Hossam Fahmy-Cairo
"Egypt is the gift of the Nile," said the Greek historian Herodotus hundreds of years ago. It may be a repetitive phrase, but it still largely reflects the reality of Egypt, one of the oldest countries in history, the country where the Nile provided its inhabitants with an escape from the desert on its eastern and western sides.
This great impact led directly to the sanctification of the ancient Egyptians of the Nile, and this sanctification spread over generations and generations until its impact on the Egyptian popular and artistic culture, so we accompany you today on an artistic journey on the value of land and Nile in Egyptian cinema, a value that may be the Egyptians most in need of reminding them These days.
Land, water and dignity
Of course, the most prominent film on our list today is "The Earth", which premiered in January 1970.It is directed by Youssef Chahine about the story of the great writer Abdel Rahman El Sharkawy and the screenplay of Hassan Fouad, starring some of Egypt's best actors, in the lead: Mahmoud El-Meligy, Yehia Shaheen and Izzat Al-Alayli.
In the land we see the true value of the Nile water, the source of life without which the land of the village would have ceased. The land in the Egyptian countryside is not only a source of food, but also the most prestigious manifestation of dignity. In the Egyptian village, those who lose their land lose their honor.
Here we follow the struggle of the villagers with feudalism and with the British occupation, they lose water in the end but they do not give up, the war continues and blood is shedding the land until the peasants regain their right, ending the story of Mohammed Abu Sweilem with the famous song "the land if thirsty narrate it with us", which then became an immortal song To this day the value of land and water for the Egyptians.
It is worth mentioning that the land film is now ranked second in the list of the best films in the history of Egyptian cinema.
Comedy and holiness
The second film on our list is "The Bride of the Nile," one of the most famous Egyptian comedies of the 1960s, and was screened in 1963, directed by creator Fateen Abdel Wahab and the script of the writer Kamel Youssef, starring Lubna Abdel Aziz, Rushdi Abaza and Shweikar.
In this film we return to witness the sanctification of the ancient Egyptians of the Nile, to the extent that they devote a day to offer offerings to him. In the film we see this Eucharist in the image of a beautiful girl, while many historical sources indicate that the offerings were limited to statues of beautiful girls.
However, Fatin Abdel Wahab here succeeds in using paradox, and the emergence of characters from the era of the Pharaohs in the sixties Egypt, to provide an intense dose of comedy position that ultimately succeed in instilling the love of the Nile and its value in the heroes and thus in viewers.
Gossip and smuggler
It may seem at first glance to choose the film "Gossip over the Nile" away from the value of the Nile, but if we look a little closer, we find that the film has devoted a large area to estimate the value of the Nile as the only Egyptian smuggler from "corruption and congestion of Cairo."
Here is the film directed by Hussein Kamal, based on Naguib Mahfouz's novel, which follows a group of friends fleeing Cairo with all the misery and ugliness, in the period following the defeat of 1967, where they did not find a smuggler and a place to chat only in the Nile buoy.
The Nile is not only the source of life, but it is the place where Egyptians naturally resort to forgetting their worries.No wonder, the river is the only source of civilization and entertainment in a desert country such as Egypt, unless you are a coastal resident.
O sweet, Asmar
At the level of singing, the Egyptians sang to the Nile as they did not sing to others, we see this since the ancient Egyptian songs on the walls of the temples, passing through the song of the generations musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab dedicated to the River Nile entitled "Traveler Zade fantasy", and also the song Planet of the East Umm Kulthum of the Nile The poet of the Nile Hafez Ibrahim and began her words "Peace young Nile."
Up to then, the song that the nightingale of the Egyptian Abdel Halim Hafez began his career in the Egyptian radio, which represented his passage to the ears and hearts of the Egyptian public, a song in which he flirts with the Nile titled "Ya Helo Ya Asmar", written by Samir Mahgoub and composed by Mohamed El Mouji. It starts with the words "O Tber walk between two, O sweet, Asmar."
In conclusion, we certainly mention one of the most famous Egyptian national songs in recent years, the song "Musharbash of Nealha" by Egyptian singer Sherine Abdel Wahab, a song that proves to us that the Egyptians even in the most difficult moments, and in the most stages of their dissatisfaction with the state of Egypt, are still They feel connected with the Nile and belonging to it.