Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures  |  Adult
Boston  |  Portland  |  Providence
 
Movies
Features  |  Reviews

The Yacoubian Building

Three-hour Egyptian epic
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  December 12, 2007
2.5 2.5 Stars
inside_TRAILERS_yacoubian10
THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING: A Cairo-based Gone with the Wind.

This three-hour Egyptian epic — the most expensive ever made, and the first to get US release — has been crafted in the old school, by youngish pro Marwan Hamed, as a massive Arabic soap opera, a Cairo-based Gone with the Wind swoony with mourning for a privileged colonialist past and with a melodramatic fascination for the bloody ideological conflicts of the present. Notably in a nation with strict censorship laws (somewhere slackly west of Iranian sharia), Hamed’s film revolves around the need for, and the degeneration of, sex and money, and it’s groundbreakingly frank in its native territory about homosexuality and female exploitation. Hammy, lavish, and often thunderfooted, the movie is an immersion in rare pulp, and as much a window on Egyptian urbanity as on a semi-polished Arab film industry trying to come to grips with a tumultuous world and its own sociopolitical contradictions. Arabic | 161 minutes | MFA: December 14-16, 20, 22-23, 29-30; January 6
Related:
  Topics: Reviews , Entertainment , Media , Television ,  More more >
  • Share:
  • RSS feed Rss
  • Email this article to a friend Email
  • Print this article Print
Comments

election special
ARTICLES BY MICHAEL ATKINSON
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   KINO PRAVDA  |  August 26, 2008
    ‘Envisioning Russia’ at the MFA
  •   DARKNESS VISIBLE  |  May 19, 2008
    The HFA’s ‘Unseen Noir’ unveils America’s post-war gloom
  •   FILM ON THE FRINGE  |  March 25, 2008
    Jewishfilm.2008 explores the frontiers
  •   HELL BOY  |  March 18, 2008
    Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz at the ICA
  •   PORTUGUESE MAN OF WAR  |  March 12, 2008
    Manoel de Oliveira at the HFA

 See all articles by: MICHAEL ATKINSON

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 
HOT TOPICS
 More Topics . . .
LATEST SLIDESHOWS

All Slideshows



Featured Articles in Music Features:
081003_deacon_list

Here comes the Whambulance

Mass Art hosts the Baltimore Round Robin Tour
081003_stereolab_list

Groop therapy

Stereolab do it again for the first time
081003_wire_list

Post-masters

47 releases in, Wire can still get it up
081003_thorpe_list

Rate expectations

The Big Hurt: World-class criticism priced to move!
081003_cellars-list

The rote stuff

The meticulous mayhem of USAISAMONSTER
Wednesday, October 08, 2008  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2008 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group