Youssef Chahine - Cairo Station (Bab El Hadid) (1958) There's a type of film which I kind of think of as the "incel" film, it has a tradition staring back in Psycho (1960) and Peeping Tom of the same year, moving on through Taxi Driver and more recently stuff like Joker. Films about badly adjusted men with murderous impulses which are often set off by women existing. So it was surprising to see what is essentially one of these films coming from Egypt in 1958, 2 years before Psycho and with the whole trope fully formed. Chahine, the film director, stars as Qinawi, a young man who shows up in Cairo Train Station and is kind of adopted by the newsagent as a paper boy. Qinawi is also clearly obsessed by women, with the shed where he lives being covered wall to wall with cut-outs from magazines of semi-naked women. The film is great at giving us the environment of the Station, we get to see the porters and their labour disputes, attempting to form a union, the refreshment sellers, the newsagents and the people who just hang around to get trains or say goodbye to loved ones. As the film goes on the focus becomes more tight on Qinawi and his obsession with Hannuma, the girlfriend of the porter's leader. Inspired by news accounts of murders and mutilations and seeing as Hannuma does not want him, he sets off to kill her. The last 10 minutes of the film are stressful as you really want to see what happens to Qinawi. Interestingly enough the film is smart in creating sympathy for what is really a shit person, Qinawi is physically disabled, is clearly not in his right mind and is clearly not fully aware of the consequences of his actions. Weirdly for what we think of when we think of Egypt today the film is also considerable more violent, bloody and sexy than anything coming out of Hollywood then, the way it refrain from judging women of "loose morals" and the whole underworld of the station is also refreshing. Pretty much an essential watch. (5/5) #movie #cinema #cinephile #film #egyptian #cairostation #youssefchahine #babelhadid #screenshot #drama #blackandwhite #1950s #filmposter #classiccinema #movieposter #poster #arabiccinema (at Lisbon, Portugal) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4WkBFKlp_Q/?igshid=1npl4sysg0hwv
