Internationally prominent Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine (are there any others?) pulls off a tricky act here. Literally so since he not only directs, but also stars as a sympathetic murderer, though more because of how the movie morphs from a Neo-Realist intro to film noir suspense and OTT melodrama. All the acting leaving subtlety & naturalism behind for grand indicative gesture. It’s laid out for us at the opening as Cairo Station’s longest serving newsstand operator clues us in on who’s who and how it comes together every morning: ‘People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.’ He might be the old timer at GRAND HOTEL, but at Cairo’s main train depot it’s lower class travelers & workers hurrying to catch a route, sell a snack or tout rival labor organizers fighting for or against the union. Plus all the pesky illegal workers trying to sell soft drinks before the police confiscate their supply. Drink fast, I need the bottle back for the deposit! Then there’s Youssef Chahine as Qenawi, the crippled young man who starts working for the newsstand owner, then slowly reveals his twisted nature, unable to pursue dreams of work, status or romance, pegged as little more than a lame beggar and laughed at by the flirtatious young woman he thinks he could make a life with. And once he cracks, all the stories start to crash into each other: worker riots drawing attention away from those body parts leaking out of shipping crates. Is the girl even dead? The actors, eager to drop any pretense of simple observation, tear passion to tatters in the usual OTT Egyptian acting style of the day. So be prepared. In a mere 77", it’s quite the stylistic journey! Rossellini to Sirk, no stops.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: You know Chahine has crossed some sort of line when he has composer Fouad El Zahiry drop a bleeding chunk of Miklós Rózsa noir saturated music into the score.
