بداية و نهاية
The Beginning And The End (1960)
THE BEGINNING AND THE END (1960)
The opening shots of the 1960 Egyptian film The Beginning and the End contains the film’s French title, Morts parmi les vivants, which translates to “dead among the living.” This title encapsulates the film’s bleak, desolate tone and its cast of similarly uninhabited, meticulously written characters. Based on Naguib Mahfouz’s novel of the same name, the film follows a family oppressed by external and internal powers, poverty, misogyny and societal and political collapse. Director Salah Abu Seif crafts a picture that is both incredibly realistic and miraculously poetic, with crisp black and white cinematography ripe with the aesthetics of film noir, alongside a sensitive approach to directing actors that brought some of the best performances out of the film’s major movie stars, Omar Sharif and Sanaa Gamil. The Beginning and the End rightly carved its name into history as one of the most heartbreaking yet influential films in Egyptian and Arab classical cinema. — RAHMA ELHADDAD
Country of Origin: Egypt
Run Time: 2h 10m
Language: Arabic
Rank in the list: 58th
Genre(s): Drama
Synopsis
Set in post-patriarchal Cairo, the film follows an Egyptian family struggling to survive after the father’s death. At its center is Nefisah (Sanaa Gamil), who remains with her ailing mother (Amina Rizk) as her three brothers drift in different directions. Hasan (Farid Shawki), the eldest, succumbs to a life of crime, while Hussein leaves the city in search of work. The youngest, Hassanein (Omar Sharif), dreams of becoming an officer, but his ambition plunges the family into financial hardship. Amid these pressures, Nefisah finds fleeting love with the grocer’s son (Salah Mansour), only to be abandoned. To support her brother’s ambitions, she sacrifices herself, working as a prostitute. The story builds to one of Egyptian cinema’s most haunting finales: Nefisah’s arrest, her release at Hassanein’s hands, and a final confrontation on the Nile that ends in devastating tragedy.
Notable Cast and Crew
Salah Abu Seif
Director
Farid Shawqi
Cast (Hassan)
Omar Sharif
Cast (Hassanein)
Amina Rizk
Cast (The Mother)
Sanaa Gameel
Cast (Nafeesa)
Salah Mansour
Cast (Suleiman)
