• Cairo Station (Bab el hadid)

8/25/24 (Sat)

Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s 1958 neorealist work is hailed as a landmark in Arabic cinema. The Arabic title translates to “The Iron Door”, but I think the English title is quite good given the dynamics of the setting with its raucous mix of rich and poor, the old guard and the new, and a number of overlapping stories among characters with their various aims. The story focuses on the poor workers scrambling to make a living in the station, though the poverty is less the point here than just background information. Amid the constant traffic of unknown people to unknown spots, they have formed something of a community offering mutual support.

The lame and impoverished Qinawi is given a job as a newspaper salesman by a sympathetic vendor, putting him into contact with the many people teeming through the station. As a cripple, he lives a lonely life in a rundown shed, which, like an Egyptian Jud Fry, he has covered with photos of scantily clad women that he has cut out of magazines. He becomes obsessed with an uninhibited woman named Hanuma who is already engaged to another man. Hanuma is part of a group of females aggressively hawking soft drinks to passengers, illegally taking business from fixed shops and thus in constant pursuit by the police. Her intended, Abu Siri, is a burly porter who is trying to break the big boss’s hold on the business and organize a union for equal pay and better working conditions.

Qinawi’s unhealthy fixation sees him drawing buckets on the arms of women in the photos, representing the one that Hanuma fills with drinks and must thus constantly hide from the police. Encouraged in his ardor by the artlessly flirty Hanuma, he proposes marriage. Unable to take that seriously, she turns him down with jokes about his destitution and disability, which humiliates him (shades of Scarlet Street).

The story then takes a Hitchkockian turn. Inspired by news of a serial killer on the loose, Qinawi buys a large knife and plots to murder her. He offers to take her bucket to safety in an empty warehouse, telling her to come get it when the coast is clear. Unfortunately she unsuspectingly sends a friend in her place, and Qinawi learns only too late that the woman he stabs in the darkness is not Hanuma. The woman survives (which we learn when her hand eerily pops out of a crate) and identifies the culprit. After other developments and a dramatic chase, Qinawi takes Hanuma hostage on the train tracks before a horrified crowd. The kind vendor who had initially hired him tries to calm him, telling him that he can marry Hanuma after all. He says he has brought a wedding jacket and persuades him to try it on. That turns out to be a straitjacket. In an emotional scene, the crazed and struggling Qinawi is forcibly dragged away as Hanuma and Abu Siri embrace.

The film was reportedly highly controversial in Egypt in the heady days following the overthrow of the monarchy and Nasser-led revolution. It was banned for years by the authorities, though it competed in the Berlin International Film Festival and was submitted to the Oscars (unsuccessfully) as the nation’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film. It is surprisingly frank in its portrayal of sexuality, from Qinawi’s salacious photo collection and leering gazes to the open sensuousness of Hanuma. She is shown romping in clinging wet clothing, lolling suggestively in a pile of hay, dancing freely on a train to a rock band (named Mike and the Skyrockets) while pushing her drinks, and generally behaving with abandon. We also get cleavage shots and hints at a bit of fun between her and her lover. That said, her dancing earns her several hard slaps in the face by her lover, so her actions are not totally condoned. In another case, a woman complaining about Qinawi’s creepy stares is blamed by her husband for not wearing a veil. It’s still a man’s world.

The murder scheme was plotted out methodically, including some dark shots of the obsessed Qinawi that put the film in noir territory. The battle over the union played a significant role, and other plots emerge here and there. But it is Qinawi’s fate that drives the film. There was a suggestion of a class clash in a minor subplot involving secret meetings between a young girl and her upper-class lover. She curiously gets the movie’s final cut as she stands watching her lover saying goodbye to his relatives from a train window, with only a brief furtive glance her way. After the dramatic resolution of the attempted murder, that felt like one story too many.

The acting in general is melodramatic, but two performers stand out. Hind Rostom, a noted name in Egyptian film, is wonderful as Hanuma. Her flirting and boisterous attitude feel totally natural, making Qinawi’s mistaken reading of her intentions and subsequent obsession understandable. Meanwhile, the director himself plays Qinawi with tremendous intensity. He signals the character’s hunger for a human connection through an off-putting gaze that is at once pitiful and sinister, while his dancing outside the train in imitation of Hanuma is pure joy. It’s hard not to sympathize with him to some extent given his circumstances, and his end, though deserved, is heartbreaking. A great performance.

The vibrant scenes in the train station with its constant flow of activity make it almost a character in its own right. The last sequence along the tracks, with the dismayed crowds, the moving trains, the hostage situation, and the tense attempt to prevent tragedy, is particularly masterful. The director has several plot strands going at once that are not always tied together well, but the obsession story is strong enough to carry the film, helped by the strong acting of the two leads. A highly memorable film.