“The Stories” was the opening-night film of Mizna’s 20th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival at the Main Cinema in Minneapolis, and it brought me back to my second home, Cairo.
Instead of living in the carcass of Arab nationalism, I felt I was back in Egypt’s turbulent ‘60s, the peak of Pan-Arabism during Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule.
The film, to put it simply, felt very Egyptian.
Everything was there: the crazy neighbors and family dynamics that would make Gandhi’s blood pressure spike, all paired with a complete political mess.
But I enjoyed the ups and downs, first with Nasser’s anti-imperialist fervor setting up the peak of Arab nationalism. That confidence was blown apart by Israel’s French-made jets tearing through Egypt’s sky during the 1967 Six-Day War, indifferent to the lives being interrupted below. Then came the economy’s beating under Anwar El-Sadat’s Western-appeasing “economic reforms” in 1974.
“The stakes seemed so high at the time, there was always something happening … wars and uprisings and political upheaval,” said the film’s director, Abu Bakr Shawky, during a prerecorded Q&A about his inspiration.
“It’s a homage to a time that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “I just wanted to recreate all these stories that are from the past.”
Shawky recreates those fantastical stories and drags you into them. The actors did not just play characters; they really sank into their Egyptian identities, slang and mannerisms so naturally that you forget the world around them is made up of stories repeated by Shawky.
Amir El-Masry’s performance really played to his name, which literally means “Amir the Egyptian.” His character’s struggle between a burning desire to build a future in the West and his pride in his country as he watched it decline captured a contradiction I became familiar with in Egypt.
Shawky’s depiction of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973 is so immersive because of how violently they interrupt the ordinary lives the film spends so much time on. The day-to-day scenes capture little family dramas, neighborhood fights and ritualistic soccer watching of games between Cairo’s two fierce rival soccer clubs, Zamalek and Al Ahly. The characters’ daily routines make the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War feel more like violent disruptions of their lives.
What I found most moving about Shawky’s portrayal of Egypt was a sense of hope. For all the wars, political upheaval and economic uncertainty, Egypt held belief in a better future, one built on Arab solidarity and a national identity free from imperialist influence.
“Umm el-Dunya” — “mother of the world.” I’ve heard it at least a thousand times, the prideful Egyptian slogan to describe their country to outsiders. Nasser’s anti-imperialist rhetoric and Pan-Arab ambition stick today, reminders of an era when Egypt saw itself as the leader of the Arab world, even when confronted with the losses of war.
Today’s Cairo is home to refugees from across the region and a defeated, post-Arab Spring generation struggling to find stable work, marry and raise families. Shawky’s portrayal of Egypt was certainly not without hardship, but it had hope.
Victor Mshihiri can be reached at mshi7898@stthomas.edu.
