Cairo Station
90 Minutes or Less
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1h 17m
Directed by Youssef Chahine • 1958 • Egypt
Starring Youssef Chahine, Farid Shawqi, Hind Rostom
Youssef Chahine established his international reputation with this masterpiece, which, though initially a commercial flop at home, would become one of the most influential and celebrated works in all of Arab cinema. The director himself stars as Qinawi, a simpleton newspaper hawker whose obsession with a sultry drink seller (Hind Rostom, the so-dubbed “Marilyn Monroe of Arabia”) leads to tragedy of operatic proportions on the streets of Cairo. Blending elements of neorealism (naturalistic dialogue, location shooting, and a vivid evocation of labor struggle in the postwar epoch) with provocative noir-melodrama (lust, jealousy, madness, and murder), CAIRO STATION is a work of raw populist poetry that explores the individual’s search for a place in Egypt’s new political order.
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