MortSahlFan — 4 years ago(November 19, 2021 05:56 PM)

I chat on dozens of movie sites, and movies from this region are ignored. I must admit I have seen no more than a dozen or so, but a couple of years ago, after seeing a documentary on TCM, I saw an Egyptian movie (Chit-Chat On The Nile) and it was so different, yet so great. I remember seeing "Cairo '30" (which was probably the best, not my favorite that I mentioned above), "Cairo Station" and "There Is A Man In Our House". I can't remember the others, but I'm guessing they were probably directed by Henry Barakat, and starred Famen Hamama or Omar Sharif. Adapted or written by Mahfouz, who's shown to be one hell of a writer. I actually remember reading about him in Time Magazine when I was a kid. I also remember telling my aunt, who said, "He was kind of perverted" and went on to say how great Khalil Jibran was.
Last year, TCM started showing a documentary series called, "Women Make Film", and they were saying how many women were producers, directors, writers, and leading ladies, of course. I added movies to my watch-list.
There's some really good Iranian movies. It seems like half are very metaphysical. There's a movie within a movie within a movie. I can't remember the title, but there was one about this little girl actress, and it's done so well, I wasn't sure if it was part of the story, or if it was part of the movie they were filming (which we don't discover until around that time). Abbas Kiarostami is another name. "Close-Up" is an amazing idea, but "Taste of Cherry" is my favorite of his. Even the ending is unique and metaphysical.
What I've admired the most is the writing, regardless of who it is. A lot of social commentary, sometimes political, mixed in with love stories, and always searching for some kind of truth within the main characters. The "heavies" are always boorish and logical, while the third wheel (the single unmarried man) is always the romantic one. The women can't be described. Sensuous, but modest. Romantic, but trying to be responsible. Traditional at times, but constantly breaking with the past. I should point out most of the movies I have seen were from the 1950s and 60s.
"Dry Summer" is an excellent Turkish movie. Great story, acting, etc.
One thing that's common in all of them is the beautiful poetry. With the story, themes, writing, acting, cinematography, music - everything.
I also remember studying the first civilizations in school here in the US.. I still remember reading about the first city of Ur, Mesopotamia, the beginning of alphabet/writing (Sumerian), the wheel, and a million other inventions, such as irrigation, the Tigris and the Euphrates, the pyramids, the center of the three major Abrahamic religions, and this isn't ignored in the movies, even if it's not explicit. Sometimes you'll be watching a love story, and a couple meet by the pyramids, or someone tells their friend to meet them in Mosul, but of course the more intellectual movies mention politics, the history of societies, you name it.
I'm obsessed with chronology, capturing the zeitgeist (as opposed to the typical world events) in part to learn about history, trends, influence, comparing fiction with real life for its time, evolution of film, so I would start with the earliest movies, and move forward, to see how they got here at this point in history. I would see more, but finding subtitles can be tough, but there are some movies on YouTube (usually the popular ones, not the best) and one I really liked from 1972 that I saw yesterday after scrolling around Prime and seeing the interesting title, "Empire M", and it's a really unique movie.
Have you seen any?
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