in modern Egyptian history during the tumultuous years of the Nasserist era. Youssef Chahine’s death in July 2008 left Egyptian cinema without its colossus but Egypt also lost its eyes, its ears, and most importantly, its conscience. Chahine will be remembered for taking on fundamentalism in the contemporary era, but he had taken on the yoke of imperialism almost fifty years before with his vision for a new Egypt which he would tragically never see. This eventual failure of Nasserism to realize the project of a new just Egyptian society, based on principles of secularism, tolerance, and equality, is a historical reality with myriad cause factors but this doesn’t denigrate or diminish in any way the fundamental role of Youssef Chahine in this social, cultural, and political project for almost twenty years. Chahine, like Nasser, knew that Egypt had to face her memory and by extension, her fears before she could embrace her hopes and her future. Yet, as Nasserist ideology fades into history in a contemporary climate of increasing religious radicalism, the “Nasserist” films of Youssef Chahine such as the aforementioned Cairo Main Station and The Land remain as powerful celluloid advertisements for and testaments to one of the potentially most powerful sociocultural ideologies of the last century. Successive Egyptian heads of state have gone to great lengths to cast off and exorcize the legacy of Nasserism as a sociocultural beacon from contemporary Egyptian society but their efforts will have been in vain as long as the cinematic legacy of Youssef Chahine survives.