kino eye queer eye: the case of "Un jour, le Nil" (1964)

This is not quite on Group topic but there's nowhere else to go with this. Besides, while the film in question is newer, the issues I'd like to discuss are timeless and I expect them to come up with many other films from various periods--even particularly in early film.

So, about this film... It was a Soviet-Egyptian co-production in honour of the Assouan dam. The director and chief writer was Youssef Chahine : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youssef_Chahine

The film was made in 1964 (ETA: or 1964-1968) but on release banned in both Egypt and the USSR, likely because of the sympathetic portrayal of the protests of the people who were badly affected by the dam, the Nubian villagers. Chahine was forced to remake the story and another film was released in 1972 but Chahine always disowned it.

Luckily he had deposited a copy of the original film with Henri Langlois in 1970, and this was finally restored last year. Pray to the cinematic gods for a DVD release!

There are many things about the film I want at least to mention, so, just to help me remember and organise it all, some themes, in no particular order:

--the socialist aesthetic

--urban Russians and rural Egyptians, urbane Egyptians and rustic Russians

--the humour--there's so much of it!

--the women

--the Nubian scenery and interiors

--the criticism of the project, modernity, and the government voiced by several old men, in particular (my absolutely fave character and spiritual twin!), the sublimely sarcastic Old Man on the Long-Eared Donkey

--but most of all--although it's something I had not expected at all!! and least of all in such amplitude and finesse, the "gay story". Mind you, not "sensibility", hints or some such, but multiple male relationships presented in what I will argue is a overtly romantic and even sexual way

--whatever else comes to mind...

Yes, lots of “whatever else”! I loved the old man as well, and the fat foreman. And the girl with the micrometer, and all those differential equations chalked on walls, and Zoya bored out of her skull at the ballet, and the fabulous shoeshine boy in the closing sequence...

The point about language you mentioned in the other thread was also something that struck me: I have very little Russian and no Arabic, but it was obvious from the tone and the number of words that there was some sort of joke in the way the Arabic voice-over was condensing the Russian dialogue. And there was that running joke of the incompetent interpreter who never actually translated anything.

—-

General background on early queer cinema: I came across this nice “video essay” on films from Anders als die Andern to Mädchen in Uniform — nothing we didn’t know about, but a handy summary: https://youtu.be/638ggjOwcnI

>2 thorold:

That looks great, thanks. I think The Celluloid closet is the only documentary I saw on the topic and that's... oh, 25 years since! Updates are welcome!

What fascinates me about Un jour, le Nil in connection to this is of course the TIME and the PLACE--we're talking socialist Russophile Egypt in the 1960s, for god's sake...

The useless translator gag was great!

OK, I need to sort and group the captures so I don't just ramble about everything at once, but to start... well, where better than the beginning. Have some shots of the beautiful heavy metal rusting in the merciless African sun! :)

Also, I tried to grab some footage on my mobile, to pretty awful results, but where I have it I'll add links to the videos I upload. Describing body language and exchange of glances, touching etc. is very difficult to do via stills, so if my vids, terrible quality as they are, can help...

Another thing about watching the intro vid, you get to hear the wonderful percussive theme accompanying these shots--it all makes more sense :)









Excerpt of the credits on here.

Just an outline of the plot(s) and the characters. Probably easiest to explain if I describe them in service to the themes I mention.

The film begins on May 15, 1964, the date of the opening of the dam, and ends some not too long time after--days, no longer than weeks. Most of the film are actually flashbacks to the various episodes in the life of several main characters.

The subplots:

1. Yahya Ali Mansour (the first character we see, as he exits what we later learn is a brothel) is a disillusioned leftist militant, an ex-journalist and heir to a fortune, who has spent the last two years working at the dam pretending to be an illiterate labourer. On this day he sees Nadia, the daughter of the chief Egyptian engineer, and falls in love with her (she returns his interest immediately), and decides to return to his pre-dam persona so that he can appear an eligible candidate for Nadia.

2. On this day (somewhat late but so it goes), Russian worker Kolya befriends young Nubian worker Barak, when they both jump into the waters of the Nile at Assouan in order to become the last people who swam there. The current is dangerous and they both start flashing back to their past, which draws a beautiful parallel between two boys from very different worlds, Leningrad and the Nubian desert village.

Kolya and Barak form one male couple whose relationship is visually composed and presented pretty much like a love story (at least, it can be argued so).

3. At the same time, another young Russian, engineer Alik, and his Egyptian colleague and friend Saad, are reminiscing about the day when they met, when they decided to blow up a gallery in order to stem the rising waters of the dammed river and prevent some unnecessary loss of land to the people in the vicinity. Remembering that day they run together into the short tunnel left after the explosion--"our tunnel", they say--and scratch their names into the wall.

Alik and Saad form the second Russian/Egyptian male couple whose relationship is, well, everything but consummated on screen (IMHO).

4. Alik is married to a fellow engineer, Zoya, whom he met as a student. It was on his insistence that Zoya left her job in Moscow and followed him to Egypt where, to her deepest grief and consternation, she is obstructed from working and expected to be like other housewives in that climate--eternally sit at home waiting for the husband.

To make things worse, as far as we see, while Zoya still desires her husband, he's no longer sexually interested in her.

5. I will round up this rather arbitrary selection of "subplots" with the figure of Nadia. Although mentioned above as part of "Yahya's story", the remarkable thing about her is that she very much insists on having her own. It's a spoiler, but inevitable--she will refuse to marry Yahya, despite falling for him and admiring him and being shown spending wonderful time in his company.

I hesitate to interpret this refusal further than to say she does what she feels is right and honest and what SHE needs. Remember, this is a young modern Egyptian woman in the 1960s, the likes of which have not been seen since--just as her society disappeared somewhere in the eighties.

And now for some visuals.

Our first glimpse of Barak (he is answering Yahya, jokingly, with a long litany of ceremonial Arabic titles the French translation didn't fully carry over):



The camera pans to the right and we see Kolya, to all appearances watching Barak (they still haven't "met"):

Barak's co-workers climb the masts to watch him go for the last swim in the Nile:



Somehow I just need to juxtapose this with the Bolshoi ballet that Alik and Zoya attend (in a flashback of hers):



This film oozes with different forms of grace, from the whitewashed Nubian village and minimalist scenery, to Leningrad's embankments and Moscow's ornate subway stations, from people's bodies, limbs, faces, to the spiritual grace of kindness, friendship, and exquisite Arab courtesy.

Lets see if I can complete at least "the story of Barak and Kolya" tonight...

The two young men are caught up in the current, fighting to stay afloat--with Nikolai trying hard to get hold of Barak as for some reason he seems to think the Nubian is in greater peril than himself. They crawl out on the sand, helping each other, and happily introduce themselves:

Nikolai as he appears in a flashback, on the day of his goodbyes to family and friends in Leningrad before leaving for Egypt (the actor's name is Vladimir Ivashov):



This is poor quality (mobile grab off the computer screen, go figure), but if you want to see young Nikolai in motion, plus hear a great Russian parting song... a link to a parallel between Nikolai's and Barak's goodbyes to their families

Oh, right--time to distinguish between blonde Russian girls with dimpled cheeks--the one with Nikolai is Varya, not seen/heard from again after this flashback. (Alik is married to Zoya and, in a flashback to his 19-year-old self at the battle of Stalingrad he is in the company of Vierka, a nurse.)

Nikolai's workplace, the second generator, where, as he suggested, Barak had come to join him:



There's been a slight misunderstanding, with Nikolai misreading Barak's mood:



Nikolai begs Barak to treat him as a close friend to whom he can say everything:



and receives this look in return:

On return home that night Nikolai finds Barak waiting for him on the stairs, wanting to explain that he wasn't tired earlier, he had been thinking:



Nikolai replies that thinking is good



but then drops the bomb--he's going back to Russia, his three years are over:

I failed grossly my capturing mission on the next sequence. It's all too visually complicated and subtle. In short, Barak expostulates that that makes no sense, and why?, and Nikolai remarks that, however, he really likes it in Egypt and feels great there, and Barak concludes that they won't let him go, he'll organise workers to demand that Nikolay stay.

Barak writes out a petition and there's a fantastic sequence when we see that piece of paper being transported by man, hand, conveyor belts, hooks, and mostly Barak climbing everywhere to get everyone's signatures so his boyfriend can stay, and finally he goes with a full petition to the bosses.

Here you see Barak telling chief Egyptian engineer Mahmoud that "(we want Nikolai to stay and build socialism with us) and socialism, that's the will of the people":



In the foreground, incidentally, is that other "couple", Alik and Saad--we'll see this scene again slightly changed.

Barak is told not to be silly and waste the grown-ups' time. There is actually a lot of involved interaction here, with the old Russian head engineer very much on Barak's side but unable to intervene directly, and Mahmoud concerned that his Russian colleagues don't think the Egyptians are whingers etc. But the result is pure sadness, as Barak slowly goes to the river, rips up the petition, and throws it into the water--shredded paper, shredded hopes...

Got-dammit, I missed a trick again, that is, taking a snap of Nikolai and Nikolai's face on his last day. He leaves the building to go to the station, and is met with the sight of Barak in Western gear for the first and only time, waiting for him:



Barak bearing forget-me-not gifts:



And there is this moment



and it lasts

Barak drives Nikolai to the station in a carriage--I've seen wedding couples like this in Egypt and Syria:



And that's the Tale of Barak and Nikolai, tell me it ain't.

Thanks for posting all the stills!

Oh, you're welcome. Anything to take my mind off real life for a while.

Y'all have no idea what a nostalgia trip this is for me... :) I've remembered scenes from my childhood I hadn't thought about for decades. The location was different of course, the countries, the languages--the times too (mid-seventies to early eighties), but the climate, colour patterns, the faces, the ambiance of the ports, construction sites, transport barges, donkeys and horse buggies, convoys of Mack trucks, machinery under the sun, architecture always halfway between getting built and crumbling, hills of metal scrap, concrete blocks, bulldozers, cranes, savage-looking instruments sized to gigantic tasks--all of that forms my earliest memories and, well, shapes something in my core. (Hey--I'm getting flashbacks too!)

Let's sketch a little of the wider scene...

Platonov the Russian boss and Mahmoud the Egyptian boss contemplate their almost-finished project

Striking, eh?

I didn't capture the dam opening sequence because I stupidly assumed it would be easy to find. Well, there is various black & white footage; this short Pathé report may be interesting for showing the surroundings and the people too:

Progress Report On "Aswan High Dam" (1964)

Back to the movie:



Sorry, I just need another wider shot of that generator... I can't be the only one who finds this beautiful?

Speaking of beautiful, turning to Nubia now, the region that would be flooded and thousands of people displaced, including Barak's family and that of his fiancée Fatou.

A shot from Barak's flashback to the day he received the news that he got a job on the dam--he is rushing to intercept the postman:



My crappy screen grab is doing a disservice to the movie, please believe me the palette is beautiful--I want to show at least the geometry and structure of the village:



Look at the women and children huddled in the shade...

Barak (facing the camera) announces to his father he's leaving for Assouan and work on the dam; he had disappointed his family by failing his exams.



Fatou (orange scarf) watching the barge that is taking Barak away:

Time to introduce my fave, the acerbic Old Man on the Long-Eared Donkey, and his stinging criticism of it all.



"Forgive us, my Nouba! What a pity!"



"I won't leave unless they move the whole village."



"None of these rocks is worth our village."

On route to his displaced paesanos, donkey vs. that cavalry of rabid modernity, the tractor :)



He can't believe his eyes...



"Is that it, your Nile?"

And, my favourite line in the movie, when the other guy tells him it's all fine, by God's grace, they are happy...



"Donkeys are happy too."

My hero.

Well, this film looks fascinating! Thank you.

>3 LolaWalser: In addition to 'The Celluloid Closet', there was the BFI/Channel 4 documentary 'A bit of Scarlet' (1997) that looked at the queer side of British film history. It's good, but largely forgotten. The intro is on vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/145233115

Oh, my god, Lola, the film looks amazing, and I loved your commentary!

>25 Rembetis:

Not done yet! :)

Thanks for that reference, I'll watch it together with Mark's this weekend.

>26 lilithcat:

Oh, my, thanks--really didn't expect it could draw attention given that so few people saw it (ever!), and it also means SO MUCH to hear my blathering isn't altogether useless! I

That said, I approach the other love story with trepidation because it's trying to capture a ray of light in your hand (my heavy, heavy hand...) But I guess I'll forge ahead and cringe later... :)

Well, I must admit I can't find the "best" point of attack for the story of Alik and Saad because every approach makes me think of six other things to say, in different order and emphasis, and there are so many curious things to note within the film (fiction) and around it (fact). I risk to confuse what is simple and over-simplify the complex, even mysterious.

The connection between Alik and Saad emerges in counterpoint to Alik's marriage to Zoya--you begin to understand that he's in love with and desires Saad when you see how he has stopped loving, desiring Zoya. But the story of Alik and Zoya, what Chahine chose to tell of it, is itself strange for the times--strangely advanced and progressive (but let down by the ending, of which more later).

As if that weren't enough, it's also strange--beyond strange!--as a subplot for a sober movie meant to celebrate two socialist countries' joint construction of a river dam. I mean, who hears "let's make a story about our glorious socialist triumph and Russo-Egyptian worker brotherhood" and goes, "yes, and in that name let's have a young engineer who won't have sex with his wife anymore and tells her he's too tired all the time" (this happens in the movie TWICE).

Finally, concurrently with the "story" of the film, there's Chahine's extraordinary focus on Alik, which I perceive as his own, personal focus on the actor. I can't of course prove that Chahine had a crush on this man; I can only say that I think so, and that the film says so.

He's the character with the greatest (by far) number of close-ups, he's the character on whom the camera lingers, whom the camera centers. He gets a fairly lengthy sequence en deshabille (longer than Barak at the beach), and is the only character whose sex life is overtly referenced. It was this insistent focus on him (which bemused me at first as I thought that Nikolai would be THE hero) that both made the film strange in a pedestrian sense, and so gay.

On to the pictures.

The radiant object of desire:



The still comes from the later part of the film. Alik is at the train station seeing off some Russian friends who are going home. At this moment he sees his own wife, Zoya, baggage in tow, by all evidence leaving him.

Here's a flashback to the 19-year-old Alik at the battle of Stalingrad. Why, you ask--well, for the same reason Chahine included it--even more Alik, and younger Alik, pretty-as-a-girl Alik.





That night in Stalingrad Alik "discovered love and death", as the nurse Vierka is killed the next day, and he is wounded.

Years later, Alik the veteran is at the university where he meets Zoya:



That same day he fights with her then-boyfriend, which results in his winning the girl and also showing up to the first date (at the Bolshoi Ballet) with a frightful black eye.

They marry.

Moscow, Zoya (the blonde on the left) and two colleagues of hers are talking about whether Zoya should accompany Alik to Egypt, or, as she is inclined to, stay at her hard-earned position in Moscow.

The following still is almost identical, sorry, but I need to record that line, so ironic in retrospect (it's the Asian-looking woman who speaks, teasingly)--"...he will be alone among those bewitching Egyptian women?"



Zoya eventually agrees to Alik's pleas to go with him.

And, it's a disaster. Although she used to be Platonov's favourite student, although she's in the same profession as her husband, although he assured her she would work... Zoya is denied a job in Egypt's patriarchal society and sees herself forced into the situation of other foreign wives: "waiting and knitting, knitting and waiting" (the Arabic repeats the dreary sentence several times, the subs don't).

The day that Zoya goes to the construction site for the last time to demand a job is also the day Alik meets Saad, in the tunnel leading to the gallery which the two of them will blow up on their own initiative, against the boss' wishes.



From the first, they are attached, together, complicit.



From the first, they share a secret.



From the first, they lean toward each other, into each other...



...on the brink of a kiss.

It's only after they blow up the gallery, after this daring exploit of theirs is concluded safely and proves successful, that they relax and introduce themselves to each other... exchanging compliments and declaring friendship.









"You were great." "Not as much as you." "Oh no, you were."

Note that this mirrors beat by beat Barak's and Nikolai's meeting/falling in love: first the anonymous encounter, the dangerous excitement, an almost sexual convulsion (and perhaps something used in lieu of sex that can't be shown), then the relaxation, the calm and happy introduction, the explicit seal of friendship.... of affection.

From that day on Alik and Saad are inseparable, at least as far as what we see on screen is concerned. I did wonder how Chahine directed the actors, did he tell them "just hold hands the whole time or as if you were about to", or what... like two slender reeds on the bank of a river do they turn and sway toward each other the whole time.

Remember the scene above when Barak brings his petition to keep Nikolai? Saad turns to Alik, Alik looks at him... thus.

On the day of the opening of the dam, Alik and Saad reminisce about the day they met and actually decide to go into "their" tunnel:





And on the spot where they met they inscribe their names into the wall, like schoolboys

Simultaneously Alik moves away from Zoya and what better illustration of the situation than this--sad worried betrayed Zoya isolated from her husband by the bewitching Egyptian between them:

Two Russian beauties in bed... oceans apart



Alik goes to fetch a glass of water and discovers there is neither ice nor cold water in the fridge



And that is the archduke Franz-Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo to the geopolitical crisis of this marriage.



Please note that this is not how *I* would have framed this shot--it's all Chahine. Alik's torso to Zoya, "You haven't slept enough?"

Zoya has better things than quarrel on her mind









but this man no longer lives at that address, it's clear as day

And so we get to the scene at the train station: Zoya is leaving and Alik does nothing to stop her. All he manages is to say that he will go mad without her. Which, if it means anything at all, can only mean he'll do something "mad"--like sleeping with his Egyptian boyfriend.



Zoya's disappointment is palpable



Not a single "I love you" from Alik, not a single protest, promise, plea. What is going through his mind as he watches Zoya leave?

>31 LolaWalser: Couldn’t help suspecting that Chahine put that in because he happened to notice the studio in Russia had a suitable set already built up (and that burnt-out tramcar would turn up in lots of Soviet WWII films if we were to look for it).

>32 LolaWalser: Irrelevant, but it stuck in my mind: at the opening of that escalator shot, the colleague is making a “telephoning” gesture to mock Zoya, and of course when you see that now, it’s just “someone on an escalator using a mobile phone” — until you remember that it’s the 1960s...

I felt there was a kind of Passage to India vibe about Alik and Saad (the book, not the film, at that point), although of course Zoya has a lot more depth to her than Miss Quested. It really came out in the scene where Alik visits Saad (which you haven’t got to yet) and clearly hasn’t got a clue about what’s going on in Saad’s life. Chahine must have known about Forster, I suppose, growing up in Alexandria and going to a British-type school.

Need you ask, of course he rushes straight to Saad:



Saad is delighted, he says he was "reading"--he was not, it's a lie, he was smoking idly on the balcony while a gaggle of relatives made merry in his rooms. But Saad wants to impress Alik. Hence the "reading". And the relatives with their noisy children have been shooed away into the side room.



The women sneak glances at Saad's visitor: "What a beauty!"

>44 thorold:

Heh, yeah, the Stalingrad flashback is SO shoehorned (oh, and speaking of camp--now THAT was camp!) I'm guessing some stodgy Russian insisted on Stalingrad (whatever you do, mention the war), and Chahine said to himself, okay, fine, Stalingrad--but a Hollywood musical about Stalingrad!

At least, there's that marzipan quality and tinsel fakery to the whole segment.

Not that there weren't some excellent notes to it--Vierka's comment about her husband who told her seeing his own face in the mirror made him happy--upon which she left him (il était beau, le salaud said the French; he was a handsome pig, said the Russian); and her sad hopeless little protest that she would rather talk, "it's worth more"... but tell that to the ardour of nineteen.

I have not read Forster's fiction and have no idea what transpires along these lines in The Passage to India! Do tell. I always expected Forster would be some greyish subdued milquetoasty oblique hinting, and I just can't with that anymore.

Alik is now alone and expects understanding from Saad who, he thinks, also lives alone:



But no Arab, old or young, straight or gay, ever lives alone!

Yes, the two men are from different worlds.

But what does that matter, look at them framed here behind the bosses:



Watching that other couple, Nikolai and Barak:



Having the time of their lives

What can you tell about a butterfly's flight from the dead insect stuck with a pin?

The love poetry of these relationships, the seduction of glances and ambiguous dialogue, bloom forth in motion, in montage, in quick exchange, in sound.

Dissecting out one thread can no more reconstitute the story than a nerve replace the nervous system.

Perhaps it's a dream of open eyes, like watching is a dream of possession. But if so, it's not my dream, but the brave, witty man's who bared his heart for the whole world to see.

Maybe he thought, being Alexandrian, that the shades of Cavafy and Alexander offered protection, and more, were an invitation to such declarations.

I have only a few more pictures left to wrap up a few other themes. I prefer to end with them (not tonight) because what remains to be said about the actor playing Alik is too sad and bizarre a coda.

His name was Yuri Kamornyj and in 1964 when this film was made he was only 20 years old. He died in 1981 at 37, shot dead by the police as he was threatening a girlfriend with a knife. At least, that's what they say.

He had been married four times, had at least one child, knew the fame and greedy popularity of a sex symbol star, but... despite all that or because of it, who knows, by the time he died he was an alcoholic for many years, a man with a ruinous, tragic life.

I don't know what killed him--the drink, the system, the drink because of the system, or some other ills and unhappiness.

>46 LolaWalser: ...Forster would be some greyish subdued milquetoasty oblique hinting

Yes, he would probably infuriate you, which might be fun for the rest of us to watch, but not a very rewarding investment of your time. I'll try to cut to the essentials...

Forster started writing A passage to India (title taken from Whitman, nota bene) after his first visit to India in 1912-1913, but couldn't work out what he wanted to do with it until after a second visit in the early 1920s. In between were the war years when he was in Alex, working for the Red Cross, making friends with Cavafy, and having what seems to have been his first happy and fulfilled love affair, with an Egyptian tram driver.

Fielding, a teacher who's come to India relatively late in life and hasn't quite assimilated the proper colonialist attitudes, tries to get away from the snobbish English by making friends with Dr Aziz, a Muslim physician who's also a fish out of water in a largely Hindu town. Reading between the lines (but only between the lines) we realise that they've got the hots for each other, but Fielding's clumsy ignorance of the subtleties of Indian life inadvertently starts a series of events that lands Aziz where he's accused of sexually assaulting Miss Quested in the Marabar Caves (Forster never commits himself on what, if anything, actually happened in the cave). Much later, Aziz and Fielding meet again, Aziz forgives him, and there's a kind of ambiguous Casablanca "this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship" ending, even though Fielding is now married.

Edward Said obviously likes the novel, and gives Forster credit for opening the minds of colonial administrators of the pre-independence period a little bit, but he still takes Forster to task for using "the mechanism of the novel to elaborate on the already existing structure of attitude and reference without changing it" — he's talking about the colonialist side of things, but you could say the same about his failure to commit himself sexually.

>49 LolaWalser: Thank you for this fascinating thread!

Yuri Kamornyj looks older than 20 in some of these screen grabs. Maybe he was drinking heavily from a young age.

I wonder if the gay subtext (including Alik's 'rejection' of Zoya) may have been part of the reason this film was banned by Egypt and the USSR? Although Khrushchev liberalised many of the Stalin era laws, he critically kept all the draconian anti-gay laws on the statue books.

I wonder if the 1972 remake eliminated the gay subtext to make it palatable to the powers that be in Egypt/Russia.

>50 thorold:

Thanks!--I've read about the novel in Said and Rushdie etc. but didn't know (or recall) there was a gay undertow--not that I'm surprised. (I guess I really ought to read it...)

>51 Rembetis:

I was astonished to read that Kamornyj would have been only 20 but that's what the info online has (not that I searched a lot, the Wiki and the IMDb and the first most recent article about him). It's a tough life in Russia! :)

Everything around the film is a mystery to me, god knows what the whole truth may be. First the complication of it being a co-production, between two very different cultures and mentalities, under the aegis of two strict regimes that loved to monitor and censor, and each with their own repertoire of no-nos. One would need to get the Egyptian side of the story and separately the Russian. Chahine's and that of his co-writers (a Russian is credited, along with another Egyptian).

Who cast Kamornyj? He may look older than twenty but his youthfulness breaks through all the time to a funny effect (I think it can be picked up in the still with Zoya where he's supposed to be a broken "veteran" greying at the temples). The Stalingrad sequence is the only one where his actual age coincides with the character's--was he cast from that as a starting point? He had already been acting for several years; it's tempting to speculate someone liked him as a dashing young partisan in something and thought he'd be grand to showcase as the modern socialist man in what was to be an important international production.

The short but perspicacious write-up on the CF site did mention that it looks as if Chahine simply could not "obey the rules", as we may imagine them, which the suits would have set for the film. Not necessarily out of some deliberate antagonism; simply because he was too much of an artist who liked to tell real stories about characters as much as real people as possible.

I don't know much about homosexuality in the USSR; the current situation certainly looks dire. Not to be stereotypical, but I had to wonder about Kamornyj himself a little (you really need to see him move to understand...), or, you know, maybe he was consciously playing the character as gay? Maybe there was some joke between him and the director or the other actors?--there are a couple scenes where I think they almost break the fourth wall...

In any case, I lost all appetite for trawling through the gossip when I read about his death; suffice it to say that IF he was gay or had any such inclinations, adventures etc., I can only imagine how tough it must have been. In any case, obviously he did not find a solution to whatever bedevilled him in marriage. (Four before 37 is rather a lot!)

But, it needs to be remembered that the film is complex and there are many other issues that have and may have displeased either of the Powers, from the Nubians distressed by the move imposed on them to the rather feminist-y treatment of Nadia the modern young Egyptian girl.

Speaking of which, a few last words about Alik and Zoya...

There are four female characters of some note in the film. Nikolai's brief dalliance with Varya is a part of the visual and textual parallel between Nikolai and Barak, with the two stories spliced together at various points.

Varya can be described as a feminist figure, a typical modern young Soviet woman--educated, working side by side with male colleagues, and dating whom she pleases as she pleases. She and Nikolai seem to like each other very much and share a passionate kiss but there are no uttered promises about waiting or engagement or even seeing each other again--Nikolai is leaving for three years and he says this could be the last time they meet.

In contrast, Fatou is Barak's cousin and has been engaged to him from childhood. They don't "date", they are very shy around each other, Fatou utters only two sentences, after he's told her he's going to Assouan--she asks if there are very many people there (yes, he says, 36 000 at the building site alone), and if there are girls (no reply). Barak chisels his and her name on an ancient stone and tells her the inscriptions will survive longer than the pyramids.

Note that this will in retrospect help to identify Alik and Saad's writing of the names "for posterity" as the same kind of romantic gesture.

Zoya, Alik's wife, begins like Varya, a strongly "feminist" figure. But she gets taken out of her society which, for all its faults, was not only more gender-egalitarian than Egypt, but more so than the West at that time, and deposited in the midst of 36 000 mostly illiterate Muslims who, labourers or skilled workers, find the idea of a female colleague (let alone a boss) absolutely inconceivable and intolerable.

That this theme was even mentioned was a huge surprise to me, and on its own would have garnered Chahine some kudos. Zoya is given a voice, and she voices her fears and later frustration quite satisfactorily. The situation IS deeply unfair. When on top of this we see her sexually rejected by Alik, it seems only inevitable and RIGHT that she should leave. And leave she does... but only as far as the port.

Nikolai, who is also leaving that day, sees her and (the voiceover tells us) understands that she's not really resolved to go. He pretends to have missed buying the last boat ticket and does the jokey routine about the roundabout way he'll have to travel back home. Zoya cedes him her ticket and goes back to Alik.

There seem to be some continuity problems at this point; somehow or other we see Alik returning home (we have last seen him at Saad's, wearing a suit and a white shirt), without noticing immediately that Zoya had returned. Then he hears her in the kitchen and slowly takes a few steps

And that's it from him. There's no joy in his face, he says nothing--it's again SHE who takes all initiative. She smiles (she too isn't saying anything), takes him by the hand, leads him to the table, sits him down, caresses him, kisses him.



He doesn't smile back, doesn't return her caress, doesn't kiss her. He doesn't seem angry, only mysteriously passive.

Then he takes her hand and kisses it--an ambiguous gesture that to me, in context of everything that has happened, reads more like gratitude than love (certainly not a sign of anything like Zoya's naked passion).

Then they start laughing like kids--that's one of the moments of the fourth wall breaking I thought... but let's leave the tow-headed children at last and turn to the grossly neglected only "straight" romance, that of Yahya and Nadia. I have only this capture, which I love deeply for the so very Egyptian-Arabic moment and ambiance--the expanded family putting on the carpet a request for the daughter's hand. Yahya and Nadia are at the bottom of the picture, with flowers between them.



The man seen sitting behind Yahya, in profile and as if separated from the room, is an interesting figure--a detective? family friend? relative?--Nadia will employ to gather intel on Yahya's past and personality. The three of them--Nadia, Yahya and the mole--will share a wonderful seaside meal and a deep if cryptic (to me) conversation about love and marriage.

As I said already, Nadia refuses Yahya in the end. The main thing (to this viewer anyway) is that here we have a young woman in love who does not act as if "being in love" is enough to marry someone.

Chahine may have let Zoya down (for whatever reason--it's quite possible the ending was imposed on him), but Nadia is stellar.

That's pretty much it for the show 'n' tell, folks. Unfortunately YouTube came down on my crappy mobile-made vids like a ton of bricks--although I sorted them to "unlisted"!--although they are barely 2 minutes and jittery with tinny sound!--apparently it's the copyrighted music or theme that's the problem... I'll see if I can figure out some secret place to park them.

Somebody's blog post about going to Paris in 2018 specifically in order to attend the Chahine retrospective--there's a short note about Un jour, le Nil (here called "The Nile and Life") with a new still (they seem to be so rare, you may want to look at it).

https://alligator-tunny-3mj4.squarespace.com/home/youssef-chahine-film-retrospec...

The Nile and Life is an Egyptian/Russian production about the Aswan Dam and its impact on people and livelihood. An astonishing film about labour told through Egyptian and Russian characters. It’s one of his most interesting films visually and jumps between past and present. This was my favourite film discovery from the series.

A comment about the movie from some random internaut, with that "theory" jargon I can't own (and don't want to--but appreciate in others):

The overcrowded plot (that includes some half-baked progpaganda efforts here and there) makes this a bit frustrating at times, but the scope of Chahine's sensuous political dialectics is once again impressive; here, it reaches far beyond his homeland. Even in Stalingrad, the gruesome real of history is inseparable from desire.

About Kamornyj's age... I see the film credited in many places (including CF) as being from 1964, but maybe that's the script, because the other date coming up all the time is 1968, the date of the release. So, perhaps the filming with him didn't start until later.* Twenty-four, say, seems less weird than twenty for his appearance.

Whatever was the case, his IMDB credits show only the second version of the film released in 1972. Ivashov, Vladimirov (the actor playing Platonov) and the actress playing Zoya seem to be in this version too but presumably all of that material is from the first film.

Really strange how this film, the original version of it, seems to have been buried and forgotten.

*From some celebrity site: В 1968 году сыграл главные роли в картинах «Люди на Ниле»... (Кузьмин)--In 1968 he played the lead in the film "People of the Nile" (Kuzmin).

Not to turn this into a thread about Kamornyj (way too depressing a story...), but some may be interested in hearing his voice--in the movie it sounded quite beautiful, and what do you know, turns out he sang... this is a short (1 minute) excerpt from some tribute to him, scenes from a few movies of his with his singing over them. The first frame is slightly pixelated but then the image clears up:

Юрий Каморный

It's been quite frustrating following this thread and not being able to see the film---you've made it sound something really unique. I'm forgetting, now, but I think you had a link to it in the OP, yes? And I didn't first read the thread until a day or so after it expired---so frustrating.

>60 alaudacorax: Same here. When I missed the window for watching it on the Cinémathèque website, I didn't worry because I was sure I'd be able to get it from somewhere else. Turns out it's not so easy. My library doesn't have it (I borrowed Le destin / Destiny instead) and I can't see it on any online platform or on DVD. Typically, older films tend to be available on YouTube - the quality isn't always great, but they're watchable - but it looks like copyright owners have been very vigilant with this one, even thought it was remastered in 1999! I wonder why...

Thanks for the further info Lola! I wish I had seen this film in the little window that it was available on line.

As an aside, I am aware of one other strange co-production (no gay overtones), between Russia and, this time, India - 'Pardesi' (1957) about the 15th century Russian merchant traveler Afanasy Nikitin. Like 'Un jour, le Nil', 'Pardesi' was shot in widescreen and colour (unusual for Indian films of that time), and has great cinematography. There is an unsubtitled version, ropey quality, 'pan and scan', and cut, on youtube.

Indian films were very popular in Russia in the 50s, especially the films of Raj Kapoor that dealt with social issues (in a 'popular' Bollywood style, with songs etc). E.g. the sublime film 'Awaara' (1951) whose core theme is how life chances are shaped by social inequality, background and environment - was the highest grossing film at the box office in Russia in 1954.

'Pardesi' is a strange hybrid - two versions were made at the same time, in Indian and Russian. The main stars of 'Pardesi' were the Russian Oleg Strizhenov and the brilliant Indian star Nargis (who co-starred with Raj Kapoor in 'Awaara' and many other of his classic films).

Yeah, I'm so sorry, people. I'm terribly sorry myself for leaving this movie to the last--I saw it in the evening of July 14, and they were taking it off the next day! I'm kicking myself now especially because I had seen and bookmarked it the very day they put it up, so it sat there for days (while I was watching the Epstein movies and La maison du mystère etc. Arrrgh!)

Moreover, I almost didn't watch it at all because there was another movie expiring the next day, Jocelyne Saab's Dunia (Saab is Lebanese but lived in Egypt a long time and Dunia too is set in Egypt.)

I first started watching Dunia (gave it about 40 minutes I think), but didn't like it enough and so finally turned to this one... If I had at least read the notes immediately, when it was posted--it actually describes at least Barak's and Nikolai's story as a love story!--at least I'd have known there was something unusual to look forward to. (I only read the short caption below the vid then...)

And now I notice I can't even find THAT write-up again, just this with the sentence I noted on the first day:

https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/64366.html

L'épopée de la construction du haut barrage d'Assouan. Un travail titanesque qui, en fermant l'ancien cours du Nil, va ouvrir une nouvelle ère en même temps qu'inonder définitivement des terres ancestrales.

Yes, I believe the movie is unique for many reasons and omg do I hope it will become somehow available... God knows what all the complications are.

As far as I understand, the copy Chahine gave to Langlois in 1970 was restored in 1999 and digitized last year. I imagine there must be problems with copyright--does this now belong to the CF alone, or can the Egyptians and/or Russians enforce some rights or what. In short it looks like this question could be quite nightmarish and expensive.

Well, there was the retrospective, and this one largely missed chance, so possibly there'll be other in the future.

It's really a beautiful work throughout (not just for the pretty boys!)--flawed, but beautiful. And so valuable a document too.

As for my captures, if only I had known how little from the movie is findable, I'd have been more assiduous--but even my 100 or so captures took HOURS. Like, 6-8 hours--and I was racing to grab them all before "closing time". For one thing, every time I got kicked out of the stream (and this happened three times out of four), I had to go back to the beginning and re-stream all of it to that point. The beauteous Barak's pectorals etc. are burned on my retinas now... :)

>62 Rembetis:

Yes, it's not so much that there is something strange about co-productions in themselves, nor are they rare, particularly outside the US.

I will look for "Pardesi". There are several YouTube channels with archives from official Russian studios, Lenfilm, Mossfilm etc. who seem to be quite generous in what they are sharing, maybe it will show up in good resolution.

Well, given that there's practically nothing from Un jour, le Nil online (that I can find anyway), I may as well put up the remaining captures.

Barak and his friends as he's about to jump into the water--they tell him he's risking death:

Barak and Nikolai

Old Man On The Long-Eared Donkey Disapproving Of Everything

The scene with Barak and his father from the opposite angle, Barak has his back to the viewer and is holding a cigarette or a joint. His mother stands framed in the doorway.

It dawns on Zoya that not only is she not getting a job, she's losing a husband



(Valentina Khoutsenko was 14 years older than Kamornyj but I don't think you can tell here...)

Zoya, conscientious to the last... "I'll go economy, it'll cost less"



Look at him grinning, the handsome rat. Can't believe his good luck, getting rid of the wife so easily... :)

More thrilling scrap metal & assorted junk... what, no one else, seriously, it's just me?

That's all the relatively good captures, the ones snipped by the computer.

To follow: a few fuzzy blotchy splodgy captures from the "videos".

If only I had been acquainted Chahine before, I could have contextualized stuff in a more interesting fashion... Going off the hint in that internet comment above, about Chahine's "sensuous political dialectics", it's clear we have here someone interested in a whole range of questions relating to sex which, as far as I know, where really not on the list of top issues for either Soviet or the Egyptian government.

Before the scene of Yahya's "interview" with Nadia's family, there is one with Nadia and her mother in Nadia's room. The girl is angry they have set up this meeting, which makes her feel like a piece of goods. She says she will stay in her room. Her mother says, fine, she will show Yahya into Nadia's room, and she hopes Nadia will enjoy the ensuing scandal. Nadia says, wait... not like that, let him see me like this--and pulls off her dress.



For Egypt in 1964 that's a revolutionary scene. And, Nadia and her family are one kind of Egyptians. Barak and his are quite different.

The following are from the complicated sequence which intercuts Nikolai's memories with Barak's when they are in the water. I can't recapitulate Chahine's rhythm and points, but, basically, we are to appreciate the contrasts.

Barak's mother is unhappy about his decision to go work on the dam. She's on the left, Barak's fiancée Fatou wears the orange scarf:

Barak and Fatou are rarely alone or close to each other. But in this scene he's chiselling their names on a stone, as he's about to leave for Assouan and their future is uncertain. This is a beautifully composed scene--he doesn't see Fatou's face but asks her if she has seen the faces of others when he received the job letter--and it is clear that Fatou is at this moment looking just as unhappy as Barak's parents had been!



The first of Fatou's two lines (huge contrast to Nadia's impassioned speeches...)



And this too was beautiful--she doesn't show her reaction to Barak's writing their names to him, but after inspecting them, she turns her back to him and there is a slow transformation of her face from serious and unsmiling to a beautiful smile. Sorrow and love.

Nikolai's relationship with Varya is of a different nature, and yet their goodbye too is poignant, thanks most of all to Chahine's... let me say "love of love". I like immensely this trait I perceive in him, that he loved people to love, in whatever combinations.

Nikolai started flirting with Varya and vice versa from the moment they met:



They did things together inconceivable for Barak and Fatou--went on dates, danced (the twist!), drank, flirted lots more, and probably slept together:





Far from telling her that their relationship will outlast the pyramids, Nikolai admits it's probably goodbye forever.



The Russian couple kisses and possibly goes off for one last night together:



But poor Barak and Fatou can't even get close enough to SAY goodbye--her father steps in front of her and blocks him, when Barak takes a few steps in her direction.

Barak hugging his mother (but not his father) goodbye

And that seems like a good point to stop.

I loved this movie. I want ten copies of it. CF, I beg you.