Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising 3030688992, 9783030688998

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Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising Amir Taha

Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising “This crisp and genuine assessment of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 offers an important insight into the analysis of counterculture as a war-machine and as an ongoing process where active opposing forces to the State apparatus prevail through protest and creativity. Emphasizing the links between politics and cinema, Amir Taha proposes a meticulous analysis of the roots of counterculture in Egyptian cinema and their rhizomatic implications in post-revolutionary film productions.” —May Telmissany, University of Ottawa, Canada

Amir Taha

Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising

Amir Taha Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA) University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg Johannesburg, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-68899-8    ISBN 978-3-030-68900-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: UPI / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To all whom we lost to death and imprisonment in the quest for a better Egypt. To Mahinour Al Masry. To my mother, may your love carry me through life to the end of days.

Preface

This book has been in progress since 2012, one year after the eruption of the Arab uprisings. In these last nine years, the situation all over the Arab World went through dramatic changes. What started for some as a hopeful step toward a new political, social, cultural, and economic life in the region has now turned into a hard and continuous struggle which will last for years to come. This is also the case for my generation and all the younger generations who witnessed and lived this event. These nine long years which passed so fast changed us for good with all their intensities and the many events and details. When I started this book in 2012 as a PhD thesis, Egypt was in the midst of the active revolutionary phase. Everybody on all sides was fighting to create, shape, reshape, or shut spaces. In 2020, this is still happening, yet in a counterrevolutionary phase. A phase that is defined by transregional proxy wars and geopolitical remapping. In this continuous process, we all seek to grasp the changes which took and are still taking place in the Arab World, whether in public life or in our own personal lives. The book is both a personal and an academic attempt to contribute to Egypt’s long struggle against authoritarianism with all its guises. I believe that out of the Egyptian Uprising which started in 2011, a process of knowledge production must come into being. Such production shall find home in all intellectual and academic disciplines without exception. For, in my view, the Arab Uprisings in their core are marked by the desire and the acute need to create new modes of living for the people of the region. As

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a continuous process, this new mode is not yet decided. What is clear, however, is that these uprisings are questioning every single aspect of life: Politics, Religion, Ecology, Gender, Governance, Art, Geography, and History. My sought contribution in this book moves in the realm of Culture and Film Studies. This book reads the Egyptian Uprising as a countercultural process of which film is a component. Counterculture in this book is defined and implemented in a new and different light. It is not the term which is tied to the geohistorical moment of the 1960s’ United States and Western Europe. Also, it does not follow the liberal humanist understanding of culture. Rather, I attempt to liberate the term counterculture from these narrow boundaries in favor of a wider and more theoretically comprehensive understanding which can be broadly applied to various societies with various circumstances. Counterculture is defined in this book as an assemblage of potentiality, horizontality, and resistance against the concept of the state which is constantly shaping and reshaping. One component of the Egyptian countercultural assemblage is film. This book examines the organic relationship between film as an art form and the concept of counterculture in the context of the Egyptian Uprising. With the tools of a cultural and film studies’ approach, this book aims to shed light on the interaction between cinema and the street as well as between cultural narratives and politics. Egypt’s cinema history is marked with a long-complicated relationship with the state. In the context of the 2011 Egyptian uprising, this book argues for a new cinema movement which came into being as a line of the Egyptian countercultural assemblage. Johannesburg, South Africa

Amir Taha

Acknowledgments

It would have not been possible for this book, which is based on my doctoral dissertation, Film between Counterculture and Revolution. From the Anglo-American Youth Movement of the 1960s to the Arab Spring in Egypt, at the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, to see the light without the guidance, the help, and the support of a number of people. First, I would like to thank Prof. Christoph Reinfandt who supervised my PhD at the University of Tübingen. Prof. Reinfandt’s guidance, care, support, and generosity enabled me to write the project on which this book is based. I am forever grateful to Prof. Reinfandt for his belief in me. I would like to thank Prof. Ingrid Hotz-Davis for her support throughout the years of my study at the University of Tübingen. Her warmth, creativity, and undivided attention always opened doors for ideas, solutions, and confidence in my own work. My gratitude also goes to Prof. Russell West-Pavlov, the University of Tübingen, for his support of my work and my career. I always found a listening ear and an open mind by Prof. West-Pavlov, and I owe my current academic position to his help and his belief in me. I would like to express my gratitude to the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation in Germany for funding my PhD and showing unconditional support in the difficult times I had during the scholarship. I would like to thank Marcus Hawel and Jane Argrejärv for their solidarity, help and support. To all my colleagues at the University of Tübingen, Rainer Schelkle, Gero Bauer, Raphael Zähinger, Rebecca Hahn, Prachi Moore, Mahdi Hadi, and Sara Vakili, thank you for your valuable support through discussions, feedback,

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and care. I would like to thank Prof. Sarah Nuttall (WiSER, University of the Witwatersrand) for her mentorship during my stay at WiSER in 2017. Prof. Nuttall showed me unconditional support, warmth, and generosity both academically and personally in a difficult time of my life. I thank Prof. Achille Mbembe who also showed me support and love during my stay at WiSER. To all the WiSER current and former members, especially, Najibha Deshmukh, Adila Deshmukh, Pamila Gupta, Jonathan Klaaren, Victoria Hume, Joshua Z. Walker, Richard Pithouse, Grieve Chelwa, and Mekonon Firew, thank you for your welcome and your warmth. As for Prof. Dilip Menon, my post-doctoral supervisor at Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA), University of the Witwatersrand, I cannot find enough words to express my gratitude to him for all the love, warmth, support, help, and mentorship during my two years of postdoctoral fellowship. This book would have never been possible without his inspiration and support. I am extremely fortunate to have worked with him and to have gotten to know him as a person and a great human. Hala Lotfy, Ahmed Abdallah, and Tamer El Said, thank you for your significant artistic visions. Your films are the backbone of this book. I enjoyed every moment of engaging with them. I am also grateful for your time and for your patience toward my many questions and enquiries. You allowed me a unique insight into your work and your visions. Zeyad Al Elaimy, thank you for your extensive input, may you see the light of freedom soon. I am fortunate to have friends whose presence in my life and during the journey of writing this book gave me strength and inspiration and provided me with love. Huge thanks to Benedict von Bremen for being a true friend and brother. Ahmed Maher, thank you for being who you are and for being my friend. Yasser Mehanna, I owe you a lot both personally and professionally. Shehab Fakhry Ismail, your friendship and your intellectual brilliance are a true bliss, and I am proud to be your friend. Aly Al Raggal, your unconditional love and your shining intellect enrich my life and my work. Thank you for your belief in me. My friends, Rami Abadir, Amira Al Masry, Amr Wishahy, Ahmed El Ghoneimy, Emek Cerit, Sara Bangert, Björn Bludau, and Saleh Fekry, thank you. To Timo Stösser and Anna Conant, I am forever grateful for your help and support, you had a great share in this book coming to light. My “southern” friends, Anthony Obute, Diego Amaral, Fabio Agra, and Luis Rosero Amaya, what we share personally and academically inspired me in writing this book. Special thanks to Dirk Shabirosky for

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being the friend and brother you are, and to Margaret Haas for your friendship and your intellectual input. My friend M.Tarek Al Kawa, thank you for your advice and expertise with the visual elements of this book. To my family: my beloved mother, it is your love and your faith in me which keeps me going. You taught me everything I do best. No words can express my love, gratitude, and respect for you. As much as anyone else in this list and even more, you made this book possible. I hope you live to see this book. My sister, Sarah, thank you for being the light of my life. Your support and care is the main reason for this book to come to light. Finally, I would like to thank Palgrave Macmillan for giving me the opportunity to publish this book. My former editors, Shaun Vigil and Glenn Ramirez, thank you for your guidance and belief in my project. My current editors, Camille Davis and Liam McLean, thank you for your generosity and patience with me. Your professionalism and your undivided attention to details are phenomenal. It has been an honor working with you.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Counterculture as War-Machine: Egypt 2011 39 3 Film and Politics in Egypt 67 4 Countercultural Films 2010–2016: Close Reading105 5 Conclusion301 Appendix A309 Appendix B311 Index313

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4

Fig. 4.5

Left, Kefaya demonstrations. Center, the 2006 Mahalla uprising. Right, Kefya demonstrations (Chahine 2007) 95 Opening credits: characters introduction (00:01:49–00:03:36). “Together for the future.” Dr. Taha Hanafy—The Microphone” (00:04:11–00:04:18)107 A match-cut showing an over-shoulder shot of the notebook in Khaled’s kitchen followed by Hadeer’s hand on the notebook in the seaside restaurant (00:04:39–00:04:40) 111 Left, the last meeting between Khaled and Hadeer (00:05:04). Right, chronologically the first meeting of the two (01:00:15) 113 Mascara’s front woman anonymized. Upper left, the camera takes the position of the front woman. The camera shows three characters in one shot: two of the band members from the back and Saleh in the middle. The front woman’s face is shown partially, yet her identity remains unrecognizable (00:24:50). Upper right, crosscut: the band with a concealed identity through depth of field and depth of focus (00:29:35). Crosscutting: middle left, Hadeer and Khaled (00:30:35). Middle right, here the camera should take the position of Saleh and the front woman’s face is concealed by the lamp. Bottom, Saleh occupying the frame; rejecting the band to play in the event of the center 117 Up, Y-Crew performing. Bottom left and bottom right, real footage of the demonstration against Khaled Said’s murder in Alexandria125

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Fig. 4.6

Fig. 4.7 Fig. 4.8 Fig. 4.9 Fig. 4.10 Fig. 4.11

Fig. 4.12 Fig. 4.13 Fig. 4.14 Fig. 4.15 Fig. 4.16 Fig. 4.17 Fig. 4.18 Fig. 4.19

Fig. 4.20 Fig. 4.21

Top, Hamota releases his fish (01:56:59). Middle, Salma hands Magdy the tapes of their unfinished project, it is also their breakup (01:55:53). Bottom, high-angle shot: Khaled and the artist are caught in the middle between the police and the Salafists (01:54:06) 132 Top, the real footage from Al Qatta Jail (00:00:47). Bottom, The Protagonist with his injured companion in the hut (00:05:43)133 Top, the protagonist beaten by the neighborhood watch. Bottom, an old man saves him from the attackers (00:15:18–01:16:07)144 Handing the cell phone from behind a gravestone (00:48:00) 149 The end scene: cellphone esthetics (01:17:30 –01:20:02) 154 Top, the protagonist watching the young man arguing with his family while motorcycle engine is distorting the sound. Middle, protagonist’s POV: the young man is engaging his family in a heated debate. Bottom, the young man looks at the protagonist suspiciously (00:58:49– 01:02:26) 160 Opening scene: setting the tone of the film regarding the notion of light/dark (00:01:12–00:01:16) 164 Soad and her mother tending to the father 170 Out in the light (00:23:51– 00:24:20) 171 The young woman talking to Soad with a passive participation of the man behind: “Are you Christian?” (00:25:24) 179 Left, the mother alone listening to Om Kolthum (01:03:53). Right, the father alone in his bed listening to Om Kolthum, before the film cuts to Soad in the city (01:04:30) 185 Soad all alone in the City of the Dead. (01:32:29) 188 The mother looking into the light (01:35:27) 190 Upper left, establishing Shot of Cairo. Upper right, Khalid looking out of the hospital’s window. Bottom left, Khalid’s mother in focus. Bottom right, Khalid, his mother and the background all in focus (00:01:10–00:01:59) 193 (00:02:07–00:03:08) 195 Upper left, Hanan in the cab with her words overlaid. Upper right: The film cuts in dissolve to Khalid’s editing room. Now Hanan (same shot) appears on the computer screen (00:07:10–00:07:11) Bottom left and bottom right, the editor rewinds and pauses the footage, asking Khalid, if he should cut here. Khalid is not satisfied with “the Alexandria Story” (00:07:27–00:07:29) 198

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Fig. 4.22 Top, Khalid in a close-up disoriented and confused (01:09:30). Middle and bottom, Khalid observing a heavy presence of the police and a burning building (01:09:17–01:09:26)201 Fig. 4.23 (01:11:32–01:11:56) 204 Fig. 4.24 Upper left, the four friends during the debate between Hassan and Tarek: Khalid is visually separated from his three friends. Upper right, Hassan and Tarek in a heated debate (00:34:51–00:40:00). Middle and bottom, riding through a momentary beauty of Cairo and Khalid’s brief moment of reconciliation with the city (00:43:11–00:44:49) 212 Fig. 4.25 Hassan’s first footage from Baghdad: “Poetry is everywhere (01:05:00–01:06:47) and Bassem’s first footage from Beirut: “I hate unfinished films. I hate you” (01:15:4) 217 Fig. 4.26 Bassem’s second footage from Beirut. Unlike the first footage (Fig. 4.25), this footage is more intimate and personal (01:37:00–01:40:23)221 Fig. 4.27 Khalid’s mother in her hospital bed. Up, her reflection of in the window in which the city “slices” through her. Bottom, the fading of the mother (01:49:03–01:49:20) 223 Fig. 4.28 Hassan’s last footage from Baghdad (01:51:20–01:53:53) 225 Fig. 4.29 Opening scene (00:00:55) 236 Fig. 4.30 Up, the clashes between the police and the pro-Morsi protesters start. Bottom, Salah shouting, “kill them all” (00:14:32–00:15:19)242 Fig. 4.31 Zein filming Tamer singing (01:10:30) 250 Fig. 4.32 The writing on the truck’s wall and first appearance of the X and O game with Faris playing his X (00:21:19–00:21:23). Second appearance of the X and O. Faris notices an O played in one of the squares (00:42:30). Faris plays a second X (00:45:08) and finds out that it is Aisha who plays against (01:14:22–01:14:35)260 Fig. 4.33 The end scene. The final attack on the truck: the truck is flipped on the side, the arrestees are in panic, Adam’s wristwatch camera is crushed, and the X and O is unresolved (01:27:00–01:30:17)261 Fig. 4.34 As the truck is heading toward the final tragedy, Adam plays Tamer’s video (01:25:38) 269 Fig. 4.35 Nagwa helps Oweys discovering his crucifix tattoo. She covers it to protect him from the Muslim Brothers (00:58-34–00:58-36)275

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Counterculture. What does come into our mind when we hear or read this term? The swinging sixties? Civil Rights Movement? The Hippies? LSD? Woodstock? And what about the so-called Arab Spring (a term this book will not use)? Mohammed Bouazizi? Ben Ali’s “I got you”? Tahrir Square? Social Media? The Syrian Civil War? The capture and execution of Gaddafi? These and others are all images, ever present in a collective memory which is partially created by film. What is meant here by film is various kinds of presented motion pictures, be it cinema or TV films, short-, educational films, documentaries, and even amateur footage. Images which document crucial moments of our recent history. However, there exist other images and moments which might not fit into certain socio-political and/or the so-called cultural narratives. Counterculture is a key term in this book, as I argue that the Arab uprisings in general and the Egyptian in particular as it is the main focus here are best defined and understood as a countercultural process of which film as an art form is a line of creativity, mutation, and change. In 2011, the world witnessed how Tahrir Square became a global symbol. Live broadcasts and amateur footage created a unique narrative of the Egyptian uprising. The relationship between the Egyptian uprising and the medium film is vital and organic. However, what happens to this relationship when it comes to film as an art form and its particular relation to the concept of counterculture? Are there means to adequately describe, with the tools of a cultural studies’ approach, mechanisms of interaction © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1_1

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between cinema and the street as well as between cultural narratives and politics? My book examines the relationship between film and counterculture against the background of the Egyptian uprising of 2011. It examines five recent Egyptian films: Ahmed Abdallah’s Microphone (2010), his Rags and Tatters (2013), Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day (2013), Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City (2016), and Clash (2016). Furthermore, I ask two main questions: What are the filmic possibilities in terms of the implementation of countercultural flows and energies? And consequently: How does film articulate the countercultural flows in the context of the Egyptian uprising? The year 2011 witnessed a wave of uprisings and regime changes throughout the Middle East. It started in Tunisia with the toppling of Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali on January 13; almost two weeks later, on January 25, the streets of Egypt were filled with protesters against the Mubarak regime. On February 11, Mubarak stepped down. Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria all followed afterward in a wave of uprisings. A second wave took place between 2018 and 2020 in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon, and Iraq. The descriptions of what took place in the Arab world vary and have been given different terms: uprisings/revolts (Hanieh 2013), “refolutions” (Bayat 2013), democratic revolutions (Franklin 2014; Beissinger et al. 2013), failed revolutions (Springborg 2011), and forcible removal of the leadership from power (Chiozza and Goemans 2011). In the media, especially Western media, the terms such as Facebook (or Twitter) Revolution, along with the orientalist term Arab Spring, were used to describe these uprisings. This book considers these uprisings in general, and the Egyptian uprising, being the focus of this book, in particular, a countercultural process. I define counterculture as the line of flight (Deleuze and Guattari 2005) of culture. It transforms the observational oppositional qualities of culture (Baecker 1997, 2003, 2007, 2008; Luhmann 1998, 2000, 2006, 2012), by making use of culture’s both observational and rhizomatic nature, into a direct collision with the structures culture opposes. These structures are represented by the state as a concept of hierarchy, capture, and control. Counterculture is the assemblage (Deleuze and Guattari 2005; De Landa 2006) in which culture is no longer separated from its active forces and through which the excluded possibilities are empowered and enforced. Counterculture is an assemblage of the, as Deleuze and Guattari (2005) would put it,

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“war-­machine”1 kind; of mutation, creativity, and change, and as a social machine of the virtual as opposed to the state which is the owner of the world of actuality. Film, I argue, as a visual art form and as a cultural practice, intensifies the notion of second-order observation (Baecker 1997, 2003, 2007, 2008) on two levels: first, as an observer. This act of observing takes place in the process of creating a story, translating this story into a script which contains the narrative and its representation. Finally, the filming of a script is also an act of observation. Here, the camera is an observer and at the same time a recorder of the filmic world. Second, film establishes a frame for the production of observations. Film offers a process of observation to its spectators. The spectator watches and observes what takes place on the screen: the narrative. Furthermore, at the level of the production of observation, different modes of generated observation and perception can be observed, and thus, film functions as an observation machine. The theoretical footing of this notion builds broadly on Gilles Deleuze’s works on cinema: Cinema I (The Movement-Image) (1986) and Cinema II (The Time-Image) (1985). My approach to reading film is based on the entanglement between modes of production and modes of perception, and further, between content, on the one hand, and form and structure, on the other. I will argue, first, that film as an art form is an assemblage of expression which can become one of the forming lines of counterculture. If counterculture exists in a permanent process of resistance and collision against the state as a social machine of capture and control (Deleuze and Guattari 2005), it then defies the notions of linearity, hierarchy, and fixed identity imposed by the state and tries constantly to escape the process of capture and to move toward creating smooth spaces.2 Film, in this sense, with its language and devices—narration, composition, montage, camera work, and sound among others—can become an artistic line of creativity, mutation, and change. It then moves in the world of virtuality whether by defying certain notions such as linear narration and conventional rules (continuity editing, classical framing, or objective representation of images) or by creating different or even alternative narratives of certain

 The Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of the war-machine is extensively discussed in Chap. 2.  The Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of the state as social machine is extensively discussed in Chap. 2. 1 2

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events in a sort of a visual historiography which goes against the very core of the notion of actuality and truth. In the case of Egypt, I will argue that one of the most material influences of the Egyptian uprising can be seen in cinema. The state of flux in the Egyptian social landscape caused by the uprising created a space for a generation of independent filmmakers out of which a new cinematic language came into being. New possibilities of production were one of the results, such as independent funding and active collaboration among artists. In addition, many of these filmmakers were active participants of the countercultural assemblage. The outcomes are films, which whether explicitly deal with the historical moment of the uprising or not possess certain characteristics and strategies which I will argue to be countercultural. In relation to the notion of observation, film is an observer and establishes a frame for the production of observations, but how exactly does film observe within this frame? How many levels of observation does film comprise? How does film produce observation? What modes of observation can film generate? How does the spectator observe? And what are the modes of observation the spectator can access through film? One of the aspects discussed in defining counterculture is the question of linearity. For Deleuze, the movement-image “is dependent on movement and action. Characters in the movement image are placed in narrative positions where they routinely perceive things, react, and take action in a direct fashion to the events around them” (Totaro 1999). In addition, the movement-­image proceeds by narratological and linear incisions and references. As for the time image, it is no longer space- and action-oriented. While the movement-image is defined by a logical progression of images, the time image is about experiencing the image-in-itself. Characters in the time image are not “agents,” instead they become “seers”; unlike their function in the movement-image where they act and react upon what they perceive, they only perceive (Herzog 2000). It is no longer limited by the representation of actions as succession of spatial segments in a sensory-­ motor image (Rodwick 1997). I stress, however, that the two sorts of images are interrelated. The time image is to be found in film at certain moments in which movement does not entirely disappear and vice versa. Thus, in the analysis of the five selected films, I introduce the idea of film as observation machine. A movement-image film can be seen as a machine of second-order observation, yet it is largely contained in a root-­ tree system with the maximum ambition of achieving a relative deterritorialization. A film which possesses certain characteristics of the time image

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seeks to become a line of absolute deterritorialization: an observation ­machine which is and produces a permanent horizontal process of observation. This process with its rhizomatic understanding of time and space tries to create an act of perception that in turn becomes a process of creativity and a provocation of thought. This is once more not to say that a movement-image film could not be countercultural, or that a film with a time-image characteristic is per definition counterculture. For, the very process of deterritorialization, whether relative or absolute, does not stand in opposition to one another. Rather, absolute deterritorialization exists in relative deterritorialization (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). Accordingly, each film will be analyzed through three systematic lenses: (1) Narration, (2) Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality, and (3) Rebellion. For each topic, I provide a shot-by-shot analysis of selected scenes. This reading method deals with film as a visual medium in the first place in which content, form, structure, and style are not separated. This book consists of five chapters. Following this introductory chapter is Chap. 2 (Counterculture as War-Machine: Egypt 2011) which discusses the first eighteen days of the Egyptian uprising in which I will apply the definition of counterculture as an assemblage of the war-machine kind. This chapter serves as an important background and as footing to the analysis of the selected films and to what I call New Egyptian Cinema. Chapter 3 (Film and Politics in Egypt) provides historical background information on film and politics in Egypt. Cinema in Egypt goes back to the end of the nineteenth century, and it has a long and rich tradition. After a thorough analysis of Egyptian cinema, it is surprising that despite the important works of scholars like Viola Shafik (1998, 2001, 2007), Malek Khouri (2010), Walter Armbrust (1995, 1996, 2011, 2012, 2013), and Roy Armes (2010), there is still a desideratum in international academia. I will address this gap in the research and hope to amend at least part of the omission. The chapter will trace the complicated relationship between the cinema and the state from the birth of Egyptian national cinema into the Mubarak era. This projection of a historical timeline highlights the persistent conflict between films’ attempts at (re-)presenting socio-political content and the state apparatus’s power of censorship. The first concrete example of this conflict is tied to the birth of Egyptian national cinema in the 1930s, which emerged in the aftermath of the 1919 revolution. I will also discuss the first instance of realist film in Egypt, Kamal Selm’s Al Azeema (1938) with its socio-economic themes. In addition, I will present the first case of a ban on political grounds by

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the Royal Court, aimed at Fritz Kramp’s Lasheen (1938), which portrayed a civil rebellion against a Sultan in a medieval setting. I then move forward chronologically and address various examples of films and filmmakers that faced censorship in different phases of recent Egyptian history: the monarchy, the Nasser era, Sadat, and finally the Mubarak era. Parallel to these topics, I will discuss the development of the censorship’s bylaws in each era. Examples will be discussed in relation to censorship and, most importantly, in relation to filmmakers’ strategies of representing their socio-­ political ideas, criticism, and sometimes their attack on the state in terms of filmic language. Specific filmic styles such as symbolism, realism, and Egyptian neorealism are discussed in the historical, social, economic, and political contexts of Egyptian society. This is necessary to understand how Egyptian cinema operated in relation to the Egyptian state as a social machine of control, limitation, and capture. I name Youssef Chahine’s Chaos (2007) as an example of pre-2011 cinema which captured the overall sense of discontent during the last decade of Mubarak rule which was defined by the total control and tyranny of the police state. The film even predicts a rebellion against the security apparatus. I close this chapter by discussing the return of censorship under Al Sisi and how a new chapter of struggle when it comes to cinema production is now evident. Chapter 4, Countercultural Films (2010–2016), answers the questions: Can film be a space in which countercultural flows are articulated, and if so, how? What kind of image would be suitable for this articulation? Thus, the chapter engages in an in-depth analysis and close reading of five Egyptian films which were produced between 2010 and 2016: Ahmed Abdallah’s Microphone (2010) and Rags and Tatters (2013), Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day (2013), Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City (2016), and Mohammed Diab’s Clash (2016). Each film will be analyzed through three systematic lenses: (1) Narration, (2) Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality, and (3) Rebellion. For each topic, I provide a shot-by-shot analysis of selected scenes. This reading method deals with film as a visual medium in the first place in which content, form, structure, and style are not separated.

Narration In Microphone (2010), which tells various stories from the Alexandrian art and music scene, ideas such as nonlinear and multiple narrative stances are highlighted. In Rags and Tatters (2013), the narration is marked by

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segmentary characteristics. Ahmed Abdallah’s two films deal with countercultural themes in terms of their subject matter: the former captures the socio-political and artistic discontent in society right before the eruption of the uprising. The latter presents the repressed narrative of what took place in the first days of the uprising, specifically the incident of the willful prison openings by the police on January 28, 2011. Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City (2016) takes place in the years 2009 and 2010, the last two years of Mubarak’s rule. Like Microphone, the film’s narration is nonlinear, yet El Said’s film takes the notion of nonlinearity to the extreme. The film contains multilayered narrative spheres in which time flows horizontally. The film shows the fragmented life of its protagonist, a filmmaker in a city: Cairo that is on the verge of un uprising. Furthermore, In the Last Days of the City’s fragmented narrative reaches out of Cairo to Beirut and Baghdad. Mohammed Diab’s Clash (2016) follows the tradition of singlelocation narrative: the back of a police truck in the days that followed the 2013 coup. The events of the film take place in one day in which protests all over Egypt are at hand: pro-Morsi, the ousted president, as well as proregime protests. Clashes between the two camps were all over the country. Consequently, members of the two striving camps get arrested by the police and stuck together in a police truck. Clash relies on the characteristics of single-location narration in which characters from different social, political, ideological, and religious backgrounds are forced to interact and survive. Unlike these four films, the subject matter of Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day (2013) does not explicitly deal with the uprising at all. The film is about one day in the life of a woman in her thirties who belongs to a lower middle-class family plagued by the disability and the near-death state of the father. Narration in Lotfy’s film belongs to the neorealist tradition of slow pace, character causality, and a minimality of narrative content.

Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality Microphone blends the genres of documentary and feature film by employing real-life characters and their stories along with those of fictional characters. The notion of nonlinearity in the film is intensified by visual fragments which contain no narrative content whatsoever, while music and songs of the real-life characters contribute strongly to the telling of the various stories the film presents. Rags and Tatters is marked by a

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deliberate non verbality; the film is void of dialogue and verbal communication. Thus, it relies entirely on the image for showing the odyssey of a convict who escaped during the prison openings, which were devised by the regime as a part of a counter revolutionary strategy to cause fear, chaos, and mayhem. The film also is presented as “lost footage,” that is, footage filmed by a convict of “what really happened” during the prison openings. The odyssey of this convict in a dystopian Cairo, away from the Tahrir narrative, with its segmentary quality and silenced protagonist, delivers an alternative narrative of what took place in Egypt, parallel to the Tahrir narrative that was conceived as the main event at the time. Moreover, the opening of the prisons is one of the most tragic narratives of the Egyptian uprising, a narrative ignored, repressed, and silenced by both camps, the state and the revolutionary camp. Coming Forth by Day depicts a day in a life of a young woman, her mother, and her disabled father. This life is shadowed by Death: the awaited death of the father which robs both the daughter and the mother of any possibility of living their own lives. The film relies entirely on the image as the driving force of any possible meaning. The realism in the film is that of rhythm, silence, lightings, camerawork, settings, and bodies. I argue that Lotfy’s film is the most significant in terms of a cinematic language which impressively captures the very life of those who are left behind. The film moves in the neorealist realm on the level of content, too, as it is involved with the everyday nameless faces living unnoticed and forgotten lives regardless of times, events, or even history. In the Last Days of the City’s fragmented narration is also defined by chronological incoherence. The protagonist is a filmmaker who is trying to make a film about his late father. The multilayered narrative is an entanglement of genres: documentary, fiction, and amateur footage. The film is entirely shot in real-life locations with nonprofessional actors except for the main protagonist. This protagonist’s life is defined by loss, depression, and aimlessness. Visually, the film applies all these notions and emotions through camera work, coloring, and editing. Clash is shot in an eight-square-meter-built cell in which the entire events of the film take place. In this claustrophobic setting, twenty characters who mainly belong to two opposing groups find themselves forced to interact. The film decides for a variation of visual techniques. Unlike films such as Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1958) and Salah Abu Seif’s Between Heaven and Earth (1960), Diab’s film does not rely on the filmic devices of wide-shot and deep-focus cinematography. Rather, and as the film shows a constant state of violence and clashes in and outside the police truck, it decides on

1 INTRODUCTION 

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the use of shaky handheld camera with a variation of shots as well as a variation of editing techniques. Notions of division and struggle along with the sense of danger, fear, and disorientation are all delivered visually.

Rebellion Both Microphone and Rags and Tatters depict different forms of resistance and rebellion in terms of content. The former is about the underground art scene in Alexandria whose members struggle with the state to create a space in which they present their music and art. The latter rebels against the official and mainstream narrative of the Egyptian uprising, the Tahrir narrative, and tells a narrative which is suppressed and ignored, the tragedy of the unnamed and faceless convicts who fell prey to both the regime and the prejudices of many citizens after the opening of prisons across the country. I examine how both films transform the idea of rebellion into a visual dimension in terms of their cinematic language: form, structure, and style. Both films along with Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City and Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day share an understanding of time, historicity, and historiography each in its own way. The main notion these three films share is Deleuze’s (1985) approach to time in which the present is haunted by a past and a future: “by a past which is not reducible to a former present, by a future which does not consist of a present to come […] each present coexists with a past and a future without which it would not itself pass on.” This is evident in the content of the former three films in relation to the uprising as they deal and depict real-life events which are connected to it and also in form. In the case of Coming Forth by Day, the two notions of historiography and historicity are not present. In terms of content, the film is rebellious in the sense that it breaks the taboo of death and its religious and social sacredness, especially where it concerns a family member with a fatal illness. The notion of rebellion in Coming Forth by Day is evident mostly in the mode of production; it is the visual style that contains the social commentary. But above all, the film presents what Deleuze calls the opsign, the pure optical situations “where the seen is no longer extended into action [and] which bring the emancipated senses into direct relation with time and thought” (1985). As for Diab’s Clash, the notion of rebellion becomes complicated and contradictory. There exist different layers of rebellion in the film. First, I argue that this film is a representative of what I call the death of politics in Egypt under Al Sisi regime. The film attempts to present itself as apolitical in favor of a

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humanist message which bewails the social division in Egypt after the ousting of Morsi. This very liberal humanist notion is a reproduction of the idea that the Egyptian uprising is an ahistorical and apolitical event. The film puts the political versus the human and mourns the temporal sense of unity of the first phase of the uprising. Clash mourns the so-called Tahrir spirit of which all people were one undivided by political ideology, religion, or social class. However, the fact that such film which was produced and released in 2016, two years into Al Sisi rule and which in some sense captures the social violence of the post-2013 coup and uses the setting as a metaphor of Egypt (a police truck cell), is in itself an act of rebellion. As I will show in my analysis, the film had issues with the censor and faced a wild campaign from both the state media and the Muslim Brothers. Censorship returned under Al Sisi more aggressively yet with new strategies. Clash was more fortunate than In the Last Days of the City. The former was passed by the censor and even made decent box office success in Egyptian cinemas, while the latter was banned from entering the Cairo International Film Festival and was never released in Egypt. Lastly, I end Chap. 4 with the section, New Egyptian Cinema, in which I provide an assessment of the five selected films in relation to what I argue to be a New Egyptian Cinema, which can be traced back to the year 2010. This cinema is marked by small and independent funding that varies from private funding, international grants to independent cooperatives, different subject matters than those presented in the commercial mainstream cinema in Egypt, and a new filmic language which develops new modes of production and new aesthetics in the context of Egyptian cinema. All five films analyzed in this book are examples of enabling film, to different degrees as an observation machine of its own active forces: innovation, creativity, mutation, and change. Indeed, one can track the first sparks of this new cinema to the few years before the eruption of the 2011 uprising, but to speak of a movement, it is accurate to say that this movement took shape post-2011. I will name a few examples of films produced between 2010 and 2019 which are part of this New Egyptian Cinema. Furthermore, this generation of filmmakers forms an assemblage which is marked by mutual collaborations and artistic support. This artistic space which had its roots in the long cinematic tradition of Egypt was enabled and enhanced by the 2011 uprising did not only benefit films which could be categorized as “arthouse cinema,” but also, and at least in terms of visual aesthetics and technicalities, influenced the production of mainstream and commercial cinema. In addition, a small space had been created too for

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new genres: Action, Fantasy, and Science Fiction which combine “arthouse” aesthetics and commercial formulas. Concerning the definition of counterculture this book aims at establishing, I shall include an intensive discussion in this introductory chapter which leads to defining counterculture as war-machine in the Deleuzo-­ Guattarian sense. In the following, I offer a reading of Theodor Roszak’s The Making of the Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (1995), as it was this book which upon its first release in 1969 first coined the term. Roszak’s book firmly established its link to a geohistorical setting: The United States and Western in the 1960s. It is true that Roszak mentions the youth movements in Japan and parts of South America, but he limits the term counterculture to the United States and Western Europe. I intend to liberate this term from this geohistorical limitation as well as from its connection to the sociological notion of subcultures. I then move to discuss an understanding of culture upon which the concept of counterculture as presented in this book builds. This understanding sees culture both as a machine of second-order observation and as a rhizome.

The (Re) Making of Counterculture The term “counterculture” is attributed to Theodore Roszak (Shea 1973). He coined it in his book The Making of Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (1995).3 Roszak’s work is essential in any discussion about counterculture, not only due to its theoretical footings, but because Roszak himself was a member of the countercultural movement. The book was published in 1969, only twelve months after the infamous year 1968 and three weeks after the Woodstock Festival. In the introduction to the 1995 edition of his book, Roszak (1995) states that “the period of upheaval we conventionally call “‘the sixties’ is more appropriately seen within a broader setting that stretches from 1942 to 1972.” He argues that “these dates too are arbitrary, but they define with somewhat greater accuracy a remarkable period in American history. Let us call it the Age of Affluence.” What he calls “counter culture” is a protest which was grounded in the success of the industrial project. The

3  The book was originally published in 1969. However, here I discuss the 1995 edition in which Roszak wrote a reflective preface and introduction in 1995.

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increased prosperity was what motivated a desire to explore new range of moral and spiritual issues (1995). Roszak is aware that what he calls “counter culture” is more than an American phenomenon, for the upheaval of those years extended to Western Europe as well. However, The Making of Counter Culture deals mainly with the American part of the movement, and thus the term “counter culture” is only applied in the context of American society; he does not offer a more abstract, theoretical definition of the concept. In other words, according to Roszak, the sixties are marked with an age of international upheaval (West Europe, Latin America, and Japan), but the term “counter culture” is more accurately applied in relation to the United States. Roszak argues that whether in the United States or in Western Europe, the whole era of this upheaval is marked by “the struggle of the generations” (1995). The wave of protest on both sides of the Atlantic was unleashed by the youth against the principles of their parents’ generation. In the 1995 edition, Roszak realizes that limiting the struggle into the narrow issue of the age-old process of generational conflict should be transformed into a major level of radical social change that goes beyond the individualist notion. Even at the time of writing in 1969, Roszak was aware that speaking of the young generation in general or even its majority is by no means accurate, rather it is “only a minority of the university campus population” (1995). Roszak differentiates between the West European movement and its American counterpart. He argues that the European youth has been more reluctant to accept this generational dichotomy than their American counterparts. For Roszak, the European “young” is the heir of the institutional left-wing legacy; they consider themselves the champions of the working class against the oppressive bourgeoisie (often their own parents). This traditional left-wing ideology results in an adaptation of the patterns of the past, such as reaching out to form alliances with the workers, trade unions, and even with the established left-wing parties. These sought-after alliances failed to materialize, and at the end of the day, the young stood alone and isolated. He summarizes this crisis as “a vanguard without a following” (Roszak 1995). Roszak gives various examples in Germany, Italy, and Britain which highlight these failed alliances between the European young and other forces in society. In Germany, the anti-Vietnam War protests led by the West Berlin students were faced with counter demonstrations by the trade unions supporting the American establishment’s version of peace and freedom in Southeast Asia. In Britain, the Labour Party had long positioned

1 INTRODUCTION 

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itself as an established mainstream party targeting the mid-class voters, while the British working class adapted, along with the demand of better wages, the “bloody-minded to drive the colored immigrants from the land” (1995). Even in France, Roszak argues, the French workers who “swelled the students’ ranks from thousands to millions during the early stages of the May 1968 General Strike seem to have decided that the essence of revolution is a bulkier pay envelope” (1995). Roszak concludes on the European student and youth movement by stating that they may rock their societies; however, without the support of the traditional social (adult) forces, they are not capable of overturning the established order (1995). As for the American “young,” Roszak argues that the very lack of traditional and, in his own words, “outmoded” left-wing ideological preconceptions is what makes the movement significant (1995). The main opponent of the American youth is technocracy. It is the keyword to understand Roszak’s concept of counterculture and why he links it to the American case. Unlike Europe, Roszak sees American society as the model for the post-industrial society of that era. In a post-industrial society, it is neither politics nor economy that governs; it is technocracy that does. Roszak’s understanding of technocracy is influenced by the work of Herbert Marcuse (1991) and Jacques Ellul (1964) as a phenomenon of the post-industrial society. Roszak defines technocracy as “that society in which those who govern justify themselves by appeal to technical experts who, in turn, justify themselves by appeal to scientific forms of knowledge. And beyond the authority of science, there is no appeal” (1995). Technocracy assumes authoritative influence over politics, economics, and culture through a circle of subsidiary experts. These experts or technocrats are marked by scientific and technical skills that do not only influence the most personal aspects of life such as sexuality, mental health, and child-­ rearing. Accordingly, Roszak states that technocracy is the regime of experts—or of those who can employ the experts (1995). Furthermore, technocracy is ideologically invisible, or in other words, it follows no ideology at all. The political direction is of no concern to technocracy. It remains neutral like an umpire in an athletic game; while everybody concentrates on the players who compete within the rules, the umpire stands above the contest, and it is he who enforces the rules. Consequently, the umpire is in fact the most significant figure in the game, for he is the one who sets the rules and the limits and judges the contenders (1995). Whether in a communist or in a capitalist society, technocracy is the actual

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ruler, given the fact that it is an industrial society. Roszak states that any political debate between left and right, radical and reactionary, and liberal and conservative fails to touch technocracy. The reason behind this failure is, according to Roszak, that in the advanced industrial societies, technocracy is not perceived as a political phenomenon. Technocracy “holds the place, rather, of a grand cultural imperative, which is beyond question, beyond discussion.” (1995). Technocracy creates a new form of totalitarianism, not the form of brutal regimes, which achieve their integration by “bludgeon and bayonet,” but in the case of the technocracy, totalitarianism is more subliminal. It relies on people’s trust in science (1995). These thoughts are in tune with Herbert Marcuse’s arguments. Roszak dedicated a whole chapter of his book to discussing Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1991). Roszak attempted to relate Marcuse’s theories to the protest movement of the young generation and to his concept of counterculture. What is the base upon which the technocracy has built its existence? Near the end of his book, Roszak gives a whole chapter to what he calls “The Myth of Objective Consciousness.” The objective consciousness is, according to Roszak, the foundation upon which the technocracy has built its citadel. Roszak argues that the modern culture seeks to “cleanse” the human consciousness of subjectivity. Everything must be scientific, and to be scientific is to be objective. Thus, counterculture, for Roszak, is a reaction to the three components of the post-industrial society: affluence, technocracy, and objective consciousness. The counterculture challenges the technocratic assumptions about the nature of man, society, and nature, and by attempting to effect a change in the consciousness of humankind. The counterculture should also practice what Marcuse calls the “Great Refusal” (in Roszak 1995). The counterculture ought to refuse to be co-opted within the technocratic machinery. Free universities must refuse the corrupted academic credit, and the youth have to refuse to participate in the game of political ideology. In addition, Roszak argues that building a good society is not primarily a social, but a “psychic,” task. It is the responsibility of the counterculture to challenge the concept of objective consciousness; he argues that the youthful disaffiliation time should strike beyond ideology to the level of consciousness, seeking to transform the deepest sense of the self, the other, and the environment. The real meaning of revolution is not a change in management; it is a change in man: “change the prevailing mode of consciousness and you change the world” (Roszak 1995).

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In this sense, counterculture is clearly apolitical, for according to Richard Wasson (1970), in his review of the Making of Counterculture, Roszak’s whole notion of culture depends on a conflict of lifestyles and modes of thought. But in a crucial respect, Roszak remains a captive of older concepts of culture. Wasson argues that the general tendency in the development of the idea of culture has been to separate culture from history, class, and economic systems, and to find in culture universal, nonhistorical values as well as repeating, if displaced, archetypes. Divorced from economic and political life, culture has come to mean self-­cultivation, a set of spiritual and subjective values. The values of freedom, goodness, and truth are the personal and private attributes of the cultivated man, not values one expects to create in society through political and social action (Wasson 1970). Even though Roszak refers to counterculture as an attempt to develop a new lifestyle, which is based on leftist social criticism, he still argues that politics is unfashionable, outmoded, and even invalid. Taking American society as a model, he seldom mentions the poor class or African Americans; when he does, it is clear that the counterculture, as he understands it, cannot establish a connection with these groups. In excluding African Americans, Roszak ignores the fact that African Americans are those who have created the most visible counterculture in America because they are the most oppressed group (Wasson 1970). There is no mention of figures like Eldridge Cleaver, LeRoi Jones, or even Martin Luther King, Jr., nor does he refer to any radical groups like The San Francisco Mime Troupe, Newsreel, Radio Free People, Teatro Campesino, or Radical America Comics4 (Wasson 1970). “The counter culture” as Roszak sees it, is a movement of mid-class youth (practically white), whose primary purpose is to challenge technocracy and to establish an alternative consciousness. This movement should remain apolitical, for its arena of struggle with technocracy is neither political nor social. It is mainly “psychic.” An important way to resist the politically neutral dictatorship of technocracy is to replace the technocrat with the shaman (Roszak 1995). Instead of objective consciousness, the individual needs mystical, magical, primitive, and mythical modes of thought (Wasson 1970). Consequently, “such a substitution will cleanse the doors of perception, restore man’s feeling of unity with nature and the individual’s communal feeling for his fellows” (Wasson 1970). And thus, man will once again feel he lives in community 4  These were art groups who adopted political activities through Theatre, Film, Music, and Comics. Their works were directly critical and hostile toward capitalism, sexism, and racism.

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with each other, with nature, and with the transcendental forces (Wasson 1970). In fact, Roszak’s thoughts concerning counterculture are in unison with the mood of the young rebels. For we have mainly two groups, which are until this day seen as the “counter culture,” the Hippies and the New Left. Both groups are white mid-class youth, and they are the so-called the baby boom generation. In his essay “The Revolution Is About Our Lives: The New Lefts’ Counterculture,” Doug Rossinow (1998) investigates the long-debated relationship between the New Left and the Hippies in relation to counterculture. Moreover, Rossinow describes the movement as “a political movement that rose to prominence in the United States and elsewhere in the world, on and around college and universities campuses in the 1960s” (1998). He claims that all who identified themselves with this movement were white students and recent graduates. They demanded direct democracy and a dilution of elite power in America. Rossinow argues that it is true that this movement was politically oriented; however, they created the slogan “The revolution is about our lives” in which they fused the political with the personal, or their desire for individual empowerment and their dissident cultural politics. This fusion is evident in C.  Wright Mills’ plea to “link personal troubles to public issues” (Rossinow 1998). The New Left gradually came to assert that their personal life was central to the revolutionary project they saw under way in America (Rossinow 1998). In this sense, Rossinow argues that there is a double meaning of “The Revolution is about our lives,” in which the emphasis might be on either “lives” or on “our.” Accordingly, Rossinow claims that the New Left was clearly inspired by the Hippie movement, which attained coherent shape around 1965 in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California. The New Left perceived the Hippies’ counterculture both skeptically and sympathetically; however, the radicals within the New Left movement rejected the Hippies’ lifestyle and called it escapism. Despite this almost paradoxical approach toward the Hippies, Rossinow argues that both movements share an essential, even the most significant, aspect of the counterculture, which is cultural discontent. The larger number of the New Left movement fought for the sake of individual freedom, the very same goal for which the hippies also fought. At the end of the day, the revolution was all about “revolting against personal repression, against dominance and exploitation felt by individuals in their own lives” (1998). These were the groups which embraced the slogan “The revolution is about our lives”: white mid-class students who believed they could act as a revolutionary

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force on their own (Rossinow 1998). Other radical leftist groups such as Trotskyites, Maoists, and traditional Marxists shared the conservatives’ contempt toward the Hippies. According to Rossinow, the radical leftists saw the counterculture as a white-collar, mid-class escapism that estranged the working class from any potential worker-student alliance and “siphoned energy away from pressing political tasks” (Rossinow 1998). Politically oriented groups like The Black Panthers and a fraction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) did not and still do not count as members of the counterculture, or to be more accurate, they are not “counterculture.” In sum, the works of Roszak, Marcuse, Wasson, and Rossinow share many aspects in relation to the term counterculture. First, they all deal with it as a Western phenomenon, mainly tied to the post-industrial society. Thus, the main focus is on the American society as a model of the post-industrial society. Second, counterculture is clearly linked to a historical phase: the 1960s. Third, it is marked by a generational struggle. Fourth, the main challenge of the young generation was against the concept of technocratic society, a form of society, which exists only in a post-­ industrial society. Fifth, even though the historical moment of the counterculture has been marked with social and political flux expressed in many protest movements like the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the anti-Vietnam War protest all around the world, the main characteristics of the counterculture are perceived as mainly spiritual and cultural. Sixth, the understanding of the counterculture according to all three authors is in tune with the sociological view, which sees counterculture as a subculture which stands in direct opposition to the dominant culture of society, rejecting the values and norms of the dominant culture and creating its own values and norms, which run counter to those it rejects. These subcultures are the Hippies, the educated young, and the New Left. And seventh, these groups were all young mid-class white collar. The debate about counterculture, whether old or recent, moves within the geohistorical sphere. Scholars like Laurence Cox (1995) attempt to establish an alternative understanding of the counterculture. In his essay “Towards a Sociology of Countercultures?” he writes: the counter culture can be thought of as a connected totality of meanings and practices, which can be shown to have a certain degree of coherence and continuity, at least across the “core” regions of the world, from the mid-­ 1960s to the present […] these developments […] are directly

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i­nterconnected in a number of ways: as different stages in individual life history or institutional development, as different foci for the mobilisation of the same networks, through cooperation and conflict in shared contexts, and through common modes of communication, organisation and action.

However, Cox seeks to understand counterculture as not simply coherent sets of practices or oppositional subcultures, but represents a sustained challenge over the directions of societal self-production, and are themselves structured by this conflict. The concept of counter culture thus bears some analogies to the Marxian concept of “class for itself” and to the work of EP Thompson and Raymond Williams on class culture. It is then possible to discuss both “political” and “cultural” aspects of the challenge, without arbitrarily privileging either. (1995)

In his essay, Cox focuses on the West German and Irish countercultures. He argues that in the former West Germany, counterculture, from 1968 until the 1990s, is perceived as coherent and continuous, while in Ireland, there is a kind of a new counterculture, where “the counter cultural elements of the political and cultural conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s do not seem to have remained visibly present as something readily available” (Cox 1995). Cox does not explain why he chose to compare the former West Germany and Ireland, nor does he present a sufficient or an effective argument why he considers Germany a model of the understanding of the model of counterculture he opposes. However, his thoughts about defining and redefining the term counterculture are useful, in the sense that he does not distinguish between the cultural and the political. Although he stays loyal to the 1960s as a starting point, and further deals with counterculture as a western phenomenon, he at least tries to come up with some ideas, which might serve in applying the term in a larger context. What can be drawn from this confusing essay is a different understanding of culture than the one Roszak advocates. Cox tries to discuss counterculture through an anthropologist understanding of culture, namely as an interrelation and interaction among alternative forms of economic production and reproduction, means of communication, modes of organization, and forms of consciousness, as well as what are more visible forms of political or cultural contestation. He stresses the need to research and discuss each group, movement, and activity separately and to distinguish among the different “counter cultures.” For him, there is indeed an

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interrelation among the different movements and groups, but this interrelation cannot be put in a coherent and continuous context under the umbrella of counterculture. He argues that research deals with the term rather descriptively, and thus does not offer a real definition of counterculture. However, he does not offer a real definition himself. Cox remains loyal to the year 1968 within the western context. It must be said that the debate around the term counterculture is either descriptive or evaluative. The term counterculture is a synonym of the 1960s in America and Western Europe: the young educated youth, the Hippies, psychedelia, Free Love, Woodstock along with other slogans and events. In other words, the debate or the discussion is not about the term “counterculture” in a universal or even a larger context. It is rather about defining and redefining it within certain limits. Since Roszak called the term “counter culture” in 1969 into being, the whole discussion is about what happened, why it happened, and how it happened. The questions raised are, Did the counterculture succeed in achieving its goals? What changed in the Western societies as a result of the 1960s’ counterculture? What was the aftermath of this era? One of the aims of this book is to liberate the term from this narrow geohistorical cage and to try to establish a definition of counterculture, a definition which is not tied to a certain society or a specific cultural sphere, but which could be discussed in and applied to different cultural and socio-political contexts. For can we understand the term “Culture” as a strictly Western or an Oriental phenomenon? It can be agreed that the answer to this question is “no.” Accordingly, neither can the term “counterculture” be, let alone to bind it to a specific moment in history. As this book examines the term counterculture in relation to the 2011 Egyptian uprising, it would not make any sense to discuss counterculture within the Egyptian sphere by applying the afore-discussed understandings of the term. Moreover, it is not even possible to mention the phrases “counterculture in Egypt” and the “Egyptian counterculture.” Egypt does not have a baby-boom generation, and the concept of technocracy in the Egyptian context is completely different than those of Roszak’s and Marcuse’s. The same goes for any nonadvanced industrial society. It is also to say that by following the same arguments, there can be no more counterculture in the Western world after the 1960s. This is still reflected in research which deals with counterculture as whether a geohistorical phenomenon with limited characteristics, namely as a moment in time and as a cultural event, or as tied to a specific group

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of people, for instance, subcultures, age groups, or ethnic minorities. Even works which bring the term to the Arab societies include the same understanding. Mark LeVine’s Heavy Metal Islam (2008) and “When Art Is the Weapon: Culture and Resistance Confronting Violence in the Post-­ Uprisings Arab World” (2015) as well as John P. Entelis’ Countercultures in Moroccan Politics (1989) largely deal with counterculture as an expression of a subculture, a group of people, mostly the youth. This very notion of the middle-class educated youth revolution had been applied to the Arab uprisings in general, and to the Egyptian uprising in particular. In the following quotation, one can see how LeVine applies the notion of the Western counterculture of the 1960s to the Arab uprisings: the youth generation that instigated the protests began literally to split from the dominant patriarchal, authoritarian culture in the 1990s and early 2000s, with a core group developing an identity through new networks of communication and cultural experience and interaction—as epitomized by the emergence of the internet, but also through the formation of various subcultures (from young Muslim Brothers to metalheads) and particularly through their experience in the universities, the cauldron for previous generations’ politicization as well. This cultural split, this coming of age of an unprecedented number of young people from the Arab world (Arab countries boasted the largest share of under 30 populations in the world by the 1990s) who were highly educated, multicultural and multilingual, broadly alienated from their broader cultures, and feeling as if the existing systems both provided no hope for the future and that they therefore had little if anything to lose by challenging their governments in increasingly direct ways. (2015)

Here we see identical keywords derived from the Western counterculture as argued in Roszak’s book: “youth generation,” “split from the dominant patriarchal, authoritarian culture,” “the formation of various subcultures,” “young people from the Arab world who were highly educated, multicultural and multilingual,” and alienation. I am going to show in Chap. 2 the invalidity of this argument. However, I shall briefly say that it is true that “young people” played a crucial role in the uprising, mainly due to the fact, as LeVine mentioned, that the majority of the population in Egypt is under thirty years old, but the instigation of the protests in 2011 had been a long process in development. The call for protests in Egypt on January 25, 2011, had been done by various activist groups of which the majority were indeed young people, but these groups did not

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consist only of mid-class highly educated, multilingual, metalheads or multicultural alienated youth. Rather, these groups included individuals from all different classes, ages, and political orientations. Such reduction of the uprising to the highly educated youth is in fact evident in the counterrevolutionary state narrative as well as by a part of the revolutionary camp itself. Even some further academic writings (Herrera 2012; El Tantawy and Weist 2011; Mulderig 2013; Kandil 2012) focus on the notion of a youth revolution which is in the most part divorced from Egypt’s sociopolitical and even historical context. As I will show in this book, that indeed young activists pulled the trigger for the mass protests that took place. However, without the participation of individuals and groups of all backgrounds in this uprising, none of what the country went through in 2011 up until this moment would have happened. As I aim to define the term counterculture, it is imperative to discuss the term culture. Therefore, an understanding of culture shall be presented in this chapter, an understanding which is different from Roszak’s. However, I do not ask the question “What is culture?” Neither do I seek to establish a new or a substantive definition of culture. Rather, I follow Dirk Baecker’s notion of asking the question “what is observed under the title of culture within society and what is observable as culture?” (in Laermans 2011). Taking his cues, I am going to refashion the understanding of counterculture with the help of System Theory and the Deleuzo-­ Guattarian philosophy.

Culture as Second-Order Observation and Culture as Rhizome First-Order Observation vs. Second-Order Observation: The World of Actuality vs. The World of Possibility Dirk Baecker’s (1997, 2003, 2007, 2008) approach to culture is influenced by Heinz von Foerster’s notion of second-order cybernetics. Rudi Laermans (2011) explains: “whereas first-order observations operate in a realistic mode (one for instance defines what culture ‘really is’), second-­ order observation is a matter of observing first-order observers and their conceptual distinctions as well as their blind spots.” In other words, second-­order observation observes how a first-order observer observes. Thus, first-order observation represents a world of actuality, while

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second-order observation presents a world of possibility. In Art as a Social System, Luhmann (2000) explains the notions of first- and second-order observation. For Luhmann, the first-order observer lives in a world that seems both probable and true. By contrast, the second-order observer notices the improbability of first-order observation. The second-order observation affects the modality of whatever appears to be given and endows it with the form of contingency, the possibility for being different (2000). For Baecker, the notion of culture cannot be approached without the act of comparison. In Kommunikation (2005), he argues that “‘culture’ is that which makes incomparable ways of living comparable.” In this sense, the notion of culture as comparison obviously doubles every practice within any given society. As Baecker puts it in Wozu Kultur? (2003), on a first level, observing culture also means observing cultural differences. However, on a second level, culture “hides its operation by not stressing comparison but the incomparable, not doubt but identity, not the arbitrary but the authentic” (2003). Moreover, in Theory of Society (1998), Luhmann argues that the understanding of culture, which emerged in the late eighteenth century, abandons the thing-oriented concept of the world and replaces it with the assumption of an unobservable world. Thus, “everything depends on which observer we observe, and the recursive reuse of observations in observing produces only an unobservable unity—the total world as formula for the unity of all distinctions” (Luhmann 1998). Much has changed since: take the industrial and the technological revolutions as an example. Technology solved the problem of the limitation of space. Through new technologies of communication, the world is no longer understood as an entity that contains everything and therefore lasts; it is also no longer honored and feared as a mystery, nor is it limited in terms of knowledge or information characterized by spatial limitations. It also surpassed temporal limitations, as simultaneity and parallelism (the barrage of events happening at the same instance) became possible and tractable. Nevertheless, the world remains inaccessible, because, although operationally accessible, every operation of cognizance and communication is inaccessible to itself. Observation is possible in the world. In this operation, however, the observer himself functions as the excluded middle. The unity of the world is therefore not a mystery but a paradox. It is the paradox of the observer of the world who is in the world but who cannot observe himself observing. (Luhmann 1998)

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This problem is inherent in the ambiguity of the observer’s accessibility to reality as a result of self-referentiality. Self-referentiality and its paradoxical nature have been formally treated by Kurt Gödel in his incompleteness theory which posed limits to the construction of a complete axiomatic system. Gödel hints at the limitations of computation and of our perception of nature and our ability to formally interact with it (Hofstadter 1979). The fact that the ambiguity is present in the highest formal abstractions of reality means that the inaccessibility is ontological in itself. In Observations on Modernity (2012), Luhmann tackles this issue again. He argues that the observer and the world are separated by what is distinguished and designated, and thus, they are both unobservable. Luhmann states that culture can be the proper instrument to deal with this “unobservability,” for culture serves to resolve the paradoxes which the observer encounters. This takes place whenever the observer asks about the unity of distinction he uses, such as the distinction between observer and observed (Luhmann 2012). In addition, Luhmann argues that “culture is the stock market where options for paradox resolution are traded” (2012). Accordingly, one of the main functions of a stock market is to observe how the “traders” observe what they observe, which is the first characteristic of a second-order observation. The second characteristic is evident in the notion of culture as a sphere where options for paradox-resolving are traded. This trade can only take place in the world of possibilities, which is an invention of the second-order observer. Culture as Memory: The Most Topical Operation of Objection Baecker (2003) adds another dimension to culture. He argues that culture is the memory of society, but it is not a memory in the sense of storage of the past or a memory of the archived or the nonarchived. Culture is rather the most topical operation of objection of excluded possibilities to apprehended possibilities. Culture is responsible for including and engaging the excluded. As memory, culture is both the reproduction of the official values and the constant recalling of alternative options that makes these values appear as contingent selections and thus puts them into question (Baecker 2003). In other words, culture is to observe, to adopt, and to generate the “not-possible-yet-already-exists” in society and turns it into a possible possibility.

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The apprehended possibilities of the first-order observer are in fact given structures of society to which culture as a second-order observer objects. However, according to Baecker, this objection/opposition is itself a structure of society (2003). This notion goes against the traditional cultural-­sociological perception of society as a cultural product whose creator and destroyer is not society itself, but the human being. Baecker opposes this notion. He argues that culture is not a human product in the sense that it “rhymes” with society from the outside in order to assert another possibility of society against society (2003). For Baecker, culture is a resource of society itself (2003). At first glance, Baecker’s concept of culture as memory contradicts his notion of culture as an operation of comparison, which stresses differences, identity, and the authentic. However, according to Laermans (2011), there is no contradiction between the two notions; culture puts forward alternative viewpoints by either invoking the counter values that always accompany the core values of a cultural canon or re-activating in a critical way the “original” cultural operation of comparison. Laermans argues that “in the latter case, one takes into consideration the fact that another culture observes differently and combines some of these differences with a positive valuation.” Thus, “culture-as-memory plays out variety against a fixed identity.” Culture is not a passive archive; rather it is a testing operation that allows a constant process of observation in the light of new information (Laermans 2011). Baecker highlights the reflexive function of culture. This function consists of “momentarily negated possibilities that are re-entered in social action as genuine options in the near future” (Baecker 2003). In addition, culture contains the indifference to the improper, the incorrect, and the copied along with the proper, the correct, the identical, and the authentic, and thus it reproduces the risk of infection (Baecker 2003). Moreover, Baecker argues that “culture is the observation of any meaning from the point of view of its own selective perception in the structures of society” (2003). Baecker follows Luhmann’s definition of meaning as a unity of differences of topicality and potentiality. It is also a unity of differences: of each apprehended as well as excluded possibility (2003). Accordingly, what specifies culture is that it reproduces itself as a topical observation of every excluded possibility of meaning (Baecker 2003). Culture permanently produces a performative contradiction. This contradiction is explained as follows: the possibilities which are seen by culture as involved or included are described by society as overlooked and excluded possibilities (Baecker 2003). Consequently, culture is, and exists in, a state of

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permanent self-negation and can only cope with this paradox by distancing itself from and contradicting society (Baecker 2003). Thus, culture is “an eminent social fact: a possibility of observing society from the within, as if it is happening from the outside” (Baecker 2003). Furthermore, culture gives the opportunity of observing society as producer of definiteness (“Eindeutigkeit”). This very observation resembles an objection to and a rejection of the notion of definiteness, and thus culture becomes a structure of society that produces ambiguity and multiplicity (“Mehrdeutigkeit”) against the definiteness of society (Baecker 2003). Culture as Rhizome Such a concept of culture goes against any linear and chronological understanding of culture as related to the concept of definiteness. The role of culture as producer of multiplicity of meaning can only lead to the production of multiplicities in a broader sense. The very concept of multiplicity, along with the infectious characteristic of culture, is also marked by a great deal of skepticism and distrust. This distrust gained more weight at the end of the twentieth century and continues to grow. In Nie Wieder Vernunft, Baecker (2008) claims that the form of culture we have today is characterized by a high degree of distrust and an ironical and polemical attitude toward the dominant cultural codes (Baecker 2008). Unlike the modernist concept of culture, postmodernity in which culture now operates favors the play with all kinds of codes in view of their hybridization, their breakdown, or their renewal. Thus, culture in the postmodern sense is not does only of comparison. Culture is also characterized by pushing for new chances of communication via the deepening of cultural fissures and uncertainties, on the one hand, and the invention of new coding possibilities on the other (Laermans 2011). It is, as Baecker puts it, “a culture of rigorous experiments with coding techniques and recoding latitudes” (Baecker 2008). However, Baecker does not explain what he understands by coding. He links culture to postmodernity and even calls the current “culture form” postmodern culture, and I argue that the Deleuzo-­ Guattarian understanding of the rhizome coding can be applied here, and out of which culture can be seen as a rhizomatic interbeing. Here I argue that what culture offers is a generator of endless possibilities, which connect and communicate among themselves in a rhizomatic fashion. In this context, culture as comparison takes a new shape, due to the fact that identity is no longer seen as singular or stable, but rather as

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plural and mutable. This is another characteristic of the postmodern formation of identity: the changes in the relationship between the “I” and the “other.” In his “16 Theses on the Next Society,” Baecker (1997) states that in the next society, identities are no longer generated by stabilizing the disturbances but rather by enhancing and empowering differences and deviations. However, the “structure-form” of the next society is no longer the distinction but rather the “Network.” Sober rationality is replaced by heterogeneous tensions, reason by calculation and repetition by variation (Baecker 1997). It is true that the world witnesses a kind of shift toward what Baecker calls the next society. However, the notion of societal definiteness is as present as it ever was. It contains structures like value systems, social norms, hierarchies, and class division. Furthermore, when dealing with culture, the concept of classification is necessarily present and ever important. Take the classification of culture into high, low, popular, and folk culture(s) as an example. This classification, as Pierre Bourdieu argues, considers high culture as an argument about taste and low culture as an argument about morals (quoted. in Baecker 1997). In addition, the tendency to posit culture outside the social is still evident. Moreover, art, religion, and even science belong to the realm of the cultural, not the social (Baecker 1997). Culture is aware of all these concepts about itself. It is aware of itself being an invention, a historical notion, and an instrument of control in many cases. Culture also observes itself as an independent sphere, one that is independent of the social. In other words, culture observes how it is being observed. Thus, this very observation results in culture being distrustful of itself. This distrust is not passive; it creates a stock market of endless possibilities, which invalidates each form of definiteness on the one hand and of dualism on the other. Culture, as Baecker puts it, is a “protest against everything that society thinks it can bring in the form of either/or” (Baecker 2003). Culture is multiplicity, as well as it produces multiplicities. I argue that culture does not operate vertically in the “root-tree” manner; it rather fits the Deleuzo-Guattarian description of the rhizome. In the second volume of Schizophrenia and Capitalism, A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari (2005) argue that “a rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.” As a model of culture, the rhizome resists the organizational structure of the root-tree system, which charts causality along chronological lines, seeks the original source of things, and looks toward the pinnacle or conclusion of those

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things (“first-order observation”). Everything in a rhizome is interrelated by feedback loops and circular causalities where cause and effect are hard to disentangle (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). In addition, the rhizomatic model of culture rejects hierarchy represented in the notion of unity, whether linear or cyclic. Culture produces multiplicities just as culture is multiplicity, for multiplicities are in turn themselves rhizomatic with no points or positions as found in the vertical and hierarchal root-tree systems. Rather, they are horizontal with only lines. A multiplicity “has neither subject nor object, only determinations, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot increase in number without the multiplicity changing in nature” (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). Thus, the root-tree system can be considered as the world of the first-order observation, a world concerned with “what really is” and with the notion of unity. This world is filled with blind spots, gaps, and fissures. Culture as second-order observation, however, is rhizomatic in nature; it operates like a surface of a body of water, spreading toward available spaces or seeking new ones. Culture fills the blind spots of the world of the first-order observer and runs through the fissures and gaps, of which this world is full, all the while deepening them. This model of culture provides lines and connections among various systems: the political, the economic, the social, the spiritual, the artistic, the historic, and the lingual. Even if these systems are root-tree systems (hierarchical and linear), by connecting them, they become intertwined and thus a rhizome or, as Deleuze and Guattari (2005) argue, an “interbeing.” This approach connects a set of different root-tree systems: the historical, the political, and the lingual. However, it is not done in the manner of connecting dots, but rather by drawing lines within each system on the one hand and among these systems on the other. In effect, each root-tree system is intertwined with the other, forming lines; multiplicities: a rhizome. However, it is important to mention that these two models, the root-tree system and the rhizome, are not opposite models. Deleuze and Guattari argue that the root-tree and canal-rhizome are not two opposed models: the first operates as a transcendent model and tracing, even if it engenders its own escapes; the second operates as an immanent process that overturns the model and outlines a map, even if it constitutes its own hierarchies, even if it gives rise to a despotic channel. It is not a question of this or that place on earth, or of a given moment in history, still less of this or that category of thought. It is a question of a model that is perpetually in construction or

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collapsing, and of a process that is perpetually prolonging itself, breaking off and starting up again. (2005)

Following this understanding, I argue that culture draws maps and is itself a map. Culture is not concerned primarily with tracing.5 Culture as rhizome is “a short-term memory, or anti-memory.” By short-term memory or anti-memory, Deleuze and Guattari mean that it “is in no way subject to a law of contiguity or immediacy to its object; it can act at a distance, come or return a long time after, but always under conditions of discontinuity, rupture, and multiplicity” (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). This is a notion that corresponds with Baecker’s concept of culture as memory; not in the sense of an archive (organizing memory as per Deleuze and Guattari), but rather the most topical (short-termed memory)6 operation of objection of excluded possibilities to apprehended possibilities (anti-memory). Moreover, culture as rhizome is unlike tracings; it “pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight” (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). In effect, culture produces itself as a map in which various systems are inserted, whereas root-tree systems are entirely centralized, hierarchical, and pre-­existent. But these systems connect and intertwine, and thus, dynamic processes come into being: tree or root structures might exist in rhizomes; “conversely, a tree branch or root division may begin to burgeon into a rhizome” (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). Furthermore, “a new rhizome may form in the heart of a tree, the hollow of a root, the crook of a branch” (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). In essence, culture is never static; it is interchangeable and flexible. Culture exposes and deepens the fissures in society. Culture observes the first-order observer and the root-tree systems and includes them on its surface. Culture constructs itself as a map in which all these systems are 5  All of tree logic is a logic of tracing and reproduction. In linguistics as in psychoanalysis, its object is an unconscious that is itself representative, crystallized into codified complexes, laid out along a genetic axis and distributed within a syntagmatic structure. Its goal is to describe a de facto state, to maintain balance in intersubjective relations, or to explore an unconscious that is already there from the start, lurking in the dark recesses of memory and language. (Deleuze and Guattari 2005) 6  By short-term memory, Deleuze and Guattari mean that it “is in no way subject to a law of contiguity or immediacy to its object; it can act at a distance, come or return a long time after, but always under conditions of discontinuity, rupture, and multiplicity” (2005).

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connected and intertwined; it is a rhizome, a producer of multiplicities. Culture as second-order observation and as rhizome is nonhierarchical and nonlinear, yet it is not imminent to hierarchy and linearity. The root-­ tree system can become dominant over the rhizome. However, the second-­ order observer perpetually observes; the rhizome is perpetually in construction/collapse and a process that is perpetually prolonging itself: It breaks off and starts up again. On the basis of this understanding of culture as second-order observation and as rhizome, the following chapter presents the abovementioned new definition of counterculture to be applied to the first eighteen days of the 2011 Egyptian uprising. The Line of Flight Culture is a perpetual observation; culture is perpetually in construction/ collapse. Out of this understanding of culture (1) as an operation of objection, (2) as a producer of multiplicities as well as being a multiplicity, (3) as a nonlinear a-centered second-order observer, and (4) as rhizome, one can arrive at a new definition of “counterculture” in accordance with Deleuzo-Guattarian’s concept of the war-machine. I am going to close this part with discussing the first eighteen days of the 2011 Egyptian uprising in relation to the definition of counterculture as war-machine. In doing so, a brief representation of the events of these eighteen days is necessary to understand the dynamics of this uprising which led to the toppling of Mubarak. Moreover, it is important to apply the theoretical concepts discussed in this section on a concrete example: the Egyptian revolution as an example of a counterculture as war-machine. A rhizome has no points or positions, only lines. Deleuze and Guattari argue that there are three types of lines within a rhizome, molar, molecular, and the line of flight. The first type is the molar line, understood as a rigid segmentarity. It is a clear-cut, calculated arrangement. According to Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus, molar lines are segmented to secure and ensure the identity of each agency, including personal identity (2005). This line is mainly concerned with deterritorialization. It is a movement well-defined by themes, style, and identity. In other words, the molar line categorizes and delimits a group of people. The molar line is evident within the segmentary movement; the movement of the individual from one segment or space of enclosure to the next, where each stage has its own laws. Accordingly, the molar line of rigid segmentarity with its linear movement and clear-cut arrangement, an arrangement concerned

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with securing and ensuring identity, clearly belongs to the world of the first-order observation. The second type of lines is the molecular. Like the molar, the molecular line is also a line of segmentarity; however, it is of a supple segmentarity. Unlike the molar line, the molecular is concerned with deterritorialization. Instead of a well-defined segmentarity, the molecular develops transitory segmentations-in-progress that are defined by quanta of deterritorialization on an intensive scale (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). The third type is the line of flight, ligne de fuite. The English translation of fuite is both escape and flight. However, the word fuite covers a wider range of meaning; besides eluding and fleeing, it also means according to Brian Massumi, the translator of A Thousand Plateaus, flowing, leaking, and disappearing into the distance (2005). Deleuze and Guattari argue that all multiplicities are flat, in the sense that they fill or occupy all of their dimensions: we will therefore speak of a plane of consistency of multiplicities, even though the dimensions of this “plane” increase with the number of connections that are made on it. Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or deterritorialization according to which they change in nature and connect with other multiplicities. The plane of consistency (grid) is the outside of all multiplicities. The line of flight marks the reality of a finite number of dimensions that the multiplicity effectively fills; the impossibility of a supplementary dimension, unless the multiplicity is transformed by the line of flight; the possibility and necessity of flattening all of the multiplicities on a single plane of consistency or exteriority, regardless of their number of dimensions.

The line of flight is the line of absolute deterritorialization in which both lines, the molar and the molecular, explode. It is, as Paul Patton states in “Deleuze and Guattari: ‘ethics and post-modernity’” (2001), a line without segments, a collapse of all segmentarity. The line of flight is the line along which a system breaks down and transforms into something else (Patton 2001). In effect, counterculture can be considered as the line of flight within culture. Even though culture as second-order observation and as rhizome carries an operation of objection of excluded possibilities within it, there are permanent attempts of a power takeover by the social apprehended possibilities represented in the dominant norms/values of society. In other words, culture as rhizome can get “over-signified” by a root-tree system. Consequently, counterculture as a line of flight is the line of creation/abolition which is responsible for breaking away from this

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power takeover and creating a new set of endless possibilities. However, there exist two possibilities of how a line of flight turns out: the first is becoming a line of creation, and the second is of abolition. The danger is that by breaking out of “the limits imposed by of the molar lines of segmentarity or subjectivity, a line may fail to connect with the necessary conditions of creative development, turning instead into a line of destruction, generating a passion of pure and simple abolition” (Patton 2001). Nevertheless, in both cases, counterculture as a line of flight represents a collision with the socially apprehended possibilities, and a direct challenge to the dominant norms and values of society. However, the invention of such a line requires a certain kind of assemblage which Deleuze and Guattari (2005) call the war-machine.

The War-Machine The Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of the war-machine can only be discussed in relation to the concept of assemblages. For Deleuze and Guattari (2005), an assemblage is a heterogeneous entity which consists of bodies and objects: the material, referred to as “content,” as well as the nonmaterial in form of words, utterances, and statements, referred to as “expression.” An assemblage is defined along two axes: On a first, horizontal, axis, an assemblage comprises two segments, one of content, the other of expression. On the one hand it is a machinic assemblage of bodies, of actions and passions, an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another; on the other hand, it is a collective assemblage of enunciation, of acts and statements, of incorporeal transformations attributed to bodies. Then on a vertical axis, the assemblage has both territorial sides, or reterritorialised sides, which stabilize it, and cutting edges of deterritorialization, which carry it away. (Deleuze and Guattari 2005)

According to Deleuze and Guattari, an assemblage that draws lines of flight is of the war-machine type (2005). The war-machine, as Paul Patton explains in Deleuze and the Political (2000), has little to do with actual war; rather, it is the condition of creative mutation and change (Patton 2000). Deleuze and Guattari state that the object of the war-machine is “the emission of quanta of deterritorialization, the passage of mutant flows” (2005). In addition, the war-machine is best understood as the “Other” of the state-form. Deleuze and Guattari argue that the nature of

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the state is of capture; the state is in a permanent operation of reterritorialization. Its main aim is to create structures through which lines of flight can be harnessed and controlled. Furthermore, [O]ne of the fundamental tasks of the State is to striate the space over which it reigns, or to utilize smooth spaces as a means of communication in the service of striated space. It is a vital concern of every State not only to vanquish nomadism but to control migrations and more generally, to establish a zone of rights over an entire “exterior,” over all flows traversing the ecumenon. If it can help it, the State does not dissociate itself from a process of capture of flows of all kinds, populations, commodities or commerce, money or capital, etc. There is still a need for fixed paths in well-defined directions, which restrict speed, regulate circulation, relativize movement, and measure in detail the relative movements of subjects and objects. (Deleuze and Guattari 2005)

The state here is a social machine, a root-tree system which is concerned with drawing boundaries. This social machine operates through striated space and builds into it a hierarchical system of relations. Patton describes striated space as “the homogenous space of quantitative multiplicity” (Patton 2000). Striated space is mainly concerned with closing a surface, dividing it up at determinate intervals, and establishing breaks (Patton 2000). In this sense, the state is the owner of the apprehended possibilities; it is the provider of the world of actuality. However, as mentioned before, a rhizome can grow in the heart of a root-tree system. This rhizome is culture; the second-order observer which objects to these apprehended possibilities by trying to include the excluded possibilities. As culture tries to spread toward available spaces or even to seek new ones, the state as social machine, a machine of capture and reterritorialization, tries to appropriate culture in its striated space. Furthermore, the state tries also to relocate/ reterritorialize culture within its controlled zone. In addition, when the state undertakes its task of capturing, culture moves to the realm of the molar. In other words, a process of reterritorialization takes place. Reterritorialization does not mean returning to the original “territory”; it rather refers to “the way in which deterritorialized elements recombine and enter into new relations in the constitution of a new assemblage or the modification of the old” (Patton 2000). Accordingly, culture as rhizome becomes over-coded by the state as an abstract machine of capture, which allows culture to maintain its oppositional characteristic toward the other structures of society as a possibility of observing society from within, as if it

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is happening from the outside. However, the state never allows culture to be an exterior to the state. Patton argues that Deleuze and Guattari see that the state’s primary mode of operation is of limitation and constraint, a matter of separating active forces from what they can do (Patton 2000). Nevertheless, within the molar line, there exists a certain type of deterritorialization, which Deleuze and Guattari call “relative deterritorialization.” The DeleuzoGuattarian concept of deterritorialization is defined in the words of Paul Patton in Deleuzian Concepts: Philosophy, Colonization, Politics (2010) as the complex movement or process by which something escapes or departs from a given territory. This territory could be a system of any kind: conceptual, social, or affective. Furthermore, deterritorialization is inseparable from corresponding reterritorialization (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). There exist two types of deterritorialization: relative and absolute. Relative deterritorialization takes place on the molar dimension of individual or collective life. It concerns movements within the actual—as opposed to the virtual—order of things (Patton 2010). However, relative deterritorialization can be either negative or positive (Patton 2010). The negative form of relative deterritorialization takes place when “the deterritorialized element is immediately subjected to forms of reterritorialization which enclose or obstruct its line of flight” (Patton 2010). The positive form is evident when the “line of flight prevails over secondary reterritorialization, even though it may still fail to connect with other deterritorialized elements or enter into a new assemblage” (Patton 2010). Culture, I argue, is mostly the positive form of relative deterritorialization, prevailing over the state’s tool of reterritorialization. Culture succeeds to create a new space of the possible, a smooth space. This smooth space is, unlike the striated space, a heterogeneous space of qualitative multiplicities, a rhizomatic fluid space of continuous variation characterized by a plurality of directions (Patton 2010). Nevertheless, culture being a relative deterritorialization, the smooth space it creates gets utilized by the state in the service of striated space, and thus, it may fail to enter into a new assemblage. The state as the owner of the world of actuality succeeds in separating culture from its active forces. Counterculture is the line of flight of culture, the line of flight of absolute deterritorialization, which succeeds in entering into and forming a new assemblage: the war-machine. By contrast to culture as relative deterritorialization, counterculture as war-machine, the “Other” of the state, is of absolute deterritorialization. While relative deterritorialization takes place on the molar line, absolute deterritorialization is of the molecular plane of social existence (Patton 2010). However, even though absolute

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deterritorialization is concerned with the virtual—as opposed to the actual—order of things, it is not a further stage of relative deterritorialization. In fact, it exists “only in and through relative deterritorialization” (Patton 2010). In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that [T]here is a perpetual immanence of absolute deterritorialization within relative deterritorialization; and the machinic assemblages between strata that regulate the differential relations and relative movements also have cutting edges of deterritorialization oriented toward the absolute. (2005)

As mentioned above, the war-machine does not aim to make war in the traditional meaning of an armed struggle. It is, in the Deleuzo-Guattarian sense, the exterior of the state. While the state is all about interiority, the war-machine is defined by its exteriority to the state power. That is why Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the war-machine is the nomad. They argue that the war-machine “is of a different origin, is a different assemblage, than the State apparatus. It is of nomadic origin and is directed against the State apparatus” (2005). Furthermore, the war machine […] has as its object not war but the drawing of a creative line of flight, the composition of a smooth space and of the movement of people in that space. At this other pole, the machine does indeed encounter war, but as its supplementary or synthetic object, now directed against the State and against the worldwide axiomatic expressed by States. (Deleuze and Guattari 2005)

Nomadism, thus, refers to the nature of the movement, a movement which takes place in a smooth space, an absolute deterritorialization. This nomadism can be territorial or social, yet above all intellectual and conceptual: a nomadology of thought. This nomadology of thought is a form of war against the structure of the state, the dominant, linear, and hierarchal characteristics which are concerned with establishing fixed and well-­ defined paths, regulations, limits, and ways of reterritorialization and control. Considering counterculture, a war-machine, it is formed by the line of absolute deterritorialization within and through culture as relative deterritorialization. Counterculture tries to create smooth space, an exterior to the actual “the state.” In this sense, counterculture as war-machine “is nothing if not ambidextrous […] when it lays siege to the archetypical notions of human culture—The Word, God, Truth, Reason, Capital, History and so forth” (Koswar 2001). Thus, while culture is a rhizomatic second-order

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observer, counterculture is the active force of culture; counterculture goes a step further by acting upon this observation turning it into a collision. As the “Other” of the state, counterculture never adopts neither the form nor the structure of the state. As war-machine, counterculture is a machine of change and mutation which mainly appears in the social field. It can take the form of thought and can be actualized in different material domains and practices against the process of capture undertaken by the state. Indeed, counterculture as war-machine can take many forms: a new invention, a revolutionary judgment, or a new individual or collective affect in the stratum of desire (Patton 2010). As an assemblage of the war-machine type, counterculture comprises two segments. One is of content: actions and passions as an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another. The other is of expression: It is a collective assemblage of enunciation, of acts and statements, and of incorporeal transformations. In addition, counterculture seeks to create and occupy smooth spaces while actively resisting any process of capture, and further, it establishes a clear hostility to the state. Counterculture as war-machine can take various guises: a social movement, a guerrilla organization, a civil disobedience, or an artistic or scientific movement. Furthermore, Deleuze points out to the importance of what he calls “jurisprudence.” It is to create rights which are expressed by the law, not the other way around (Patton 2010); this, too, is a task of the war-machine. Accordingly, my work aims at contributing to a better understanding of what I consider to be an important aspect of what took place over the last nine years in the Middle East in general and especially in Egypt. The aspect in question is the artistic possibility made manifest in the films which such a political event generates. Also, it is important to note how this filmic possibility creates a smooth space as a line among many lines, which in turn form a larger assemblage called counterculture. It is evident that within the current global context, the wide field of cultural studies needs to engage with the countercultural process in the Arab World and beyond which are reshaping and remapping the geopolitics of our time. This engagement, I believe, must encompass a destabilization and redefinition of existing concepts as well as the creation of new ones. In the case of the 2011 Egyptian uprising (along with the Tunisian, the Libyan, the Yemeni, the Bahraini, Sudanese, Algerian, Lebanese Iraqi, and even the Syrian uprisings), even though the near future seems as dark as could be, these uprisings, as Hamid Dabashi argues, “in the long run, will leave not a stone unturned in the economic, social, political, and above all cultural disposition of these societies, and by extension the geopolitics of their region and thus beyond into the global configuration of power” (Dabashi 2012).

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A new cinematic movement in Egypt has already started a process of innovation, mutation, and change which indeed had its roots prior to 2011  in the long tradition of the Egyptian cinema. This New Egyptian Cinema to which the selected five films I am analyzing in this book is a part of the war-machine assemblage. Even though the 2011 war-machine had been captured by the state, cinema and this New Egyptian cinema in particular is an artistic line of flight which escaped the state’s capture of the molar lines of the assemblage: the political and the economic. Like the 2011 uprising, this cinema faces many obstacles and is likely to be captured and reterritorialized. However, change is already happening as was long before and as long will be.

References Armbrust, Walter. 2013. “The Trickster in Egypt’s January 25th Revolution.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 55 (4): 834–864. Armburst, Walter. 2012. “Dreaming of Counter-revolution: Rami al-I‘tisami and the Pre-negation of Protest.” Cinema Journal 52 (1): 143–148. Armburst, Walter. 2011. “Political Films in Contemporary Egypt.” In Film and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa: Creative Dissidence, edited by Josef Gugler, 228–251. Austin: University of Texas Press. Armbrust, Walter. 1996. Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Armbrust, Walter. 1995. “New Cinema, Commercial Cinema, and the Modernist Tradition in Egypt.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 15: 81–129. https:// doi.org/10.2307/521682. Armes, Roy. 2010. Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East. Bloomignton: Indiana University Press. Baecker, Dirk. 1997. “The Meaning of Culture.” Thesis Eleven 51 (1): 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513697051000004. Baecker, Dirk. 2003. Wozu Kultur? 3rd ed. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos. Baecker, Dirk. 2005. Kommunikation. Leipzig: Reclam. Baecker, Dirk. 2007. Studien zur nächsten Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am MAin: Surkamp. Baecker, Dirk. 2008. Nie wieder Vernunft: kleinere Beiträge zur Sozialkunde. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme-Verlag. Bayat, Asef. 2013. “The Arab Spring and Its Surprises.” Development and Change 44 (3): 587–601. Beissinger, M., Jamal, A., and Mazur, K. 2013. “The Anatomy of Protest in Egypt and Tunisia.” Foreign Policy. http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/15/the-­ anatomy-­of-­protest-­in-­egypt-­and-­tunisia/. Accessed 15.06.2020.

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Chiozza, G., and Goemans, H.  E. 2011. Leaders and International Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cox, Laurence. 1995. “Towards A Sociology of Counter Cultures?” Ireland: Emerging Perspectives: 1–9. Dabashi, Hamid. 2012. The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. London: Zed Books. De Landa, Manuel. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London and New York: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles. 1985. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix. 2005. A Thousand Plateaus Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Ellul, Jacques. 1964. The Technological Society. New York: Vintage Books. Entelis, J.P. 1989. Culture and Counter Culture in Moroccan Politics. Michigan: Westview Press. El Tantawy, Nahed, and Weist, Julie B. 2011. “Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory.” International Journal of Communication 5: 1207–1224. Franklin, J. C. 2014. “Democratic Revolutions and Those That Might Have Been: Comparing the Outcomes of Protest Waves under Authoritarian Rule.” APSA Annual Meeting Paper, 1–24. Hanieh, A. 2013. Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Herrera, Linda. 2012. “Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt.” Harvard Educational Review 82(3): 333–352. Herzog, Amy. 2000. “Images of Thought and Acts of Creation: Deleuze, Bergson, and the Question of Cinema.” Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture. Hofstadter, Douglas R. 1979. Godel, Escher, Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid. Berkeley Basic Books. Kandil, Hazem. 2012. “Why did the Egyptian Middle-Class March to Tahrir Square?” Mediterranean Politics 17 (2): 197–215. Khouri, Malek. 2010. The Arab National Project in Youssef Chahine’s Cinema: American University in Cairo Press. Koswar, Mohamad. 2001. “Deleuze on Theatre: A Case Study of Carmelo Bene’s Richard III.” In Deleuze and Guattari: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, edited by Gary Genosko, 30–47. London: Routledge. Laermans, Rudi. 2011. “‘After Luhmann’: Dirk Baecker’s Sociology of Culture and Art.” Cultural Sociology 5 (1): 155–165. LeVine, Mark. 2008. Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam. New York: Three Rivers Press.

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LeVine, Mark. 2015. “When Art Is the Weapon: Culture and Resistance Confronting Violence in the Post-Uprisings Arab World.” Religions 6: 1277–1313. Luhmann, Niklas. 1998. Theory of Society. Stanford: Stanford UP. Luhmann, Niklas. 2000. Art as a Social System. Stanford: Stanford UP. Luhmann, Niklas. 2006. “Beyond Barbarism.” In Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems, 261–272. Chicago/La Salle: Open Court. Luhmann, Niklas. 2012. Observations on Modernity. Stanford: Stanford UP. Marcuse, Herbert. 1991. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press. Mulderig, M.  Chloe. 2013. “An Uncertain Future: Youth Frustration and the Arab Spring.” The Pardee Papers 16. Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future Boston University. Patton, Paul. 2000. Deleuze and the Political. London: Routledge. Patton, Paul. 2001. “Deleuze and Guattari: ‘Ethics and Post-modernity’.” In Deleuze and Guattari: Critical Assessment of Leading Philosophers, edited by Gary Genosko. London: Routledge: 1150–1164. Patton, Paul. 2010. Deleuzian Concepts: Philosophy, Colonization, Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rodwick, D.N. 1997. Gilles Deleuze’s Time Machine. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Roszak, T. 1995. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition: University of California Press. Rossinow, Doug. 1998. The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America. New York: Columbia UP. Shafik, Viola. 1998. Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity. Cairo: AUC Press. Shafik, Viola. 2001. “Egyptian Cinema.” In Companion Encyclopaedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film, edited by Oliver Leaman. New  York: Routledge. Shafik, Viola. 2007. Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class, and Nation. 1st ed., Cairo: The American U in Cairo P. Shea, F.X. 1973. “Reason and the Religion of the Counter-Cult.” The Harvard Theological Review 66 (1): 95–111. Springborg, Robert. 2011. “Whither the Arab Spring? 1989 or 1848.” The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs 46 (3): 5–12. Totaro, Donato. 1999. “Gilles Deleuze’s Bergsonian Film Project: Part 1. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image.” Offscreen 3 (3). www.offscreen.com/view/bergson3. Accessed 14.06.2020. Wasson, Richard. 1970. “The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Rozsak.” College English 31 (6): 624–628.

CHAPTER 2

Counterculture as War-Machine: Egypt 2011

This section establishes a theoretical footing which leads to a definition of counterculture as war-machine, a machine of absolute deterritorialization whose objective is to resist and collide with the state as the owner of the world of actuality and as a machine of capture. First of all, it is essential when discussing the Egyptian uprising to access/gain another perspective than the one broadcast by its western medial representation, namely as a large protest movement led by the pro-western, mid-class educated youth on the one hand, and the so-called Facebook/Twitter Revolution on the other. I argue that what took place in Egypt follows the understanding of counterculture as war-machine. In addition, I argue that the current situation in Egypt, nine years after the eruption of the uprising, mirrors a relapse to the pre-revolution environment; even worse, Egypt is now ruled by a straightforward military dictatorship. Nevertheless, I am not concerned with success or failure. What took place in 2011 is not a moment in a vacuum; its impact is running until this very day; I am rather concerned with examining the shape, the dynamics, and the actions of this event in relation to the term “counterculture.” Moreover, it is worth mentioning that, as in the case of any uprising, for understanding and evaluating what started ten years ago in the Arab World in general, and nine years ago in Egypt in particular, a period of ten years is never sufficient. It is not even accurate to treat the Egyptian uprising as a past event; rather, it is as an ongoing process not separate from the other Arab uprisings, especially © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1_2

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when witnessing the upheavals in Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, and Sudan and the aggression against the Yemeni people. Here, I will focus on the infamous first eighteen days of the uprising: from January 25 until February 11, 2011. It is the intensity and the rapidness of the events which led to the change in the Egyptian socio-political scenery that make these eighteen days a perfect example of how a war-­ machine is formed and how it acts. This is also the very period upon which the whole medial and in part some scholarly narrative was built. The very date of the beginning of this event, January 25, 2011, is significant in understanding this event. January 25 in Egypt is the so-called “National Police Day.” The Ministry of the Interior and supposedly the people of Egypt celebrate the day on which the Egyptian police resisted the British occupation troops in 1952 in the canal-Cities (Suez, Port Said, and Ismaeleya). In fact, this date marks the last positive memory and perception of the Egyptian police by the people. Since the Nasser era, and even before, the police represented nothing but oppression, fear, torture, and injustice. Throughout the last sixty years of military rule under Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, Morsi,1 and recently Al Sisy, Egypt is considered a police state. The Egyptian Police represents the Ministry of Interior with its various sections, especially the Amn Al Dawla (State Security), came to be the central entity by which the whole state apparatus functions. Its position intensified significantly in the last fifteen years of the Mubarak Era when Amn Al Dawla effectively became a state within the state, controlling almost every detail of Egyptian life: the media, the assignment of ministers and university directors, business licenses, and also every election (parliamentary, local, unions, etc.). The total control of these elections means mainly determining the capacity of fraud and protecting, even promoting, the state-supported candidates. Furthermore, censorship was one of Amn Al Dawla’s tasks; from print media to cinema, television, and theatre productions, from religious speech (controlling mosques and churches) to sports commentaries (Abdelrahman 2014). The reasons that led to the 2011 revolution vary and are historically deep rooted, but three acute factors can be identified as triggering this 1  Concerning the one year of Morsi, the Muslim Brothers’ rule cannot be excluded from the military rule, in the sense that Morsi was not able to control the State Apparatus, especially the military. As before, the military managed and governed its own structure and economy. In fact, the 2012 constitution has given the military power and autonomy more than any previous constitution.

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event. The first was the rise of Mubarak’s son Gamal on the political scene since the year 2000. It became clear that Gamal Mubarak was being prepared to succeed his father after the Syrian model (Al Raggal 2014). This also had an economic impact, as Gamal Mubarak and his new guard embarked on a process of implementing neoliberal policies. This resulted in the rise of a new political class which Maha Abdelrahman argues built a new form of oligopoly (2014). This class consisted of wealthy business owners and industrial moguls who became ministers, member of parliaments, and the new guard of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) (Abdelrahman 2014). These neoliberal policies which were defined by monopoly and oligopoly led to huge economic grievances for the majority of Egyptians. As Maha Abdelrahman argues, this new political class is more than a symptom of corruption or crony capitalism. Rather, the network of privilege, monopolies, and oligopolies are central features of neoliberal politics (2014). In the Egyptian case, these policies and power structure under Mubarak cannot be separated from the centralization and complete dominance of the security apparatus, which is the second factor that triggered the 2011 uprising. Zeyad Al Elaimy, member of The Revolutionary Youth Coalition and former member of parliament, stated that the increase of police dominance over all walks of life in Egypt along with its oppressive practices played a major role in the uprising which at first was mainly directed at this issue. In addition, these practices became public by being exposed by the first generation of online activists and political bloggers who released many leaked videos showing citizens brutally tortured and abused by the police, some of which were afterward aired by private television programs (Taha 2012).2 The bare fact of police brutality was not new to many Egyptians; however, seeing the videos on the internet and on television on the one hand, and witnessing the Ministry of Interior and its reaction to these videos on the other, fueled the already existing anger and discontent toward the state represented by the police (Taha 2012). This wave of attempts to expose the regime through citizen journalism gave citizens the opportunity to engage actively in the general atmosphere of discontent by recording, distributing, and sometimes even hacking and leaking certain videos. The publication of these and other videos, photos, or documents exposing state corruption gave the viewers 2  Zeyad Al Elaimy whom I personally interviewed was a member of the Youth Coalition which organized and called for the January 25 protest. He was arrested and imprisoned in 2019 by Al Sisi’s security.

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a new dimension of what “everybody already knew,” which is more concrete: Watching real footage of torture, abuse, and political scandals gave faces and names to both victims and abusers. These actions reached its peak in the year 2010; in June, a young man, Khaled Said, was tortured and killed in the streets of Alexandria by two policemen. They had raided an internet cafe and arrested him; when he refused to go with them without seeing the arrest warrant, they beat him to death. One of the witnesses stated that they dragged him to the adjacent building and banged his head against an iron door, the steps of the staircase and walls of the building … Two doctors happened to be there and tried in vain to revive him but (the police) continued beating him […] They continued to beat him even when he was dead. (Schemm 2014)

The authorities released a statement claiming that Said suffocated on a packet of hashish he swallowed when the policemen started to search him. However, post-mortem photos of Said were leaked, showing Said’s face and skull horribly crushed. Meanwhile, the state-controlled media launched a defamation campaign against Said’s person, labeling him as a drug addict. Later, it was discovered that Said released a leaked video of corrupt policemen dividing evidence among themselves (drugs, cash, and jewelry). There was a large demonstration in solidarity with Said’s family in Alexandria in the street he used to live in. Many argue that such a large demonstration can be seen as a catalyst to what occurred in January 2011. Another incident took place on the New Year’s Eve 2010–2011, also in Alexandria. A car bomb went off in front of the Coptic Christian “Two Saints” Church after the New Year Service, which killed twenty-three and injured ninety-seven Christians on their way out after the end of church service. At this evening, the church had almost no security or protection by the police, despite past attacks on churches in Alexandria and Upper Egypt. Furthermore, it is a normal procedure in Egypt, after the Jihadists’ wave of violence in the 1990s, to provide special and intensive security and police presence in such events. The very fact that the church was left unprotected led many observers, politicians, and activists to point the finger at Minister of the Interior Habib Al Adly and Amn Al Dawla as responsible and even accuse Al Adly to be the one behind this massacre. Almost a week later, Amn Al Dawla kidnapped, tortured, and killed a young Salafi, Sayed Bilal. He was accused by the police of being complicit

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in the church attack. They arrested him without a warrant. Twenty-four hours after his arrest, Bilal’s family received a phone call from a morgue telling them to come and receive his body. The third and last factor was the 2010 parliamentary election, which became the stage for the most absurd fraud in the Egyptian history: Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won 95% of the seats (Carlstrom 2011). The systematic fraud was conducted under the sponsorship of the police. Activists released videos of open fraud and violations: The election was not under supervision by any national court; the police hindered citizens from voting; a wave of arrests removed the opposition candidates; and nine people were killed on election day (theguardian.com). State clerks were filmed filling ballot boxes; many incidents of vote buying in pole stations were also caught on tape. All these factors and incidents fueled the general sense of discontent and anger toward the state after thirty years of Mubarak’s rule. These incidents, along with the eruption of the Tunisian Revolution on December 18, 2010, and the ousting of President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, must be seen as part of the final stages before eruption of the volcano. Consequently, looking west at the Tunisian Revolution and what it achieved on January 14, 2011, various opposition groups and activists met on January 20, 2011, and agreed to call for large demonstrations all over the country. They agreed on January 25, the national holiday of “National Police Day.” The aim was demonstrating against police brutality, state corruption, and social injustice. This call for protest was adopted by many online blogs, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages, one of them the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Said”3: “Our mass protest on the 25th will be the beginning of the end, the end of all the silence and submission […] and the beginning of a new page … We’ll reclaim all our rights and refuse to be silent after this day” (We are all Khaled Said 2011). The call explained why January 25, fifty years after the heroic resistance against the British occupation, had become a symbol for the Egyptian Police as a tool of oppression and torture: We chose that day for it symbolises the conjunction and the alliance between the people and the police. That is what we hope to see on this day: the 3  After the murder of Khaled Said, two activists made this Facebook page. Before the eruption of the revolution, the page reached one million members. It played an important role in mobilizing young internet users to join the protests.

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­ onourable and non-corrupt officers to be on our side, for we all have the h same cause. (Anon 2011)4

On January 25, a wave of protest hit Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and Mahalla. The numbers of participants were surprisingly high. The majority of the protesters joined the rallies spontaneously on the spot. The media coverage focused on the Cairo protests where the protesters decided to enter Tahrir Square and to establish a sit-in until all their demands were answered. Later that evening the police dispersed the sit-in using birdshot and tear gas. Suez witnessed the first death of two protesters, shot by the security forces (Taha 2012). As this book in general, and this chapter in particular, focus on the period January to February 2011 of the uprising along with the aforementioned acute catalysts, it is important to briefly stress the fact that what took place in 2011 came as a chapter in a continuous process of rebellions, revolts, and uprisings in Egypt. The 2011 uprising did not happen in a vacuum. As a process of constant forming, reforming, struggle change, and mutation, this uprising had its roots deep into the Egyptian modern history, and even beyond (Fahmy 2015; Abdelrahman 2014). We can trace this process as back in time as to the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801), and the establishing of the so-called Egyptian modern state in 1805 by Mohammed Ali Pasha (Fahmy 2015). Khaled Fahmy (2015) uses the term, the long revolution. He argues, [F]or the past 200 years, Egyptians have not spared any effort in rebelling against this tyrannical state. In contrast to what is taught in Egyptian schools, we did not revolt only against foreign invaders, be they French or British. We also resisted this domestic Leviathan by all means at our disposal.

Fahmy offers a unique historical perspective of the uprisings and the revolutions in Egypt. He traces 2011 back to the birth of the Egyptian state itself. For Fahmy, it was not only a revolt against Mubarak, “but against a state that came dripping from head to foot, […]from every pore, with dirt and blood.” The modern Egyptian state which Mohammed Ali established “was not founded on the flimsiest notion of constitutionalism or the rule of law. We entered into no social contract that tied us to our ruler, who descended on us with his ilk like vultures ravaging town and 4

 Anonymous document uploaded by the organizers of the protests.

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country” (2015). Abdelrahman (2014) refers to the continuous process of rebellion which started long before 2011 and the dynamic and crucial involvement of workers, unionists, and working-class youth in carrying the uprising to what was then unexpected and uncharted territories. The collapse of the CSF (Central Security Forces), the occupation of the public squares across the country, and the wave of strikes all led to the toppling of Mubarak. In Egypt’s Long Revolution. Protest Movements and Uprisings (2014), Maha Abdelrahman sheds light on what she describes as the horizontal interaction of smaller networks which made the larger body of the uprising. While Khaled Fahmy goes back two hundred years, Abdelrahman focuses in her analysis on the post-1952 Egypt and traces the many uprisings Egypt witnessed since then. One of the most important aspects which shaped the dynamics and the structures of the socio-political and economic protest culture under Mubarak is the emergency law. Right after Sadat’s death in 1981, Mubarak imposed the Emergency Law which lasted until his toppling on February 11, 2011. This law gave the police and the security forces unlimited powers. While Amn Al Dawla controlled public life, it was the large body of Central Security Forces (CSF) that enforces these unlimited powers, a paramilitary force belonging to the Ministry of the Interior. Sadat created the CSF after the 1977 riots as an anti-riot unit specialized on dispersing demonstrations and strikes as well as guarding high-security prisons (2014). The CSF manpower is one-hundred thousand (Khairallah 2013). Compared to the service in the army, the conditions of compulsory service in the police in general until this very day are much worse in terms of income, treatment, and health care. They are basically free labor (Abdelrahman 2014). Here, I would like to further inform about the CSF as this force will appear in the film section of this book. There are different categories in compulsory service: people with high education, middle education, primary education, and illiterates. The two-last category of recruits are the ones who get transferred to the CSF and to the Ministry of Interior in general. The conditions under which these soldiers serve are close to slavery: Of all army conscripts, CSF soldiers are drawn from the most disadvantaged social backgrounds. With no recourse to justice, they endure incessant humiliation and abuse in already bleak living conditions, as well as the risk of violence—and boredom—during missions outside camps that often involve standing in one place for hours on end. (Adam 2012)

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The CSF soldiers are known for their extreme brutality against protesters. This is, according to Mohammed Mahfouz, a former police officer, due to the fact that harsh treatment of CSF conscripts is an essential element of CSF training: We see the results of this in the street, in the soldiers’ viciousness. If we are going to deal with soldiers humanely, they shouldn’t be left in lorries like sardines in a can for eight or nine hours, nor be told that the protests are the reason they are having to endure these conditions. It is this that makes CSF soldiers violent against protesters. (in Adam 2012)

The first uprising under Mubarak took place in 1986 by the CSF conscripts who took to the streets in thousands rebelling against the inhumane conditions they serve under. The soldiers embarked on a frenzy of destroying properties and inflicting damage on the very regime which created their force as a tool of suppression (Abdelrahman 2014; Khairallah 2013). Mubarak ordered the army to the streets to suppress the CSF revolt and imposed a three-week-long curfew. Mubarak improved the conditions of the CSF conscripts and raised the budget of the Ministry of Interior to improve and maintain the CSF (Abdelrahman 2014). The city of Mahalla in the Delta, the center of the textile industry in Egypt, witnessed more than one uprising during Mubarak’s thirty years. The city has a long history of workers’ struggle starting with the first general strike in 1938 throughout 1953 in which the workers rose against Nasser in solidarity with the workers of Kafr Addawar up until 2008 as the whole city witnessed an uprising and in which many political fractions participated. Alone under Mubarak, Mahalla rose up in 1986, 1988, 2006, and 2008 (Al Said 2006; Abdelrahman 2014; Hamed 1975). In 2008, the protesters burned Mubarak’s pictures, and the CSF was employed to suppress the uprising. Moreover, by the turn of the twenty-first century with the eruption of the second Palestinian Intifada marked a new decade of political dissent with new strategies and tactics. In fact, Tahrir square witnessed a number of large protests in 2001 in support of the Intifada and in 2003 against the war in Iraq. The focus of these protests was only on the regional conflict, and it soon turned to protests against the Egyptian regime itself (Abdelrahman 2014). Maha Abdelrahman argues that the last decade of Mubarak rule saw the formation of “a network of networks, each consisting of various groups and initiatives. A loosely linked and horizontally expanding universe […]” (2014). This network of networks underwent a

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process of formation and reformation all the way until the eruption of the uprising of 2011 and turned into what I argue to be an assemblage of the war-machine kind. So, how did this war-machine come into being? In order to answer this question, the notion of assemblage needs first to be examined and implemented here. The various groups which called for the protest can, first, be considered what Abdelrahman called a network of networks: groups of political activists (individuals), political movements, political parties, and anonymous online activists. In addition, the circles they reached through this call are in fact limited: mostly middle-class internet users with an interest in politics, journalists, and football ultras (whose activities were planned and organized via internet and who were at war with the police). These groups, with their direct and indirect interactions, formed a network. All observers and even these very groups expected the January 25 protest to follow the usual scenario of several thousand protesters scattered among the usual protest spots in downtown Cairo (Taha 2012). An assemblage was formed this day. The small numbers that started the protests with the slogan Bread, Freedom and Human Dignity were joined by individuals, each with their own agendas, whether in relation to or regardless of the political and economic demands: the ousting of Minster of the Interior Habib Al Adly, constitutional reforms, and minimum wage. However, it is important to stress the fact that the formation of such an assemblage cannot be defined by relations of interiority but rather by those of exteriority. In A New Philosophy of Society, Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, Manuel De Landa (2006) argues that unlike wholes in which parts are linked by relations of interiority (that is, relations which constitute the very identity of the parts) assemblages are made up of parts which are self-subsistent and articulated by relations of exteriority, so that a part may be detached and made a component of another assemblage. Assemblages are characterised along two dimensions: along the first dimension are specified the variable roles which components parts may play, from a purely material role to purely expressive one, as well as mixtures of the two. A second dimension characterises processes in which these components are involved: processes which stabilise and destabilise the identity of the assemblage.

Accordingly, the various heterogeneous political and activist groups which called for the protests can be seen in themselves as an assemblage

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with a known identity: oppositional groups, or rather, “the opposition.” This assemblage involved the horizontal axis of content and expression: The content includes the physical existence of these groups, while the expression includes acts and statements, organization and mobilization. In addition, the process of executing this plan by actually going to the streets and carrying on the protests leads to two results: a process of identity destabilization of this assemblage and the creation of a new one. The moment in which the masses joined the protests and turned it into a rally in the aforementioned cities marks a process of destabilizing the identity of the assemblage, “the opposition,” as a specific entity of parts. It is also a process of change and mutation, for it became a new larger assemblage with another identity or name which we might call “the protesters.” In other words, the “opposition” assemblage with its various parts interacted on both levels, the horizontal and the vertical, with other parts, a population of individuals, and thus entered a larger assemblage: “the protesters.” This process is also a process of deterritorialization. Here it must be said that since the eruption of specific political movements like Kefaya5 in 2004, every act of protest had been a sort of monopoly of certain groups with the same strategy, slogans, and even locations. In this sense, January 25, 2011, marked a movement of a line flight from within this small assemblage which finally succeeded in connecting with other deterritorialized elements: individuals who decided to escape the process of capture imposed by the state and also interacted with the other parts of the protests, “the opposition.” This too is a process of deterritorialization, change, and mutation: a line of flight out of a root-tree system dominated by fear, socio-political, and economic oppression. In effect, what took place on January 25 was a two-way process of interaction, change, and mutation which resulted in the formation of a larger assemblage. This process can be understood within the third dimension of the concept of assemblage which De Landa (2006) adds: the synthetic process as an extra axis defining processes in which specialised expressive media intervene, processes which consolidate and rigidify the identity of the assemblage, or on the contrary, allow the assemblage a certain latitude for more flexible operation while buffeting from genetic or linguistic resources 5  Kefaya is an Arabic word which means “Enough.” In 2004, several opposition groups formed this movement which adopted two main slogans: “No Extension” and “No Heredity.” The movement called for the ending of Mubarak’s rule and for stopping the ongoing preparations at that time for Gamal, his son, to take over from his father.

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(­ processes of coding and decoding). All of these processes are recurrent, and their variable repetition synthesises entire populations of assemblages. Within these populations other synthetic processes, which may also be characterised as territorialisation or codings but which typically involve entirely different mechanisms, generate larger-scale assemblages of which the members of the original population become component parts.

In this sense, the larger assemblage which emerged on this day became entirely different from the original one. It included different motives, dynamics, and mechanisms. A fourth slogan was added: Social Justice (Taha 2012). The scattered demonstrations became joined rallies, their calls for reform and change became a declared statement of a revolution: The People want to Topple the Regime (Taha 2012), and the protesters in Cairo decided to occupy Tahrir Square at the heart of the city and to establish a sit-in that would last until their demands were met. In Suez, the first clashes between protesters and security forces took place and the first protester was killed (Taha 2012). In the evening, the security forces clashed with the protesters and dispersed them in Cairo, Alexandria, and Mahalla with tear gas and birdshot (Taha 2012). This process of the emerging of this larger assemblage is marked by what De Landa calls nonlinear causality. He argues that [L]inear causality is typically defined in terms of atomistic events, but once we depart from these, we must consider the role that the internal organisation of an entity may play in the way it is affected by external cause. This internal organisation may, for example, determine that an external cause of large intensity will produce a low-intensity effect (or no effect at all) and vice versa, that small causes may have large effects. These are cases of nonlinear causality, defined by threshold below or above which external causes fail to produce an effect, that is, thresholds determining the capacities of an entity to be causally affected. In some cases, this capacity to be affected may gain the upper hand to the point that external causes become mere triggers or catalysts for an effect […] Catalysis deeply violates linearity since it implies that different causes may lead to the same effect—as when a switch from one internal state to another is triggered by different stimuli—and that one and the same cause may produce very different effects depending on the part of the whole it acts upon […]. (2006)

However, De Landa stresses that to refer to an inner process does not mean that it is defined by relations of interiority. Rather, it is a process

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which is marked by interactions among the component parts of an entity and does not imply by any means that these parts are mutually constituted (2006). Accordingly, we can read the first day of the Egyptian uprising, actually the whole eighteen days and afterward, in the light of the De Landean notions of assemblage in relation to the concept of nonlinear causality. The causes of the Egyptian uprising and specifically its dynamics and mechanisms are various and different in every sense. There is a combination of small causes (individual/personal causes), large causes (the violence that followed), and catalysts and triggers (the Tunisian uprising). The emergence of this larger assemblage on January 25 was also the birth of a war-machine assemblage. A line of flight erupted; it escaped the capture machine of the state on both levels, the physical and the expressive. The “protesters” assemblage also succeeded in creating smooth spaces: a heterogeneous space of qualitative multiplicities and a rhizomatic fluid space of continuous variation, characterized by a plurality of directions. A nomadic movement of absolute deterritorialization took place on social, political, and also territorial levels, for the notion of occupying the various squares in the cities in which the protests took place, especially Tahrir Square, is clearly an act of hostility to the state. In fact, it is an act of resisting the state-capture by an act of capturing: not only a symbolic place like Tahrir (which in Arabic means “liberation”), but a crucial place: an actual body of the centralized state. This Square connects North Cairo with South Cairo; East with West Cairo. Moreover, this is where the giant bureaucratic body of the state, Mogamaa’ Al Tahrir (Tahrir Centre), stands. Once again, it must be reminded that the notion of occupying public squares, specifically, Tahrir square, did not occur in 2011. Eight years prior, on March 20, 2003: the anti-Iraq War protest, 40,000 protesters occupied and controlled the square for a few hours. In retro prospect, it was a general probe for 2011 (Abdelrahman 2014). Furthermore, while a war-machine emerged on this day, due to the dispersion of the protesters which took place at the end of the day, it took full shape only three days later, on January 28, 2011, known as The Friday of Wrath (Gomaat Al Ghadab). It has been previously argued that the war-machine does not have war as its objective, yet at a certain point, it encounters war with the state. Being all about relations of interiority, a social machine of striated spaces and capture, the state will not allow or tolerate an other to itself. Perceiving the relative success of January 25, the newly born war-machine called for another large wave of protests on Friday, January 28. The call included the

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starting points and the route of each rally; the time was set to be after the Friday prayer in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Mahalla, and many other cities in the Nile Delta and Upper Egypt. The main and even only motto of this day was to topple the regime. The protesters declared January 28 as the Day of Wrath (Taha 2012). The two days which followed January 25 witnessed small demonstrations and clashes between the protesters and the state. On the eve of January 28, the state undertook a large wave of arrests: activists, politicians, and most of the leading class of the Muslim Brotherhood were put into prison (Taha 2012). Furthermore, the Ministry of Communication announced that, starting midnight, mobile phone and internet services would be cut off due to security reasons. The state also warned that no demonstrations would be allowed (Taha 2012). These procedures were taken because the state had seen how January 25 went badly. Furthermore, the call for protest was positively answered by other entities and groups which did not participate on the first day: the Muslim Brotherhood, independent workers’ unions, state employees, and public figures like Mohammad Al Baradey, who arrived from Austria on January 27 (Taha 2012). The assemblage which emerged on the first day of the revolution became even larger, and the hostility against the state became stronger and clearer. The war-machine reached the point where it was going to encounter war with the state. At noon of January 28, right after the Friday prayer, the confrontation between the protesters and the security forces started. The police were present at almost every meeting point which the protesters had announced: mosques, squares, universities, and so on. The clashes started right away, for the aim of the security forces was to prevent the protesters from starting their rallies. However, the numbers of the protesters were significantly larger than on January 25. What followed later that day resembles a clear rhizomatic enhancement of this war-machine, for, after hours of street war between the protesters and the security forces, the protesters prevailed. The evening of January 28 witnessed a defeat of the state: The police withdrew from the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Mahalla, and other Egyptian cities. Consequently, Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Armed Forces to support and replace the police on the streets, which was at first met by the protesters with hostility, burning two armed vehicles in Cairo (Taha 2012). Moreover, a curfew was announced in the aforementioned cities. In Cairo, the protesters entered Tahrir Square and established a sit-in which would last for the

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following fifteen days; so was the case in the other cities where the protesters occupied public places and squares. Meanwhile, police stations all over Egypt were burnt to the ground. The police abandoned their posts, over sixteen prisons were opened and abandoned by the police after the policemen committed mass killings among prisoners (Abouzeid  2011). In addition, the state media spread panic and paranoia by announcing that thugs and criminals were on the loose, attacking and robbing citizens, buildings, and houses. As a result, those who did not participate in the protests formed neighborhood watches in order to protect their streets, homes, and businesses. Besides the police stations, almost every building which belonged to Mubarak’s Party NDP was either attacked, robbed, or set on fire. The war-machine assemblage of the protesters became larger, for other assemblages emerged and entered into it, and thus, the war-machine which emerged on this day was no longer that of the protesters. The burnings of police stations as both act and expression were motivated by the larger context of the event, in which the police were seen by the people as the direct enemy and as the representative of the state. However, the act of attacking and burning the stations was done by groups of people who did not participate in the protests; they were mostly inhabitants of the neighborhoods in which the police stations existed (Taha 2012). They were people who actually suffered under the oppressive control, abuse, and brutality of the appointed police officers in their everyday life. The police’s retreat from the streets and from the attacked posts resulted in the forming of neighborhood watches. People came together in vigilante committees to provide security in their neighborhoods; posts, checkpoints, and patrols were organized. A form of self-government and self-­ organization of security, traffic organization, transportation, and even price control (an “other” of the state) took shape in almost every neighborhood. This lasted for many weeks even after the toppling of Mubarak and provided a form of on-ground support for the sit-ins across the country. This war-machine contained two lines: a line of creativity and mutation as well as a line of pure destruction. The latter went parallel to the police’s retreat and the success of the protesters to enter and occupy the squares: A wave of robberies and plunder took place. For example, a number of shopping malls were plundered in many cities. In Cairo, the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square was attacked, and some small valuable pieces were stolen. Furthermore, one of the biggest suppressed tragedies of this

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revolution took place between January 28 and January 30: the mass killings in the prisons and during their openings (Taha 2012). Nevertheless, I argue that this line of pure destruction was rapidly contained and controlled by the line of creativity and mutation, for the war with the state was not yet won. Perceiving the situation of these days in Egyptian history, it is evident that what took shape across the country was an “other” of the state. The Tahrir Square is a perfect example for this due to its intensity. The square witnessed an assemblage of smooth spaces in which no “state-structure” existed. This assemblage consisted of various small assemblages, groups, and sole individuals. Politically, there existed organized parties, leftists, liberals, conservatives, and various Islamic groups: the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists, and Jihadists. On the social scale, there were workers, lower class, middle class, upper class, males, females, homosexuals, young, mid-aged, and old with all their professions and backgrounds (Al Raggal 2014). Within this heterogeneous assemblage, no act of control or governing took place; no form of leadership existed (Al Raggal 2014). This is due to various factors, one of them that most of the political groups such as The Youth Coalition did not possess the organizational experience or the ability of large-scale mobilization to implement a leadership which could manage the sit-ins. Nor could they form a unified front to negotiate with or replace the regime. However, a classic root-tree in hierarchical and ideological organization like the Muslim Brothers (MB) could not and in fact did not attempt to control the sit-in, nor did it take an attitude of leadership on the public level. For even though the MB was the only entity that engaged in direct negotiations with the regime during the sit-in, it never claimed that the MB represents the “revolutionaries” but rather itself as an organization negotiating its own status and position. This strategy of the MB was mainly motivated by the MB’s own fear and historical trauma, for in case the revolution failed, the organization (ironically) did not want to be held responsible for causing or leading it to avoid yet another purge by the regime (Taha 2012). Later on, after Mubarak stepped down, the MB attitude changed, and the MB being a root-tree hierarchal organization of striated spaces engaged in alliance with the military in a process of capture and reterritorialization. Moreover, the very heterogeneity of this assemblage made it impossible for any group or organization to perform or to claim any form of leadership. The Tahrir sit-in was permanently shaping, reshaping, emerging, and re-emerging within its physical dimension (the square) and beyond. In the

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meantime, the state was by no means idle. The very presence of the Egyptian Armed Forces on the streets and around the sit-ins was, among other procedures, an attempt of capturing and reterritorializing the war-­ machine. From the perspective of the state, the troops on the ground in Cairo succeeded in two crucial missions. The first was preventing the protesters on January 28 to enter and seize control of the Maspiro building (housing the State TV and the Ministry of Information), and second, to crack down on the attempts to do the same with the Ministry of the Interior which lasted three days (January 29 to January 31) (Taha 2012). The state created a narrative to enable the capture of the war-machine, namely that the army would always take the side of the people and that it would never stand with a group of Egyptians against other Egyptians. Part of this narrative was that the army took posts around the sit-ins across the country, especially around Tahrir, in order to protect the protesters. In fact, the main purpose was to establish a siege around the square, not letting anyone in and preventing the deliveries of food and medicine to the protesters. Furthermore, the military police committed many arrests of protesters in the surroundings of the sit-ins (Human Rights Watch 2011). Also, in defending the Ministry of the Interior, specifically on January 29, the army killed and injured a number of protesters (Human Rights Watch 2011). In State TV, the regime promoted another narrative, claiming that the sit-ins were controlled by foreigners—Americans, Europeans, and Palestinians/Hamas—and that they were hijacked by these foreign powers as part of an international conspiracy against Egypt. However, this narrative argued that the first wave of protests was done by innocent, noble, educated, and truly patriotic “Egyptian youths” who wanted their voices to be heard for the good of the country (Shukrrallah 2014). They wanted reforms, but their goal never was the collapse of the state. This narrative was mainly told to reterritorialize the war-machine assemblage through dividing and differentiating. It also sought to create a fixed identity of this assemblage which sets edges and boundaries in order to relocate it in striate space. After its telling, the whole discourse of the uprising became affected by this narrative: “the youth’s peaceful revolution.” Moreover, this narrative summoned a class division by stressing the notion of the middle- and upper-class Facebook peaceful youth of Tahrir as opposed to the lower-class-poor-uneducated violent thugs who had nothing to do with the revolution (Taha 2012). Here comes Asef Bayat’s argument that the Arab uprisings in general and the Egyptian in particular were both reformist and pro-state in nature (2013). Not that Bayat’s argument is

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that of the Egyptian state. What Bayat overlooks in the case of Egypt is that the uprising did not lack a process of radicalization. On the contrary, the clashes between the protesters and the CSF on January 28 all over Egypt were radical acts even though ideology seems to be absent. The burning of the police stations and the violent attempts to sack Maspiro (State TV) and to invade the Ministry of Interior are all radical in nature. The failure to seize control of state institutions was due to the potential large-scale violent confrontation with the military which Mubarak employed as soon as the noon of January 28. At the time this was no price anyone was willing to pay, especially due to the deceptive and mixed messages the regime sent. Also, the eyes were on Tunisia where the military took the side of the protesters and refused to suppress the uprising. However, as soon as February 2011 and after the toppling of Mubarak, the revolutionaries clashed and rose up against the military more than once and suffered heavily. I will close this section by discussing two more events, namely the two speeches Mubarak gave with their consequences in relation to war-­ machine. On midnight of February 2, 2011, Mubarak appeared on State TV and gave his infamous speech in which he refused to step down immediately and affirmed the state narrative: noble and peaceful youth versus thugs and criminals. In addition, he accused the Muslim Brothers to be the driving force behind the uprising in general and the violence in particular. He also addressed the notions of fear, safety, stability, and chaos in an indirect threat: “Me or chaos.” However, the declaration that he would step down after completing the remainder of his office, the constitutional reforms, and the forming of a new government showed that the regime recognized the danger it faced through the partial success of the war-­ machine. In addition, Mubarak closed his statement with a patriarchal sentimental notion as the man who served and protected his country and with an allusion to the Tunisian situation that unlike Ben Ali, he would not leave the country. This statement divided the Egyptian public. It is evident that this speech was mostly directed at those who did not participate in the uprising, those who stayed home, protected their neighborhoods, and who felt threatened by the situation and longed for stability. Many Egyptians thought that the uprising should stop after Mubarak had declared he would step down. In their opinion, maintaining the protests would result in complete chaos. Furthermore, this view was also shared by some within the war-­ machine assemblage. They perceived this statement as victory, and many

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left the occupied squares across the country. Consequently, the larger assemblage was divided. The squares were left occupied by those who refused to give in to what they saw as a deception on part of the regime. Two hours after Mubarak released his statement, every occupied square across Egypt was attacked by snipers; “Mubarak supporters”6 used Molotov cocktails and birdshot to attack the remaining protesters. Being under siege by military forces, the protesters were trapped in the squares, yet they succeeded in defending themselves and fighting back. This took place in the early hours of February 2, 2011, under the watch of the military, who actually allowed the attacks and did not intervene (Taha 2012). The war-machine encountered war again, this time, however, against a state-sponsored war-machine: a network of criminals and ex-convicts who were sponsored by Amn Al Dawla and by the powerful network of business tycoons who entered the political scene in the last ten years of Mubarak’s rule (Al Raggal 2014). These were also known as “the new guard” of Gamal Mubarak. These attacks lasted the whole night and reached its peak at noon on February 2. The most violent clash took place in Tahrir Square, where a large number of “Mubarak supporters” supported by horse and camel riders attacked the protesters and attempted to enter the square in order to evacuate it, all under the watch of the military, in fact with its complicity as the troops opened the way for the attackers (Taha 2012). These clashes lasted until the following day, with a large number of injuries on the side of the protesters; yet they succeeded in protecting the square, and they drove the attackers away. This failed move by the state became a turning point in the events because it showed the real intentions of the regime and exposed Mubarak as a liar. The sympathy and the solidarity with the war-machine now increased again. As the protesters called on February 4 for a large protest to which hundreds of thousands responded, among them whole families, independent work unions, Islamic clergymen, Christian priests, and delegations from other Egyptian cities (Taha 2012). After the failed attack on the occupied squares, the war-machine gained more ground, and its assemblage became even larger. Throughout that week, February 4 to February 11, 2011, a series of more large protests 6  It is well known among all political activists that the state represented by the Ministry of the Interior created a network of ex-convicts, thugs, and criminals as a supportive method of cracking down demonstrations, election fraud, and assaults, sometimes kidnapping oppositional figures (Al Raggal).

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took place all over Egypt. The occupied squares, having prevailed, now became safe and secure. The “other” of the state expanded and took a more solid shape. The sit-ins across Egypt became a social assemblage, self-organized and horizontally managed without any kind of hierarchy. Beyond the political dimension, this larger assemblage offered an alternative life model (Al Raggal 2014), a line of creativity, mutation, and change. In the occupied squares, as well as in the neighborhoods, Egyptians performed a life in the absence of the state. There existed creative models of almost every aspect of life: domestic medical care, solitary economy, traffic control, and cultural practices. The example of Tahrir Square shows how all these aspects were performed in an intensive manner: medical clinics were established, public toilets were built, day care for children, educational center, media center, public cinema, stage performances, open art galleries, football tournaments and security services instituted; religious space was also occupied (two of the largest religious temples in Cairo were taken by the assemblage: Omar Makram Mosque and Al Dobara Church). Here, I must stress that this alternative life model was an entangled line within the war-machine assemblage and was a direct result of physical struggle with the state. This goes against the ridiculous medial representation of Tahrir as a carnival-like space, and thus the whole uprising is reduced to, or read as, cultural and artistic festivities. The occupation of these squares paralyzed the state completely. Every day the sit-ins lasted was a slap in the face of the state in many political, moral, and economic aspects, most importantly those pertaining to the question of sovereignty. It became clear that any political compromise was outdated. The regime was several steps behind what was already taking place on the ground; however, Mubarak refused to step down. As a consequence, the situation escalated: the protests became larger and larger, and so did the assemblage. On February 8, another large protest took place, accompanied by an unorganized general strike by employees and workers of the public sector, public transportation, hospitals, banks, and factories (Abdelrahman 2014). Once more, the war-machine assemblage grew through the emergence of other smaller assemblages which interacted and entered into it. These small assemblages with their actions had their own motives which did not directly correspond with the political profile of the protests. They saw, however, an opportunity to claim their own rights: better wages, better working conditions, health care, and the right to form independent unions. These strikes were conducted mainly in the streets, especially the public transportation strike; the

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drivers took their buses to the main streets and stopped them in the middle of the roads and gathered around them with signs and banners. In Cairo, rallies from Tahrir moved to join these strikes, while other strikers, such as the workers of the public sector, performed a rally which entered the square. One of the most alarming strikes for the state on that day was the strike of 6000 Suez Canal workers: Over 6,000 protesters have agreed that they will not go home today once their shift is over and will continue their sit-in in front of the company’s headquarters until their demands are met. They are protesting against poor wages and deteriorating health and working conditions and demanded that their salaries and benefits meet the standard of those working for the Suez Canal Authority. (The Guardian 2011)

Moreover, after February 8, media reports (both international and local) spoke of Mubarak’s imminent resignation. Voices among the protesters calling to move to the presidential palace in eastern Cairo’s Heliopolis quarter started to get louder. Many observers and political commentators spoke of the possibility, and some of them of the danger of the Romanian scenario. On February 11, one day after Mubarak’s last statement, in which he doggedly refused to step down, a large number of protesters took to the presidential palace. Many of them were willing to violently remove Mubarak from power. The statement which Mubarak released on television caused an outrage among most of Egyptians, for everybody, including Western media as well as Western and international politicians, interpreted this statement as a step-down declaration. Mubarak surprised and even shocked everyone by not stepping down and by stating that he was going to complete his office until September 2011. The war-­ machine was about to encounter another battle with the state; there seemed to be no possibility for a transition of power without mass violence. By noon of February 11, 2011, a large number of protesters started to gather around the presidential palace in Heliopolis, and the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez were full of enraged protesters (Taha 2012). Finally, on the evening of February 11, Omar Suliman, Mubarak’s vice-­ president and former Chief of Intelligence, appeared on television, announcing the resignation of Mubarak and the transition of power to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). Thus, the first phase of the Egyptian Revolution came to an end on February 11, 2011.

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To summarize, this section showed (by example of the first eighteen days of the Egyptian revolution) how counterculture can be transformed into a war-machine. In addition, this chapter described an understanding of culture as second-order-observation and as a rhizome with its characteristics oppositional to linearity, hierarchy, and fixed identity. It also has been shown that these oppositional characteristics of culture permanently face a power takeover by the structures it opposes, represented by the state as a social machine of capture and reterritorialization. Consequently, a line of flight, as a line of absolute deterritorialization, may succeed in emerging from this rhizome and escape the process of capture by connecting with other lines of deterritorialization. This process of deterritorialization and connecting is related to the notion of creating smooth spaces, out of which assemblages may come into being. The emergence of such an assemblage alternates between permanent processes of forming and re-forming, an ongoing act of connecting and interacting. It is a process defined by relations of exteriority through which an assemblage may interact and connect with other networks and other small assemblages. These interactions create the possibility to form a larger assemblage. In the case of counterculture, this assemblage is of the war-machine kind, an “other” of the state. This type of assemblage exists in an ongoing resistance to processes of capture and reterritorialization, and thus, it challenges the state’s hierarchical structure and its functional task of setting fixed boundaries. Therefore, it comes into war with the state, even though it does not have war as its objective. Here, it is imperative to say that Tahrir is an example of what took place in other Egyptian cities such as Alexandria, Suez, and Mahalla. It is also important to understand that this alternative life model was by no means a utopia. And once again, inside this assemblage, there existed vertical lines: the Muslim Brothers and the Islamists who later tried to embark on a process of capture and reterritorialization. This does not mean, as later the state narrative argued, that the Muslim Brothers and their Islamist allies stole the “revolution.” In fact, the two hierarchical machines, the state and the Muslim Brothers, created an alliance as the only two organized entities. In Revolution without Revolutionaries (2017), Asef Bayat argues that the revolutionary camp failed to organize itself and to present intellectual inputs to articulate a vision of revolution or to envision modes of governance and institutions. Bayat also argues that the Arab uprisings were in core reformist and lacked radical visions when it came to change and appraisal of state power. This, in his view, goes for both Islamists and

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non-Islamists groups (2017). Bayat’s analysis is indeed important in understanding the dynamics of the Arab uprising in general, and the Egyptian in particular. However, Bayat’s analysis is mainly defined by comparing these uprisings to twentieth century revolutions, in particular, the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He rightfully puts his hand on the fact that the pre-2011 political arena in Egypt was characterized by a process of de-radicalization, and that the Egyptian uprising in part “separated the realm of the economy from polity.” I agree that the Egyptian uprising is indeed different from the Iranian Revolution, but the comparison is misplaced precisely for the same reasons Bayat gave. Also, due to the different state structures under Al Shah in Iran and under Mubarak in Egypt. The role of the army in 2011 and beyond in Egypt was crucial in the capture-­ process of the uprising. One of the assemblage’s mistakes was to perceive the army as Tunisians did theirs: neutral and even pro-protesters. However, this is not applicable to all parts of the Tahrir assemblage. Clashes with the military happened as early as January 28, 2011, as army vehicles joined and supported the CSF against the protesters. During and after the first eighteen days, the military abused, imprisoned, tortured, and killed protesters. Here is where I disagree with Bayat’s analysis. Bayat’s reading of the Arab uprisings, and in the case of Egypt, treats the uprising as a whole defined by relations of interiority, and further, he evaluates an outcome. Within the assemblage, there existed radical groups: both Islamists and non-Islamists with radical visions concerning alternative modes of governance as much as other groups whose aims were reformists. Also, as I explained before, the assemblage contained groups and individuals who had no political vision. In relation to radical visions, one should look at both pre-January 2011 and post-February 11, 2011, and see the Islamist allegiance under the leadership of the Muslim Brothers. The jihadists of the 1980s and the 1990s indeed had a radical vision of the rule of Egypt. One only needs to examine Sadat assassination’s plan which aimed at establishing an Islamic state (Kandil 2012). The Islamist terrorism went on throughout the thirty years of Mubarak rule. Members of Egyptian Jihad and Jamaa Islameya were released after the toppling of Mubarak, among them Abud Al Zumur, the mastermind behind Sadat’s assassination, along with his cousin Tarek Al Zumur, also one of the plotters. The latter established the political party: Building and Development as the political wing of Jamaa Islameya. This party entered an alliance with the Muslim Brothers. Another member of Jamaa Islameya, Safwat Abdel Ghany joined Al Zumur’s party which gained sixteen seats in the

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2011–2012 parliamentary election. Abdel Ghany was responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, among them, the assassination of secular intellectual Farag Fouda (Abdelwadood 2014). In 2012, he was assigned by Mohammed Morsi, a member of the higher house of parliament, Al Shura Council. These two personalities among others are examples of radicals who were part of the Islamist alliance post-­ January 2011 and who propagated the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. Fast forward to 2013 and the ousting of Mohamed Morsi by the military coup, the same Islamist groups along with the Muslim Brothers engaged in violent and in part armed clashes with the police, the military, and even with civilians.7 As for non-Islamist radicals, indeed, there existed no organized groups like the Muslim Brothers and the Jihadists; hierarchal and vertical organization. However, another kind of organizational structure was evident during the first decade of the twenty-first century in Egypt which Maha Abdelrahman calls network of networks, and which I call assemblages. The Mahalla 2008 uprising is a solid example of this. What started as a call for general strike by the textile workers was picked up by various activist groups, such as Kefaya, The Egyptian Committee for Change, and The Revolutionary Socialists. These groups joined the call for the strike and succeeded to mobilize people from outside Mahalla with different political backgrounds. This turned into a city uprising against the Mubarak regime. Out of this uprising, a new political movement was born: The April 6 movement which later among other groups called for the January 25 protests (Taha 2012; Abdelrahman 2014). Moreover, looking at the period from February 2011 all through the ousting of Mohammed Morsi, we can see a radical struggle between secular and leftist collectives and the military. During this period, the military undertook a constant process of crackdown upon the anti-military-rule groups. Take the massacre of Mohammed Mahmoud Street in November 2011 as an example. For five days, anti-military protesters were in a streetwar with the CSF and the military. More than forty people have been killed and up to three thousand have been injured (Human Rights Watch 2011). It was later revealed that the CSF targeted the faces and the eyes of the protesters (BBC 2011). That time, the Islamist alliance had been already in bed with the military and preparing for the parliamentary election. This

7  I discuss the details about the period of Morsi’s presidency and the 2013 coup in the reading of Mohammed Diab’s Clash (2016).

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massacre resulted in the declaration of a clear timeline for parliamentary and presidential elections by SCAF. In effect, Bayat’s argument concerning the lack of radicalism and the overall reformist spirit is not accurate in my view. A process of de-­ radicalization and radicalization was and still is taking place. It is a permanent process, as well as the process of counterculture. Under the conditions of the Egyptian state structure, a regime replacement had not been possible without engaging in a large process of violence which was and still is in itself not possible in Egypt unlike Syria for example. A large-scale violent confrontation between the military and the civilians, apart from resulting in a disaster, does not fit into the Egyptian power and social structure. Furthermore, talking of an outcome in general, or in relation to the rule of a revolution in particular, is also not accurate and even too early. Even in the case of the Iranian Revolution to which Bayat compares the Arab uprisings, we cannot talk of a final outcome. Furthermore, and regarding the notion of radicalization, in “The utopian and dystopian functions of Tahrir Square” (2014), May Telmissany reads the dynamics of the 2011 assemblage in the light of the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of the nomad: nomos (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). Namely as a process of political radicalism of “the concept of nomos (understood as an anarchic distribution of space).” Telmissany argues that one of the aims of the uprising was the dissolution of the imposed structures of logos (the state) as lawful structure, and the creation of smooth space (an assemblage of horizontal mode of governance) in which “encounters outside of the ordered conception of existence can become possible” (2014). As of the moment of writing these words, the effects and the process of change are still happening in a country like Iran. The same goes with the Arab uprisings, and in this case the Egyptian. It is true that a revolution did not rule in Egypt and that the state structure did not change accordingly. In fact, Egypt is ruled now by the counterrevolution; however, change has already started and is taking place in Egypt. One needs to look at the artistic arena despite all the difficulties; cinema as in the case of this book. In addition, topics and realities like political Islam, even religion, gender, or social customs, are in a state of flux, destabilization, and mutation in Egypt and all the Arab world. I do affirm what May Telmissany argues six years ago in saying that Egypt is still witnessing a new game with new rules, which one can metaphorically refer to as the Go game to expand the territory of action and resistance, form new alliances,

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and mobilize dormant groups. In the Go game, two players confront each other; each tries to surround a larger area of the board than the opponent: in this game of territoriality, the main strategy is to enlarge one’s territory wherever it is possible and to protect one’s own positions. A few weeks after Mubarak stepped down, the players came back to the square to topple the regime and expand territories of freedom; they fell under SCAF’s military rule, then under the Muslim Brothers’ dictatorial apparatus, and since July 2013 once again under the military spell and the increasingly fascistic behaviour against the Muslim Brothers. The success or failure of the revolutionary tactics to open up spaces of freedom is yet to be determined as the Go game has no set ending conditions. Following this line of thinking, one might claim that the utopian and dystopian functions of the square are determined by flexible rather than rigid rules of political participation, means of resistance and the will of participants to negotiate spaces of freedom and mobility. (Telmissany 2014)

In effect, my definition of counterculture follows the arguments just presented: Counterculture is the line of flight of culture. It transforms the observational oppositional qualities of culture, by making use of culture’s rhizomatic nature, into a direct collision with the structures culture opposes. These structures are represented by the state as a concept of hierarchy, capture, and control. Counterculture takes the state to be a social machine whose main concern is to eliminate any “other” of itself. The state is understood as an owner of the world of actuality, of striated spaces, and as the only producer of “the possible.” In this sense, counterculture is the “other” of the state, the creator of smooth spaces, an assemblage of the war-machine kind, and a social-machine of creativity, change, and mutation. Counterculture belongs to the virtual as opposed to the actual. Counterculture is the assemblage in which culture is no longer separated from its active forces and through which the excluded possibilities are empowered and enforced. The Egyptian uprising is a living example of this understanding of counterculture as an ongoing process.

References Abdelrahman, Maha. 2014. Egypt’s Long Revolution. London: Routledge. Abdelwadood, Aly. 2014. “Safwat Abdel Ghani.” Al Wafd. https://bit. ly/2YSBRjy. Accessed 20.06.2020. Abouzeid, Rania. 2011. “Did Prison Breakout Reveal a Plan to Sow Chaos in Egypt?” Time. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599, 2059301,00.html Accessed 01.10.2020.

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Adam, Mohammed. 2012. “Brute Force: Inside the Central Security Forces.” Egypt Independent. https://egyptindependent.com/brute-­force-­inside-­ central-­security-­forces/. Accessed 05.06. 2020. Al Raggal, Aly. 2014. “The Ghostly Revolution.” In Revolution as a Process: The Case of the Egyptian Uprising, edited by Adham Hamed, 172–220. Wien: Wiener Verlag für Sozialforschung. Al Said, Refaat. 2006. The History of Communism in Egypt. Cairo: Kotob Arabeya. Anonymous. 2011. “Everything You Need to Know about January 25.2011.” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qU3TnumUD5ZzZN9CEBbDRIz NvcjbOtJX5CkcBcC9OjI/edit#heading=h.kxmx93-pjebby. Accessed 22.12.2014. Bayat, Asef. 2013. “The Arab Spring and Its Surprises.” Development and Change 44 (3): 587–601. Bayat, Asef. 2017. Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. BBC. 2011. “Egypt protests: Three killed in ‘day of revolt.’” www.bbc.co.uk/ news/world-africa-12272836. Accessed 20 February 2017. Carlstrom, Gregg. 2011. “Explainer: Inside Egypt’s Recent Elections.” Al Jazeera. w w w. a l j a z e e r a . c o m / i n d e p t h / s p o t l i g h t / e g y p t / 2 0 1 1 / 1 1 / 201111138837156949.html. Accessed 20.06.2020. De Landa, Manuel. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London and New York: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix. 2005. A Thousand Plateaus Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Fahmy, Kahled. 2015. “The Long Revolution.” Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/howthe-egyptian-revolution-began-and-where-it-might-end. Accessed 18.06.2020. Hamed, Raouf Abbas. 1975. Labor Movement in Egypt According to the British Archive: 1924–1937. Cairo: Alam El Kotob. Human Rights Watch. 2011. “Egypt: End Secret Detentions, Free Protesters.” Human Rights Watch. www.hrw.org/news/2011/02/26/egypt-­end-­ secretdetentions-­free-­protesters. Accessed 20.06.2020. Kandil, H. 2012. Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt. London and New York: Verso Books. Khairallah, Hossam. 2013. “Al Amn Al Markazy.” www.today.almasryalyoum. com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=370642. Accessed 14 January 2017. Schemm, Paul. 2014. “Egypt Cafe Owner Describes Police Beating Death.” U-T San Diego. www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/13/egypt-­cafe-­owner-­ describespolicebeating-­death/. Accessed 20.06.2020. Shukrrallah, Salma. 2014. “Egypt Revolution Youth Form National Coalition.” Ahram Online. https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/5257/ Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-revolution-youth-formnational-coalition.aspx. Accessed 20.06.2020. Taha, Amir. 2012. “Interview with Zeyad Al Elaimy.” 2012.

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Telmissany, May. 2014. “The Utopian and Dystopian Functions of Tahrir Square.” Postcolonial Studies 17 (1): 36–46. The Guardian. 2011. “Egypt Protests—Tuesday 8 February (Part 2).” The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2011/feb/08/egypt-­protests-­ live-­updates1. Accessed 21.06.2020. We are All Khaled Said. 2011. “25 January.” We are All Khaled Said. www.facebook.com/notes/-‫سعيد‬/25-‫كلنا‬-‫†خالد‬januar y-197190197190613628100/ ‫تفاصيل‬-‫يوم‬-25-‫†يناير‬. Accessed 22.12.2014.

CHAPTER 3

Film and Politics in Egypt

The Monarchy and the Birth of National Cinema Cinema in Egypt goes way back to the end of the nineteenth century. On November 15, 1896, the first short films of the Lumière brothers were shown in Alexandria, less than one year after their Paris premiere, setting up Egypt as the pioneer of cinema in the region. Cairo would have to wait until November 28, 1896, to have its first cinematographic projection. The success of these early shows led to the opening of small cinema halls in different quarters of Alexandria and Cairo. “[B]y 1926—that is, by the end of the silent cinema era—86 cinemas were operating in Egypt” (Farid 2011). In 1925, Talat Harb, an Egyptian businessman who established the first Egyptian National Bank (Misr Bank), founded “Misr Company for Acting and Cinema,” as one of Misr Bank’s subsidiaries. In 1927, the first Egyptian full-length silent film Leyla, directed by Widad Orfi, was produced, followed by the 1932’s first Egyptian talkie Awlad Al Zawat (High Class Society) directed by the Egyptian cinematic pioneer Mohamed Karim (Farid 2011). The founding of “Misr Company for Acting and Cinema” which later developed into the Misr Studio in 1935 was political in nature. Talat Harb emerged as an Egyptian economist visionary with the eruption of the 1919 revolution against the British occupation. By 1935, Misr Studio was the first and the largest production company in Egypt, Africa, the Arab world, and the entire Middle East (Farid 2011). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1_3

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Harb sought to create an Egyptian National Cinema as all cinema productions were owned by Europeans at the time (Farid 2011). The philosophy of Misr Studio was to hire foreign experts in the different cinematic specializations and appoint Egyptian assistants who could learn from them. It also sent Egyptian missions to study cinema abroad even before building the studio itself (Al Hadary 2007). And the first mission was sent in 1933 and included Ahmad Badrakhan and Morris Kassab who studied film direction in France, and Mohammad Abdel Azim and Hassan Murad who studied photography in Germany ((Al Hadary 2007). Harb also provided all workers in the field with the means for making films. This enabled the formation of other studios, which, despite their different policies, intensively cooperated with each other. This development made the 1930s the real starting point of the Egyptian cinema industry. A new direction slowly emerged as a departure from the dominant Romance genre at the time and adopted more social topics. The most important example is Kamal Selim’s Al Azeema (Determination), released in 1939. In “Egyptian Cinema: A Historical Outline,” Atta El Naccash (1968) argues that Selim initiated a new tendency in the Egyptian cinema, a tendency similar to that adopted later by the Italian film makers during and after World War II and known as “Neo-Realism.” In Determination, Selim, the writer-director, depicted a problem which many Egyptian young people were faced with at the time: the choice between governmental jobs, bureaucratic and unimaginative, or free enterprise in which they had to invest all their knowledge and education. The film was not only characterized by its vital subject matter, but also by an astounding understanding of the function of the camera and of the art of editing.

Moreover, Al Azeema is the first Egyptian film to depict the life of the poor in Egypt, that is, of the majority of Egyptians. Also, it is the first film to show the Egyptian slums. El Naccash states that the camera revealed with remarkable simplicity the day-to-day problems, emotions, dreams and longings of the common man. No longer a theatrical adaptation or an extension of the phonograph’s function, the visual elements in the film played the major role in developing the dramatic conflict. (1968)

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Al Azeema portrays the time’s class struggle between “the common man” and the high class: “the Pashas.” In his 1962 The History of Cinema, George Sadoul, the French film scholar, praised Selim’s film by calling it a world classic (quoted in Taufiq 1969). Selim directed a number of films before his death in 1945, two of which present Selim’s social awareness: The first is Les Miserables (1943), which adapts Hugo’s novel to the social injustices in Egypt. The second is Friday Night (1945), a critical statement in comedy form against a number of Egyptian customs and superstitions. In 1938, one year prior to Al Azeema, the Egyptian cinema witnessed the first case of political censorship with the ban of Fritz Kramp’s Lasheen. This film, which is now recognized as a landmark, sparked controversy upon its release. The film is set in a small, unnamed town in twelfth century Egypt. The head of the government, Kangiar, takes advantage of the Sultan’s weakness to oppress the population. When corruption increases, and exploitation becomes unsupportable, Lasheen, the head of the army, tries to inform the sultan. But Kangiar accuses Lasheen of conspiracy and has him arrested. The people rise up to save Lasheen, and the Sultan, in realizing the situation, orders that Lasheen take Kangiar’s place as head of the government. This is the final version that was released in theatres on November 14, 1938; this version lasted for four weeks in theatres and was shown four times a day which at the time was a massive success (Ali 2008). However, this is not the original version of the film. The original version showed the sultan as an oppressor, and Lasheen is the people’s favorite who overthrows and kills the sultan, ending the injustice. This version was planned to screen on March 17, 1938, at Cinema Diana in Cairo. On the night of the screening, the Egyptian police, by the order of Hassan Pasha, the Interior Minister, cancelled the event and confiscated the reels. According to Ali Abu Shady (2000) in Al Cinema W Al Seyasa, (Cinema and Politics), Hasan Pasha saw that some events had parallels to the then current political situation, and that it was political propaganda which could harm the nation (Abu Shady 2000). The royal court was also afraid of the effect it would have on the upcoming parliamentary elections (Abu Shady 2000). Lasheen is the second and last film that the German Fritz Kramp made for the Misr Studio and was the greatest cinematographic work that had been produced in Egypt until then. The thirties were the golden age of cinema in Egypt; there was a studio system similar to Hollywood where actors were on contract, and it was at the height of the industry’s production. Many filmmakers were sent to Germany to work and learn from

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German cinema and come back. Others were hired from Germany, like the film’s director Fritz Kramp and the production designer Robert Scharfenberg. Beyond the controversy, the film itself is brilliant and innovative and is regarded as one of Egypt’s finest films from the golden era (Abu Shady 2000). Like Al Azeema, Lasheen is preoccupied with the common man. The lives of simple Egyptian peasants are portrayed in detail, revealing a strong parallel to the lives of the peasants in the 1930s’ Egypt. Lasheen was a massive production at the time: Kramp employed ten thousand extras for the production of the film, and the National Textiles Factory for Cotton and Silk, another Talat Harb company, provided the costumes for the film. This was the first time such a number of extras was used in the Egyptian cinema industry. The film was shot on 35 mm with all shooting done in the Misr Studio. The cinematographer was Georges Stilly who was hired from Europe (Abu Shady 2000). The producer was Ahmed Salem, who was in charge at the time of Misr Studio. Salem quit after the Ministry of Interior forced him to change the ending of the film. Lasheen combines historicism with a relatively realist and simple representation. This is, as Viola Shafik states in Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film (2001), “primarily seen in set and costume, both designed by the film architect Robert Scharfenberg a German communist and the former colleague of Berthold Brecht.” Abu Shady (2000) argues that what is most important about this film is its social implications. Especially after its ban, people could easily empathize with the film. The story is all about the people and their struggle against the injustices they lived through under the royal regime and the British mandate. For the first time, the Egyptian spectators saw a political rebellion on the screen, and cinema was for once not about romantic imaginary worlds. As Abu Shady (2000) writes, the Ministry of Interior banned Lasheen because its attack on the Royal Regime. The film shows the political corruption of the regime which leads to an economic collapse. The film ends with the will of people prevailing over the tyrant king. Lasheen rises and kills the Sultan and rules.

These two films, Al Azeema and Lasheen, mark the birth of a politically motivated Egyptian national cinema. The very project of Misr Studio belonged to the anti-colonial and anti-monarchist movement of the time. The 1930s’ Egyptian cinema also witnessed an artistic shift; filmmakers

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such as Mohamed Karim (who worked as an assistant to Fritz Lang), Kamal Selim, Fritz Kramp, and Ahmed Badrakhan took cinema in Egypt to a new level. These artists dealt with cinema on its own terms, namely as a visual art. This is to say that film no longer was handled as the equivalent to visual theatre, but it became an artistic medium with its own aesthetics, language, and techniques. For instance, all of Kamal Selim’s films employ realist techniques, but they also show a German expressionist influence when it comes to lighting: low-key versus high-key and the interplay between light and shadow (Abu Shady 2000). In other words, the birth of national cinema in Egypt is not only of a political nature on the level of content and subject matters, but also on the level of production: the establishment of Misr Studio as the most modern and up-to-date space open for each and every filmmaker and the hotbed for the development of a new cinematic language. I argue that Egyptian national cinema is one of the products of the 1919 revolution. The 1919 revolution resulted in the abolishment of the British Protectorate over Egypt. The country declared independent. That independence was “hedged by a number of restrictions that rendered it well-nigh void” (Marsot 2007). In A History of Egypt From the Arab Conquest to the Present, Afaf Lutfi Al Sayyid Marsot (2007) argues that the year 1922 promised the birth of a new political landscape which would grant “a constitutional form of government, […] representation and political parties, freedom of speech, the right to opposition—that is, all the trappings of a modern, democratic, representative government that operated in favour of the majority and not of a select elite.” Talat Harb was one of the key figures of the 1919 revolution and its economic aspects. In the 1920s, he established Misr Bank, The Imprimerie Misr, and Misr Cotton Ginning and Trade Co. among other crucial businesses (Davis 1983). The large civil disobedience of 1919 resulted in the formation of various trade unions and syndicates (Marsot 2007). One of the most significant aspects of the 1919 revolution which places it as a landmark in the Egyptian history is the women participation in the public sphere. Nabila Ramadani (2013) argues that the women participation in the revolution was not only of the middle- and upper-class women, such as Safeyya Zaghloul (Saad Zaghloul’s wife) and Huda Sha’rawy (the infamous feminist writer and also the wife of Al Wafd’s member Ali Sha’rawy). Rather, it also included Peasant women from the countryside. These women engaged in acts of sabotage, including the destruction of railway lines. Women “agitated side by side with their men. Husbands and wives were thus brought together

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in protest. Sha’arawi’s memoirs make this clear” (2013). The new spirit also invaded the cultural and the artistic realm: journalism, music, literature, fine arts, theatre, and cinema. Starting with the first free parliamentary elections in 1923 and the resulting dominance of Al Wafd party, a new phase of socio-political struggle started: The new power relations were fought out between the elected government (mostly Al Wafd’s) on the one side and the royal court with the British occupation forces on the other. The 1930s and the 1940s were a time of political turmoil. A large spectrum of political ideologies existed: nationalist, communist, liberal, and Islamic (Geroshni 1997). The rise of the national cinema can be considered as an artistic line within a rhizome that was in constant movement in the 1930s and the 1940s. It is also important to stress that the term “national cinema” must be differentiated from the term “nationalist.” The main purpose was to enable Egyptian artists to learn filmmaking and to develop their own works of art. It is true that Misr Studio was an act of defiance against the British presence in Egypt, but as mentioned above, Harb employed Italians, Germans, Greeks, and French. He also sent a number of Egyptian filmmakers abroad: mainly France and Germany to learn. What is more, many non-Egyptians continued to work in the industry for a long time, even in the post-1952 era. Tackling the topic of film and politics in Egypt cannot be done without including censorship. For according to Mahmoud Ali in his significant book A Hundred Years of Censorship in the Egyptian Cinema (2008), censorship in Egypt is as old as its cinema (1). He states that it is hard to find the first written list of prohibitions regarding motion pictures, yet he tracks the first signs of censorship to the year 1904 (Ali 2008). Ali shows that the first bylaw concerning censorship on cinemas was issued in 1928 by the Ministry of Interior (2008). He draws a very interesting parallel between this bylaw and its British equivalent from the year 1926. Both bylaws seem almost identical and consist of five sections: (1) Religion, (2) Politics, (3) Social, (4) Sexual, and (5) Cruelty (Ali 2008). The political and social prohibited topics specific to the Egyptian version are: . Topics or scenes which insult the Orient and its people 1 2. Topics which might insult our foreign guests 3. Topics or scenes which have a bolshevist sentiment or anti-­monarchy propaganda 4. Topics or scenes which incite revolution or dissatisfaction with life

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5. Events or topics which incite or cause disrespect toward Statesmen, religious clerks, ministers, doctors, or judges 6. Topics which cause hate among Easterners and Westerners In the British version, we find: . Lampoons of the institution of Monarchy 1 2. Propaganda against Monarchy, and attacks against Royal dynasties 3. White men in state degradation amidst native surroundings 4. Inflammatory sub-titles and bolshevist propaganda 5. The improper use of the names of well-known British Institution (Ali 2008) In comparing the two versions, it becomes clear that the Egyptian bylaw was not only an Egyptianization of the British one, but that the British colonial existence in Egypt is directly responsible for producing such a bylaw. This can be seen in the sections about Bolshevism, insulting foreigners, mayhem among the natives and the Westerners, and of course the anti-monarchy propaganda. However, the British article concerning the degradation of white men was reversed in the Egyptian version to prohibit the insult of the Orient and the “Orientals.” Applying this bylaw to Lasheen, it is once more obvious why the film was banned. Furthermore, the power of censorship lay within the hands of the Interior Ministry, Egypt’s oppressive apparatus throughout its recent history.

Nasser Era By the 1950s, after the Egyptian independence and the overthrow of the monarchy, Egypt entered a new era: The Republic. In July 23, 1952, a group of young army officers (The Free Officers) under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser launched a coup d’etat against King Farouk and the government. The majority of Egyptians welcomed the overthrow, and it soon came to be known as the July Revolution. The Free Officers succeeded in seizing power. King Farouk was sent to exile, Egypt was declared a republic, and by 1954 the British occupation ended with the troops leaving the Suez Canal. In 1953, the Revolution Command Council (RCC) was formed by the members of the Free Officers (with an additional five

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members), and General Mohamed Naguib1 was appointed head of the council (Marsot 2007). According to Ali (2008), it was not until 1955 that a new bylaw concerning censorship of cinema came into being. However, starting from the year 1952, censorship was no longer in the hands of the Ministry of Interior but rather under the responsibility of the newly established Ministry of National Guidance (Ali 2008). Within this ministry, a new post under the title of Censor was created. It is worth to note that this position was exclusively given to authors, artists, and intellectuals. The 1955 bylaw was concerned with postulating broad ground rules, stating that “the purpose of censorship is to maintain security, to protect the morals and the high interests of the state” (Ali 2008), though it left the final decision to “the taste and assessment of the censor” (Ali 2008). Censorship in the Nasser era can be divided into two phases: before and after the year 1967, with the Six Day War as watershed. It can be argued that the focus of the censor in the first phase was mainly to preserve the new spirit of the time. Among the most important principles of the era were “the society of sufficiency and justice, Arab socialism, national dignity and anti-imperialism” (Bashour 2014). Connected to these principles, there was a great animosity toward the pre-1952 era. In terms of cinema, censorship was intolerant of any film which could be considered as presenting the monarchy in a positive light (Ali 2008). This became abundantly clear with the creation of Egyptian television in the year 1960. Every picture of King Farouk shown in pre-1952 Revolution films was blurred or scratched. Parallel to this, a wave of anti-monarchy films had been produced with full support by the state, for example, Give me Back my Heart (1957), The Soft Hands (1963), and Cairo 30 (1966), as well as films which show the connection between the monarchy and the British occupation: A Man in our House (1961) and No Time for Love (1963). Furthermore, after the Suez War (1956), Nasser asked Farid Shawky, one of the most popular actors and producers at the time, to make a film about the Egyptian resistance during the triple aggression of Britain, France, and Israel. The product, named Port Said, was a massive box office success in 1957 (Abdel Khalek 2015). 1  The Free Officers were all of minor ranks. They succeeded to recruit General Mohamed Naguib, an admired figure in the Egyptian army, in order to gain larger support within the army. General Naguib did not actively participate in the coup d’etat, his position at the top was merely that of a figurehead.

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This phase also witnessed the production of a number of films dealing with the concept of Pan-Arabism and anti-imperialism such as Yussef Chahine’s Djameela (1958) and An-Nasser Saladin (1965). The former portrays the renowned Algerian freedom fighter, Djameela bu Hrid. The latter is a historical fiction: It depicts Saladin as an Arab hero (Abdel Khalek 2015). Both films deal with the enthusiastic ideologies of Pan-Arabism in relation to the wider anti-imperialist liberation movement. Both ideologies were strongly adopted by Egypt at the time. In 1955, Egypt along with India, Indonesia, Ghana, and Yugoslavia formed the Non-Alignment Movement as a middle course for states in the “Developing World” between the Cold War Western and Eastern Blocs (NAM 2004). Moreover, Egypt declared its support for all states fighting for independence from Western occupation, especially in the Arab World. However, Egypt’s priorities were the Palestinian cause and the conflict with Israel as well as the formation of an Arab Union (Freedman 2008). The idea of Pan-Arabism is argued to be a substitute for the Islamic Caliphate, one in which the question of identity is no longer of religion, but rather of language and geography with a socialist progressive tendency (Freedman 2008). All these concepts are mirrored in the cinema of that time. Going back to Chahine’s (a Lebanese-Egyptian Christian) Saladin as an example, the historical figure of Saladin as a Muslim leader who liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders and established peace is depicted in the film in a different light. The film is historically inaccurate; Saladin is more of an Arab hero who is enraged by what takes place in the first scene of the film in which the Crusaders attack and slaughter Arab Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Throughout the whole film, there are no religious slogans that are explicitly voiced; rather the conflict is portrayed as between Arabs and Crusaders. Moreover, Chahine created a fictional character as the closest friend of Saladin, Issa The Swimmer (Issa is the Arabic name of Jesus), an Arab Christian fighting the Crusaders. In addition, a number of films dealing with social issues are important to mention here. One example is Salah Abu Seif’s Between Heaven and Earth (1960), which shows a group of people from different social backgrounds all stuck in an elevator: a female actress on her way up to the roof of the building to shoot a scene, a mentally ill man who escaped from the psychiatry, a sexual predator who follows the actress, a thief on his way up to his partner to break a safe, a pregnant woman with her husband going to visit the doctor, but gives birth in the elevator, a cheating wife with her lover, and an old man on his way to marry a seventeen-year-old girl. With

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all these people in one narrow space facing the possibility of death, the film shows the class and cultural conflicts among these people. While this film is seen as a strong social critique of 1950s’ Egyptian society, it avoids any political criticism. In fact, it is in tune with the progressive spirit encouraged by the domestic policy of that time. The film attacks many reactionary concepts including the status of women in society, the skeptic moral attitude toward female movie stars, the hostile attitude against the mentally ill, and the notion of poverty in relation to arranged marriage. In short, it can be argued that the era between 1952 and 1967 in Egyptian cinema is marked by a socio-political dimension consciously in tune with the principles of the July Revolution and the new sense of liberation, national dignity, and social reform. The second phase of Egyptian cinema under Nasser is ushered in by the Six Day War and spans (approximately) the three years from 1967 to 1970. In modern Egyptian history, 1967 is a major turning point. The humiliating defeat of the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian armies by Israel’s occupation of Sinai, Jerusalem, The West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights was a death warrant for the idea of Pan-Arabism and the Arab Union. In Egypt, the dreams and ambitions of a whole generation were destroyed. Soon after, the Nasser regime was exposed. The reasons for the defeat came to light: the corruption among the military high ranks including the Defense Minister, the Intelligence Service’s control over every aspect of life, and the brutal crimes against political prisoners among other scandals. The following year, 1968, bore witness to the first case of the censor’s scissor against a film that was considered as an attack on the political regime: Salah Abu Seif’s Case 68. The film depicts a Cairo alley in which the people appoint a committee to manage the alley. Their first case is the alley’s big main building which is about to collapse. While the committee (which stands for the regime and the building stands for the country) insists on restoring and repairing the building to re-rent it, Adel, a young medicine student, opposes this decision and calls for its demolition to build anew, a tabula rasa. The corrupt committee enforces its power. The film ends with the building crumbling down with the corrupt committee inside. According to Ali, the censor massively opposed the screening of the film for its easily discernible criticism against the regime in the wake of the defeat (2008). It was decreed to ban the film, but Lotfi Al Khouly, the writer of the film, interfered and managed to release the film in some theatres. However, on the very first day of the screening, the secret police, according to the director Abu Seif, staged a riot in the

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theatre where some spectators booed the film and called the filmmaker a traitor (Ali 2008). This went on for a whole week until the film was withdrawn from theatres (Ali 2008). The following two years, 1969 and 1970, saw the release of a number of films attacking the Nasser regime more openly. The iron fist of the Nasser regime loosened after the 1967 defeat, especially when the corruption of the Intelligence Service, the army leaders, and many high-ranking officials became public. On June 9, 1967, Nasser delivered a speech in which he admitted the defeat and announced his resignation from presidency, but later retracted and stayed in office until his death in 1970. Two of these years’ most notable films are Hussein Kamal’s Ounce of Fear (1969) and Kamal El Sheikh’s Miramar (1969). Both films are adaptations of literary works; the latter is based on Nagib Mahfouz’s novel of the same title, while the former is based on Tharwat Abaza’s novel (also of the same title). While the earlier Case 68 is marked by a strong socio-political symbolism with no explicit reference to the political situation at the time, Miramar applies what seems to be a recurring strategy in the cinema during and shortly after the Nasser regime: single location films. Miramar’s setting creates a spatial unit where different characters from different backgrounds interact.2 Case 68 used the confined space of a very tight nonplace, an elevator. In Miramar, the events play out in a more spacious, yet still limited nonplace: a pension in Alexandria. There lives a political activist on the run, hiding in order to leave the country with the help of his brother, a high-ranking officer in the Police. It is also the first time during the Nasser era that a straightforward opposition to the regime can be seen on the silver screen. In addition, the film’s antagonist is a young clerk who is a member of the Party, the Socialist Union (Al Ithad Al Ishtraky), and who uses his membership in a grand corruption scheme for stealing from the company he works in. The corrupt clerk seduces and abuses the pension’s female keeper and, in effect, ruins her reputation. Hussein Kamal’s Ounce of Fear takes place in a village in Upper Egypt ruled by Atris, a cruel man who controls every aspect of life and terrorizes the villagers with his bandits. The film can be described as symbolist, but its symbolism overtly points at Nasser, who is depicted as a cruel dictator. His rule is a reign of terror exerted through his bandits, the Free Officers. In this film, the only one who is able to stand up to him is Fouada, Atris’ childhood love whom he forces into marrying him after burning her 2

 See the example of Salah Abu Seif’s Between Heaven and Earth (1960).

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father’s crops. Earlier in the film, Atris the dictator punishes the whole village by cutting of the water supply, an act that threatens to ruin the entire harvest. In a powerful scene, the film shows the farmers sitting silently by the dry water canal looking helplessly at the closed water tap when Fouada arrives. She stands there, looking at the tap, and finally opens it to the cheering of the farmers in an act of defying Atris’s authority. The end of the film recalls Lasheen: The people of the village gather with torches and march toward Atris’s palace to save Fouada. They burn the palace down and kill Atris. According to Ali (2008), the censor had banned both films from screening, but it was Nasser himself who interfered and ordered the screening of the films after both filmmakers directed a complaint at his office (Ali 2008).

Sadat Era When Nasser died in 1970, Egypt was in the process of rebuilding its army and had already performed a number of military actions against Israel. As mentioned above, the Six Day War was the coup de grâce for Pan-Arabism and Arab Socialism. When Anwar Sadat became president in 1970, he undertook what he called the “Revolution of Reformation,” and by May 1971, he stripped a number of RCC members of their power and arrested them. This was Sadat’s first move to abolish the Nasserist project completely. In the same year, Sadat released many members of the Muslim Brotherhood from prison and gradually allowed the Brotherhood back into society to practice their activities. In 1954, after a failed assassination attempt against Nasser, the Brotherhood had been banned and Nasser had imprisoned their leaders. A similar event happened in 1965. After the security forces discovered an armed conspiracy to throw down the regime, a massive number of the Brotherhood’s third-generation members were arrested along with their intellectual godfather Sayed Quotb and put on trial. Quotb was sentenced to death in 1966 (Al Otaibi 2011). When Sadat completely seized power in 1971, one of his main objectives was to dismantle the left, the communists, and the Nasserists and to establish what he called “The State of Science and Faith” (Al Otaibi 2011). In the light of these goals, the alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood was aimed at eliminating these political groups, and to set Egypt on a more traditional and religious course (Al Otaibi 2011). This is mirrored in Egyptian foreign policy during the 1970s. Sadat ended the hostile relations with Saudi Arabia (once established by Nasser who considered Saudi Arabia a

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reactionary entity). In fact, Sadat built a strong alliance with Saudi Arabia, a state that harbored many members of the Muslim Brotherhood during Nasser’s rule and which later, in 1971, hosted a number of meetings between them and Egyptian officials. After the “reconciliation” and the return of many exiled members to Egypt, Saudi Arabia donated 100,000,000 U.S. Dollars to Al Azhar, out of which 40 million Dollars were dedicated to establishing a campaign against communism and atheism. However, Sadat never lifted the legal ban on the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Otaibi 2011). Furthermore, Sadat gradually shifted the country’s compass toward the United States and the West after years of cooperation between Egypt and the Soviet Union. He deported the Soviet military experts from Egypt (Abdel Alim 2015). In 1973, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan launched the Yom Kippur War. Egypt regained its national pride (lost in 1967), and Sadat’s popularity rose like never before. However, Sadat’s ten years in power are marked by three significant events, which decreased his popularity and caused crucial changes in Egypt’s social, political, and economic life. The first was the policy of the Infitah (economic opening) which was instated in 1975 and constituted a turn to capitalist economic policies with the objective of building a substantial private sector (Osman 2011). This policy was not purely economic in nature; rather, it was ideological in the first place. After the war, Sadat established a strong alliance with the United States, thereby turning away from the Soviet Union. This political alliance needed then to have an economic profile, which departed from the Nasserist socialism and headed toward a capitalist, free market economy (Osman 2011). Infitah was also a power move: Sadat rewarded his internal allies and built a loyal base who controlled land, goods, and commodities (Osman 2011). However, this stratagem created neither a free market nor the open economy Sadat had hoped for. Rather, it led to an impoverishment of the new middle-class that had just come into existence under Nasser. Now it was stuck in an “increasingly marginalized, stagnant and low-paying public sector” (Osman 2011). The Infitah policy led to the era’s second significant event: the January 1977 riots. On January 18, 1977, Egyptians woke up to a significant increase in the food prices after the state had announced that it was retiring subsidies on basic foods (Osman 2011). Consequently, and spontaneously, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians (mostly working-class citizens along with student unions and later on labor unions) protested against this new policy. The protest soon became a riot against targets that symbolized the prosperity of the newly established upper-class and the corruption of

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the regime (Seddon 1990). The fights lasted for two days: January 18 and 19 and ended when Sadat ordered the military to the streets. The protests’ suppression resulted in the death of 79 people, the injury of 556, and the arrest of over 1000. In the end, Sadat abruptly reversed his political decisions on the subsidies (Seddon 1990). The third and last event is Sadat’s visit to Israel in 1977, which resulted in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979. The impact of this visit, which took place in the same year as the riots, was massive, both nationally and internationally. In Egypt, a huge wave of opposition erupted, and some of it reached the level of national politics, for example, high-ranking officials such as the Foreign Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel who later resigned during negotiations in Camp David in 1978 (Seddon 1990). Student and labor unions all opposed the visit and later the treaty. In the Arab World, Sadat was considered a traitor, especially for Syria and the Palestinian people, and by the end of 1979, Egypt was expelled from the Arab League and became isolated within the Arab world until 1989 (Ibrahim 1996). Along with these three main events during the Sadat era, which played a major role in changing the social, economic, and political landscape in Egypt, came the state-sponsored rise of political Islam. As mentioned above, Sadat released the imprisoned Muslim Brothers and gave them leave to practice their socio-religious activities freely, and above all to build a political front against Nasserists, leftists, and communists. By 1976, Sadat managed to fully break away from Nasserism: socio-economically with the Infitah policy, and politically by the break with the Soviet Union (though arguably the Infitah also had political reverberations). These changes were accompanied by the alliances with the United States and Saudi Arabia to the extent that Egypt partially sponsored the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in fighting the Soviet troops (Nojumi 2002). By 1980, the Islamist groups in Egypt turned against Sadat, especially after the peace treaty with Israel. Between 1979 and 1981, Egypt witnessed the first sectarian violence since the 1800s, as Islamic extremists attacked and killed Copts in Cairo and in Upper Egypt (Ibrahim 1996). The Muslim Brothers along with the Egyptian Jihad and Jamaa Islamiya started to oppose Sadat and his regime openly in their Mosques (Ibrahim 1996). In 1981, Sadat arrested political opponents from all backgrounds: Islamic, leftist, communist, Nasserist, and even liberal. Shortly after, Sadat was assassinated by members of Al Jamaa Al Islamiya in the military (Ibrahim 1996).

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Examining political cinema in the Sadat era, it is evident that the most influential element in politically charged films is a criticism of the Nasser era that sometimes turns into overt attacks. At the beginning of Sadat’s rule, the regime was still careful when it came to denouncing Nasser and his policies, but soon after the 1973 war boosted Sadat’s popularity and asserted his power, films which dealt with this topic were freely shown and even welcomed (Ali 2008). In 1971, Hussein Kamal’s Tharthara Fawq An Nil (Chitchatting on the Nile) faced a strong opposition from the censor. Still, the film was shown for a week before its removal from the theaters (Ali 208). The film takes place in post-1967 Egypt and shows the decadent life of an elite: an author, a journalist, a former Justice Minister, an Actor, and an unfaithful wife. All of them being rich and influential among the class in power, they meet regularly on the actor’s boat to indulge in immoral debauchery: sex, hashish, and corrupt deals. The film’s point of view is that of Anis, an old civil servant who he gets invited to the boat by the actor. The actor has been Anis’s neighbor long ago. He meets Anis by chance in a hashish café on the Nile. The actor appoints Anis the “Minister of Dope” in his “boat-kingdom.” The film is an adaption of Nagib Mahfouz’s novel of the same name, and as in the films discussed above, there the film’s use of single location has symbolist characteristics. The confined spatial unity shown in Tharthara Fawq An Nil is the boat, where the group meets or lives. While in Miramar, also based on a novel by Mahfouz, the pension stands for a micro-Egypt including different backgrounds, the boat in this film represents a sort of an ivory tower inhabited by the ruling class. This ivory tower is cut off from the everyday life in post-1967 Egypt and is marked by the corruption, hypocrisy, and indifference of the ruling class toward anything outside of this bubble. Furthermore, a recurring leitmotif in Egyptian cinema is also evident in this film: the depiction of Egypt as a woman. In one of the central scenes, the group takes a motor trip in the countryside. Their car hits a peasant girl and kills her, and the group runs away, a hit-and-run that doubles on the symbolist level. The corrupt hypocritical group stands here for the ruling class and the regime, and the peasant innocent girl is Egypt, the country. The film produced four years after the 1967 defeat holds Nasser’s regime responsible for destroying the country by leading it into humiliation. Another important example is Mamdouh Shukri’s 1973 Zaer Al Fagr (The Dawn Visitor). Among all the so-called political films during the Sadat era, this film, I argue to be the best. It is indeed exceptional due to its story: It is about the investigation into the murder of a leftist female

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journalist which uncovers political corruption among high-ranking state officials, as well as criminal practices in the security apparatus. The defense attorney responsible for the investigation finds evidence that the woman was killed by Amn Al Dawla (State Security) when an Official orders the suspension of the investigation and tries to press the investigator to stick to the official version of the cause of death: acute circulatory failure. The film was shown only for one week in theatre before it was removed and banned from screening, mainly by Amn Al Dawla (Ali 2008). The film’s producers tried to meet Sadat in person in order to persuade him to allow the screening of the film, but their request was denied (Ali 2008). Even though the film is an attack on Nasserism, the censor and the State Security did not allow it to be screened due to the film’s statement on the overall structure of the Egyptian regime. The film also attacks the social and moral power relations to the extent that it outright defies any notion of nationalism and national pride. In addition, Shukri explicitly sets the time of the events during Nasser’s era. However, the film is open to interpretation in the sense that one could fit it to all three eras: The monarchy, the Nasserist era, and the 1970s. Moreover, the victim/heroine is a leftwing activist journalist who was arrested several times and who belongs to an underground leftist group. A political comrade of hers named Shafiq decides to rebuild a leftist cell to fight Nasser’s despotism. In this sense, the film deals with the post-defeat society yet not from a Sadatist point of view, rather from a revolutionary one, namely, a real leftist standpoint which is against military dictatorship and totalitarianism. Thus, Amn Al Dawla could not allow it. It perceived the film as advocating communist sensibilities, and as unsettling and dangerous in terms of “stirring a negative perception in the masses of the government and the political leadership” (Ali 2008). Even when the film was re-edited with over ten scenes cut, Amn Al Dawla still did not allow its screening. The film has also, until this very day, been banned from Egyptian television as well. Cinematically, Zaer Al Fagr is one of the first Egyptian films to employ nonlinear narrational components with different narrative point of views belonging to various characters. It is also one of the best, if not the best, crime genre film up until this moment in the history of Egyptian cinema. A look at the 1976 censorship bylaw on cinema is important in connecting Sadat’s policies to cinema as an art form. In Arab Cinema, Viola Shafik (2007) summarizes this bylaw as follows:

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Heavenly religions [i.e., Islam, Christianity, and Judaism] should not be criticized. Heresy and magic should not be positively portrayed. Immoral actions and vices are not to be justified and must be punished. Images of naked human bodies […] the representation of sexually arousing scenes are not allowed […] Beside the prohibition of the excessive use of horror and violence, or inciting their imitation, it is forbidden to represent social problems as hopeless, to upset the mind, or to divide religions, classes, and national unity. (34)

As seen in the quotation, the move toward socio-religious conservatism is very clear. The taboos are religion, sex, and politics. In fact, this bylaw is a revival of the 1928 bylaw, but with more emphasis on religious traditions, especially Islamic tradition and more specifically Wahhabi Islam (imported from Saudi Arabia, which sponsored a campaign against atheism along with communism and socialism). Moreover, the statute also includes the prohibition of representing class struggle. Expressions like “problems […] to divide […] classes, and national unity” are in tune with Sadat’s anti-leftist beliefs. In essence, this bylaw is of the “State of Science and Faith” (Fadl 2015) which Sadat declared in 1971. It also matches to Sadat’s self-description as “The Faithful President” (Fadl 2015) who called for the writing of the 1971 constitution which states in its second paragraph that “Islam is the State’s religion, Arabic is the official language and the principle of Islamic Sharia is the main source of legalization” (Fadl 2015). However, apart from the two films mentioned above, Tharthara Fawq An Nil and Zaer Al Fagr, the rest of the 1970s’ political films were exempted from censorship as they were a sort of cinematic reckoning with the Nasser era. To name a few films which include nudity, immoral actions, and political criticism, and yet passed the censor: Ali Badrakhan’s Al Karnak (The Karnak, 1975), Atef Salem’s Hafeya Alaa Jisr Al Thahab (Barefooted on a Golden Bridge, 1976), Mohammed Radi’s Waraa Al Shams (Behind the Sun, 1978), and Ehna Btoo’ El Autobus (We are the Bus Guys, 1979). All these films share a clear reckoning with Nasser and are all focused on the 1967 defeat. Like Zaer Al Fagr, Ali Badrakhan’s Al Karnak was refused by the censor. But unlike Shukri’s film, when the producers of Al Karnak filed a complaint to Sadat about the ban, Sadat interfered personally and ordered the screening of the film (Shaaban 2016). The film tells the story of a group of university students in the 1960s who regularly meet at a café called Al Karnak, which is known to the authorities as a

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place where anti-revolution figures meet. The police arrest these students and send them to a prison camp where they are being tortured, and where the female protagonist is being raped under the instruction of an intelligence officer. The film ends with the death of Nasser and the beginning of Sadat’s presidency ordering the release of all political prisoners as part of what Sadat called “The Revolution of Reformation” (Shaaban 2016). It is also worth mentioning that Nasser’s “war on Islam” is also portrayed in The Karnak as well as in Waraa Al Shams and Ehna Btoo’ El Autobus; in all three films, religious characters are also shown as victims of the regime. The year 1981 saw the end of Sadat’s alliance with the Islamists in general and with the Muslim Brothers in particular when Sadat attacked them openly in various speeches and imprisoned many of their members and the Muslim Brothers. On October 6, 1981, Sadat was assassinated in a military parade during the celebration of the eighth anniversary of the October War. The assassins were mid-rank military officers who belonged to Al Jamaa Al Islamiya (Weaver 1999). Sadat’s vice-president Hosni Mubarak was sworn into office and became president on October 14, 1981.

Mubarak Era and Egyptian Neorealism After Sadat’s death and during the Mubarak era, the Egyptian society was marked by a nullification of politics or political activities. In the early 1980s, Mubarak was mainly preoccupied with the legitimatization of his presidency; apart from being a former Vice-President, he was not popular among Egyptians (Al Awadi 2014). Hesham Al Awadi argues in The Muslim Brothers in Pursuit of Legitimacy: Power and Political Islam in Egypt under Mubarak (2014) that at the beginning of his rule, Mubarak needed to stabilize his regime in a time where Egypt was in turmoil following Sadat’s assassination. Thus, Mubarak showed tolerance toward the opposition, particularly when “the immediate enemies were Islamic extremists” (2014). Following the same strategy Sadat employed, Mubarak used one political ideology to fight another. However, this time it was one ideology fighting an extreme version of itself. Mubarak used the Muslim Brothers as a moderate Islamist group to face the danger of the Islamist extremists along with building a broader nationalist front. Still, just like Sadat before him, he never lifted the legal ban on the organization, which in fact still denied the Muslim Brotherhood to form a political party (Al Awadi 2014). Mubarak’s policy of tolerance also extended toward other oppositional streams, and by 1983, he established the so-called “parties’

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committee” (Al Awadi 2014) to license the formation of political parties. This committee, however, was assigned by Mubarak himself (Al Awadi 2014). In 1984, Mubarak called for parliamentary elections in which Mubarak’s party, The National Democratic Party, won 72% of the seats. The New Wafd Party in alliance with the Muslim Brothers gained 15.1%. The rest of the parties failed to reach the 8% necessary to enter the parliament (Al Awadi 2014). It is important to mention that this election was the first since the pre-1952 era in which political parties were allowed to campaign publicly (Al Awadi 2014). These new measures along with other decisions helped to establish Mubarak’s legitimacy. Nevertheless, university campuses, student unions, and syndicates were excluded from Mubarak’s tolerance policy. The regime banned any form of political activity in the universities as they were considered a hotbed of Islamic extremists. As for the syndicates, Mubarak showed some tolerance toward the independent organizations at the beginning of his rule, such as to the lawyers’ syndicate which Sadat had frozen in 1979. But soon the regime established the so-called General Union of Workers Syndicates which was staunchly loyal to the government (Al Awadi 2014). In addition, the whole Mubarak era (1981–2011) was defined by the emergency law. According to the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (2008), the law enabled the police and all other security forces to arrest any citizen based on suspicion alone and to disperse any gathering of more than three persons. The law suspends the individual’s constitutional rights, allows extended detention periods, and abolishes habeas corpus. It limits nongovernmental political activity, including street demonstrations, unapproved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations. Mubarak justified the permanent extension of the emergency law with the Islamist extremists’ immediate threat (Reza 2007). Al Awadi argues that Mubarak’s legitimacy gained weight by fighting the Islamist terrorism, which plagued Egypt in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond (2014). During the 1980s and more intensively in the 1990s, a series of terrorist attacks by Jamaa’t Islamiya3 took place, including political assassinations, such as the assassination of Refaat Al Mahgoub, the president of the parliament in 1990, the failed assassination attempt on the Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Sedki in 1993, and the failed assassination attempt on Mubarak himself in Addis Ababa in 1995. However, the losses 3  Jamaa’t Islamiya means Islamist Groups which was the description of various groups: Al Jihad, Al Jamaa Al Islamiya, and Al Takfeer W Al Hedjra, among others.

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the regime considered as most damaging for the country’s economic situation were attacks on tourism. During the 1990s, two major attacks against tourists were launched by the Islamist terrorists. In Giza in 1996, twenty-five tourists were killed and fourteen injured as a result of a bomb planted in one of the hotels near the pyramids. In the same year, fifty-eight tourists were killed in Luxor. In addition, there was the killing of nine German tourists in Cairo. Accordingly, the combined impact of this war on terror accompanied by the emergency law and the policy of nonpolitics established by Mubarak emptied the domestic political arena. The Egyptian left was dismantled; the Nasserists were allowed to form a political party under the control of the regime, as were the liberals, all while Mubarak’s NDP (National Democratic Party) remained the ruling party. The so-called opposition came to bear the name “Cartoon Opposition” as it served only to legitimize the existence of the parliament, but in effect was controlled by the regime. Parallel to this course of action, Mubarak maintained a carrotand-stick policy with the Muslim Brothers. On the one hand, he allowed them to become more visible in the social landscape, especially in the countryside among the lower class, doing charity work and Dawaa4 (missionary work), to enter and win the communal and syndicate elections and even some seats in the parliament as independents. On the other hand, the regime continued to arrest their second rank figures, confiscate their money and property, and even put them on military trials (Al Labban 2014). In addition, on the level of foreign policy, Mubarak used the Muslim Brothers as a political scarecrow: They were paraded as being the worse alternative if he stepped down from power (Al Labban 2014). I argue that among all these circumstances, the main preoccupation of the majority of Egyptians during Mubarak’s rule was economic survival. The middle-class continued to decrease and to decline into poverty. It is under Mubarak that Egypt witnessed the birth and rapid growth of the squatter areas due to the crisis of accommodation and the low wage rates as well as unemployment (Séjourné 2009). In relation to this, grave social problems came into being such as the lack of economic independency among the youth, late marriage, and the lack of affordable health care. These socio-economic conditions arose as a result of Sadat’s Infitah policy 4  Dawaa in Islam means spreading God’s religion which is taken to be Islam itself. In the context of Muslim Brothers, it is the act of spreading and teaching the true Islam within the Muslim society, among Muslims.

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and gained full impact over the 1980s. Around the same time, a new direction in Egyptian cinema emerged: Egyptian Neorealism. In the late 1970s, a new generation of filmmakers appeared. Their artistic agenda was oriented toward the socio-economic condition in Egypt. The political element in the Egyptian neorealist cinema is no longer presented via symbolism; it rather stems directly from the socio-economic conditions and is depicted realistically. The roots of this movement go back to Kamal Selim’s cinema in the 1930s, and it was carried on throughout the 1960s with Salah Abu Seif’s films. Selim was the first Egyptian filmmaker to bring the alley to the screen: the lives of common Egyptians. Concerning the subject matter and aesthetics of setting, Abu Seif followed in Selim’s footsteps and depicted the social life of Egyptians, but Abu Seif went a step further than his proto-neorealist predecessors concerning camera work and editing. Both directors, but especially Abu Seif, used symbolist imagery in his films and often, and this is due to censorship, put their films in a moral context. In the 1970s, cinema, with the exception of the films already discussed, was defined by commercialism, especially after the 1973 war. Comedies, romantic comedies, and action movies were the three dominant genres. In the wake of the 1980s, a new group of filmmakers entered the cinematic landscape: Atef Al Tayeb, Mohammed Khan, Daoud Abdel Sayed, Khairy Beshara, and Rafaat El Meehy. In Fifty Classical Egyptian Films (2004), Ali Abu Shady argues that the works of these directors offered a new cinematic language in dealing with the reality of the political, social, and economic condition. The realism these works adopt is tied to the present; it is an anatomy of the real through which these films capture its dialectics. In addition, these directors tried to depart from the moral context found in Abu Seif’s films and to dedicate their cinematic language to capture the social reality yet with a strong moral standpoint (Abu Shady 2004). Mohammed Khan (1942–2016) is considered as the initiator of this cinematic wave (Abu Shady 2004). In discussing Mohammad Khan’s cinema, Joesph Fahim argues in “Remembering Mohamed Khan—the Leader of Egypt’s Neo-Realist Cinema” (2016) that Khan’s breakthrough took place in 1981 with Maowid ala ashaa (An Appointment over Dinner), and describes the film as “a domestic drama about the browbeaten wife of an officious, manipulative businessman who attempts to carve out a fresh beginning for herself with an art student-turned-­ hairdresser” (Fahim 2016). He further argues that

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An Appointment Over Dinner carried the fundamental themes that would inform the vast majority of Khan’s subsequent works: the death of the middle class and the stratospheric rise of the nouveau riche; the subjugation of women; the proliferation of violence and lawlessness; the clash between desire and reality; the growing corruption of state institutions; and the demolition of traditional family values. The themes and devices of Khan’s film were shared by his cohorts from what became known as the Egyptian neo-realist wave. Khairy Bishara, Daoud Abdel-Sayed, the late Atef el-Tayeb and scriptwriter Bishir el-Deek dabbled more or less with the same subjects, with each adopting different tones and temperaments that set their narratives apart. All […] emphasized on the use of natural locations—a novelty for a cinema that was born and nurtured in interior sets for nearly half-a-­ century. The impact of their movies was thus quite jolting. The glorious Cairo of yore no longer persisted. The fake optimism of the pre-war years was a thing of the past. (2016)

In 1983, Atef Al Tayeb’s Sawwak Al Autobus (Bus Driver) was released and considered by many critics, among them Abu Shady (2004), to be one of the first films to set the tone of neorealism. Abu Shady stresses the fact that the film, set in the 1980s, deals directly with the reality at hand without referring to the past. Furthermore, the film is entirely shot in natural locations: Cairo streets, real apartments, and slums (Abu Shady 2004). The film’s story plays out in 1983, in the post-Infitah Cairo, and focuses on Hassan, a member of the working class with only little education. Hassan participated in both the 1967 and the 1973 wars and now works two jobs: He is a bus driver during the day and a taxi driver during the night. The taxi he bought from the money his wife Mervat gave him after selling her jewelry. Mervat comes from a bourgeois family, and she married against her family’s will. Hassan struggles throughout the film to save the paternal carpenter’s shop from bankruptcy due to unpaid taxes and increasing debts. In doing so, he undertakes a journey to collect the needed sum from his siblings, but they all refuse to pay to save the workshop. Mervat threatens to leave him if he sells the taxi and joins those who let him down. But Hassan sells the taxi and consequently Mervat does leave him. He asks his “brothers in arms” for help, the soldiers with whom he fought in the war, and he finally succeeds to collect the money, yet it is too late: The father dies, and all his siblings decide to sell the workshop. At the beginning of the film, a pickpocket steals a lady’s purse on the bus. The lady cries for help, and Hassan instantly stops the bus and closes the doors. However, among the chaos of the crowded bus, the thief

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manages to jump out of the window and runs. Hassan opens his driver door and watches the thief running, but he closes the door again and keeps driving. The film ends with the same situation. This time, however, Hassan steps out of the bus and follows the thief, catches him, and hits him hard while shouting: “Ya Wlad El Kalb,” meaning “you sons of a dog.” Hassan’s journey through the decay of family values, poverty, the death of his father, and the loss of the workshop has been a process of transformation and an awakening for Hassan (Abu Shady 2004). Abu Shady (2004) argues that the thief here represents the people and the conditions that robbed Hassan of his life: a man fought in two wars, paid the price two times in defeat and in victory, and now pays again for the third time. This time the payment is loss, the loss of family, love, and income. At the beginning of the film, Hassan acted passively and almost indifferently to the theft. At the end, his anger is unleashed; he follows the thief tirelessly and punishes him for everything that he lost. The film ends with the swearing “you sons of a dog.” This is to say that the film chooses not to end on a moral note, as would have been easily possible, for example, by Hassan handing the stolen purse to its owner. The rage shown here is personal and has nothing to do with any notion of solidarity or civil courage. It is all about Hassan and his wasted life. There will be no change in Hassan’s condition except for the possibility and the ability to react less passively: to shout and scream, nothing more. Another film directed by Atef Al Tayeb is Al Baree’ (The Innocent) from 1986. I suggest that this film is the politically most explicit one among its peers. Beyond the censor’s strong opposition to the screening of the film, both the Defense Minister at the time, Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala, and the Minister of the Interior, Ahmed Rushdy, also rejected this film (Abu Shady 2004). It was only after long negotiations that the filmmakers were forced to insert a statement on the screen declaring that the events of the film do not represent the present, along with cutting a number of scenes from the film (Abu Shady 2004). Note that this method, inserting statements at the opening credits, is recurrent in the Mubarak era and now under Al Sisi rule. The story of the film explains why the regime considered the film highly problematic. It is about the poor and uneducated peasant Ahmed who gets drafted as a soldier of the police’s central security forces. Ahmed’s post is in a political prison in the desert. The film shows the process of selecting these soldiers: all of them are young, illiterate peasants. It shows the brain-washing these soldiers are subjected to by the officers who teach them that the prisoners are traitors,

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atheists, and conspirators financed by foreign powers to destroy the country and turn it to a non-Islamic state (Abu Shady 2004). Ahmed takes pride in his service: He is fighting the enemies of the country and he becomes downright devoted to abusing them. The prison is run by a sadistic officer named Tawfiq who instigates the systematic degradation and torture of the political prisoners. One of Tawfiq’s methods is to make a “reception” for the newly arrived prisoners where they have to run through two rows of soldiers who hit them with whips and sticks and attack them with dogs. In one of these routines, Hussein, a university student who is Ahmed’s neighbor in the village, arrives with a new group of prisoners. Ahmed tries to defend Hussein, the only person in the village who used to treat him with respect. Seeing this, Tawfiq orders Ahmed to be put in one cell with Hussein. Hussein explains to Ahmed the truth about the regime and tells him “who are the real enemies of the country” (Abu Shady 2004). Soon after, the sadist Tawfiq orders the guard to unleash snakes and scorpions into the cell. Hussein gets bitten by a snake and dies next to Ahmed who could not save him. Tawfiq releases Ahmed from the cell and assigns him as a guard to the observatory tower. The film ends on a similar note of revenge as Sawwak Al Autobus: as Ahmed watches Tawfiq and the guards standing in the courtyard, waiting for the arrival of another new gang of prisoners, he simply shoots them all with his Kalashnikov. In his reading of Al Baree’, Abu Shady (2004) links it to the Central Security Forces riots which took place in 1986. On February 25, around 25,000 Egyptian soldier of the Central Security Forces (CSF) staged violent protests in and around Cairo. The riot was a reaction to the decision that the three-year compulsory service would be prolonged by one year. The soldiers targeted tourist areas in Cairo and Giza and destroyed two hotels. The regime of Mubarak relied on the Egyptian Army to crush the mutiny. The Army announced a curfew and ended the rebellion, killing over 107 CSF soldiers (Abu Shady 2004). He argues that the film predicted this rebellion due to the conditions of slave labor the soldiers had to endure. However, the notion of prediction or prophecy is always problematic when it comes to art. The film does not predict, it rather captures and portrays a reality among other realities. Al Baree’ deals with a socio-economical chain of oppression which in turn generates a political one. In the beginning, Ahmed is at the bottom of the social pyramid: an illiterate, poor peasant who is drafted by an oppressive system of compulsory military service. And because of his background, he is once again forced to the bottom of the hierarchy. He is

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chosen to serve in the CSF. These are the conditions Ahmed is confronted with. What gives meaning to his harsh life is his false belief that he serves his country by fighting the enemies of the country. Within the chain of oppression, the political prisoners in the film are located even below the bottom of the pyramid; they are oppressed, tortured, humiliated, and could be even killed by the soldiers. They are the pariahs who do not even appear in the social system defined by the regime. Furthermore, the attitude adjustment Ahmed undergoes in order to turn into the oppressor is symptomatic of the Mubarak era: It is a mixture of nationalism and religion. The prisoners are presented as traitors and koffar (nonbelievers). On the top of the prison’s social pyramid is Tawfiq, the sadist prison commander who in fact rules the prison as his own kingdom and is granted free hand to do as he will. Having said this, a parallel to the rise of the police state under Mubarak must necessarily be drawn. First and foremost, the film’s plot takes place in a political prison under the control of the Ministry of Interior. Political prisons were not controlled by the Ministry of Interior during Nasser’s and Sadat’s rule.5 Second, the interference of the three ministries of Culture, Defense, and the Interior followed a report by Amn Al Dawla which gradually only under Mubarak came to control every aspect of life in Egypt, including censorship on print, television, and cinema.6 If Sadat revived the police’s role of controlling the social space in Egypt, it was indeed Mubarak who finally created a police state. Censorship during Mubarak’s rule tried to avoid bans and went more toward negotiating changes in the body of the films. In the case of Al Baree’, we can make out this policy, yet the decision of including the statement “The events of the film do not take place in the present” makes clear that what lies behind this idea is a police mentality. For by doing so, it did nothing but tell the spectator that the events of the film actually and only take place in the present. The neorealist wave continued to be the most innovative cinema throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. In terms of cinematic language, Egyptian neorealism is influenced by Italian neorealism in terms of subject matter, natural locations, a minimum of cuts, and above all the preoccupation with the characters. It is less indebted to its predecessor in terms of camera work and narrative content. One of the most significant aspects of 5  The so-called political prisons were prisons specifically for political and oppositional activists. They were all under the control of the army or the intelligence (Khairallah 2013). 6  See Egypt 2011 for the role of Amn Al Dawla in Egypt.

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Egyptian neorealism is its depiction of the condition of women in the Egyptian society. This topic is abundant in Mohammed Khan’s cinema. Zawgat Ragol Mohem (Wife of an Important Man, 1987) is considered his masterpiece. In “Egypt’s cinematic gems: An Important Man’s Wife,” Adham Youssef (2014) writes that the film “is a take on the psychological and social effect of authority. It captures the clash between hungry fascism and optimistic romanticism through tracing the arc of a romantic relationship.” It is the story of the rise and fall of a brutal police officer and narcissist who is married to a dreamy and romantic woman. Khan takes on Sadatism in this film and violates the neorealist aspect of depicting the “now.” It might be that Khan learned this lesson from Al Tayeb’s Al Baree’, but apart from that, the film marks the 1977 food riots as the birth of Mubarak’s police state. This is shown through the eyes of Mona, the officer’s wife. Youssef argues that Khan has a long history of making women the gauge of society in his films; through their reactions and interpretations we know what’s actually taking place. [An Important Man’s Wife] is no exception, hence the name. Mona reflects her husband’s transformation from low-ranking officer in a small village to colonel in the State Security Cairo branch. Her discovery of her husband’s corrupt spirit and narcissistic self, which divides the world into “I” and “other,” is shown on her face, from pure teenage affection to eye-­ opening surprise, to tiring steadiness, to despair and collapse. (2014)

Hesham, Mona’s husband, is one of the police officers who engineered mass arrests on charges of attempting to overthrow the regime during and after the riots in what is known in Egypt as “dawn raids” (Youssef 2014). Youssef argues that “Khan didn’t just use the 1977 uprising for plot purposes—he historicized one of the most critical moments in Egypt’s modern history, arguably a more brutal and class-conscious rehearsal of the January 25 revolution” (Youssef 2014). In one of the most expressive scenes, Hesham brings Mona breakfast in bed after they knew she is pregnant. He leans toward her belly and pretends he speaks to his son, “officer Ashraf”: “You already named him and gave him a job?” the wife asks. “Of course!” the husband answers. “Police officers rule the world, then, now and in the future” (Youssef 2014). Hesham’s increasing power is inflicted upon Mona to the extent that he isolates her from the world outside. The events of the film end in 1981 with the death of Sadat and the beginning

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of Mubarak’s era. Hesham is fired from his job with other officers due to the mass arrests they engineered in 1977. According to Youssef, the January 1977 arrests included police agents and people residing abroad, meaning the arrests were arbitrary and illegal. This was true in reality: Most defendants were acquitted as the judiciary found it would have been impossible to mobilize the masses and plan a popular revolution in such short time. When this verdict was reached in 1981, the state needed a scapegoat to cover the scandal. In the film, Hesham is sacrificed along with his boss. Pushed out of his powerful castle, a normal citizen again, he starts to collapse. (2014)

Stripped of his power and not able to cope with his new life, he now can only oppress Mona. The film ends with Hesham shooting Mona’s father who came to take his daughter away from him, and Hesham finally commits suicide by shooting himself. The story indeed takes place in the last years of Sadat’s rule and ends with the beginning of Mubarak’s. However, this portrayal of the officer’s power in the film mirrors Mubarak’s domestic policy during the 1980s. A policy that gave the police and all its units a free hand to control every aspect of life. This is evident in Hesham’s utterance that “police officers rule the world, then, now and in the future,” a statement that can safely be understood as an Egyptian fact. Khan continued making films in which female characters are central as “the gauge of society,” such as Ahlam Hind w Kamilia (Hind and Kamilia’s Dreams, 1988) and Fatat Al Masnaa’ (Factory Girl, 2014). Both films tell the stories of working-class women: their everyday lives, their dreams and desires in the face of reality, and their attempt to survive in society. Egyptian cinema witnessed a production crisis in the 1990s, and the number of new films decreased dramatically (Abu Shady 2004). However, as shown above, the neorealist directors still managed to produce a number of films.

Youssef Chahine’s Chaos (2007): An Uprising Is at the Door As the book focuses on films produced and released between 2010 and 2016 in providing in-depth analysis of five films, it is important to know that such films did not come into being in a vacuum. I have shown that cinema in Egypt has a long-complicated relationship with politics

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throughout its history under four different regimes. Furthermore, in the last ten years of Mubarak’s rule, countercultural films had been produced. Among them, Marwan Hamed’s Yacoubian Building (2006), Ibrahim Al Batout’s Ain Shams (2007), and Youssef Chahine’s last film Chaos (2007). Here, I choose to briefly discuss the latter, as it captures the pre-2011 state of discontent in Egypt. In fact, the film can be seen as a prediction of the 2011 uprising, as its subject matter deals with the ever-growing tyranny of the police state under Mubarak and his Interior Minister Habib Al Adly. In Egypt 2011, I discussed in detail the role of Amn Al Dawla as the central entity through which the whole state apparatus functions. Its position was consolidated significantly in the last fifteen years of the Mubarak era when the police in general, and Amn Al Dawla in particular, became a state within the state, controlling almost every detail of Egyptian life: the media, the assignment of ministers and university directors, business licenses, total control of every election (parliamentary, local, unions, etc.). This section also addressed the increase of police brutality during the 2000s, which was exposed by the first generation of online activists and political bloggers who leaked many videos showing citizens brutally tortured and abused by the police. The film’s opening credits are presented against the background of real footage of Kefaya protests and the 2006 Mahalla uprising. The dominant factor in these many rapidly cut images is the CSF brutality in dispersing the demonstrators. Arrests, beatings, injured protesters, water dispersers, the CSF black uniforms, and the Mahalla protesters throwing stones are all shown (Fig. 3.1). The film cuts to its first scene in which protesters are running from the police in a local marketplace. Chahine integrates the documentary footage with the film’s first scene. This sets the tone of the film. We shall see this technique in three of the five films that I am discussing in the following chapter: Microphone, Rags and Tatters, and In the Last Days of the City. Chahine’s film is set in Shubra, a Cairo neighborhood, and follows the tyrannical and sadistic police petty-officer Hatem who controls and terrorizes the entire district. The film shows in detail how he abuses his authority and power to de facto rule the neighborhood. Herein, the film portrays a reality which repeats in many districts, especially the poor ones. Hatem is infatuated with his neighbor Noor and tries to win her over throughout the film. When he fails in his advances, he finally drugs and rapes her. The spectator also sees Hatem at work in the police station, torturing political prisoners and even killing one of them. As his opponent, the film

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Fig. 3.1  Left, Kefaya demonstrations. Center, the 2006 Mahalla uprising. Right, Kefya demonstrations (Chahine 2007)

introduces the character of the righteous prosecutor Sherif who is romantically involved with Noor and who tries to “implement the law in a lawless state” (El Shimi 2016). Sherif is the only character who challenges Hatem and tries to arrest him on the charges of raping Noor. Sherif fails to do so as the station’s commander testifies that at the time of the rape, Hatem was with him on a police mission. By the end of the film, Sherif is finally able to prove the rape and heads to the police station to arrest Hatem. Meanwhile, the film delivers an iconic scene in which the people of the neighborhood gather in front of the police station and break in, chanting “release our imprisoned brothers” (Chahine 01:50:27). Hatem gets caught by the people and the police after trying to escape. He draws his gun and shoots Sherif in the shoulder, then shoots himself and dies. The film ends with a wide shot of the gathered people facing the police station. With this ending, the film anticipates the crisis ensuing toward the end of Mubarak’s rule: the people vs. the police, or more accurately the people vs. the regime whose main representative is the police. Four years later, on

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January 25, 2011, the “National Police Day,” activists followed by many citizens went into the streets to demonstrate against police brutality. They demanded the ouster of Habib Al Adly, the Minister of Interior. Three days later, on January 28, police stations all over the country were burned down. The police stations were the symbol of oppression, in fact, the icon of oppression. In “3 films that anticipated the January 25 revolution” (2016), Rawan El Shimi states that [L]ike many critical films, [This is Chaos] got in trouble with the censorship board. Youssef told the LA Times in 2008 that when the script was presented to the board, they wanted to cut out a significant portion of the film, to which he responded that they should just ban the whole film, because he wouldn’t cut it. Youssef said they couldn’t ban the film due to the international controversy it would cause. The film was in fact cut, by two scenes— and he was forced to add this statement at the film’s prelude: “We appreciate the national role played by the police establishment to maintain stability and security. These are just isolated acts.” (El Shimi 2016)

As this quotation shows, the police mentality which controlled censorship did not at all change since Atef Al Tayeb’s Al Baree’ in 1983. Twenty-­ four years later, they still came up with the “solution” of inserting a statement on the screen to justify the regime and distance it from the events depicted on screen. The rhetoric of “isolated acts” has been and until this very day still is used to justify torture, killings, and violations. In 2016, the censor returned and banned Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City and imposed a statement to be inserted in the opening of Mohammed Diab’s Clash. In this sense, Chahine’s film can be seen as capturing the pre-volcanic eruption of the then-future 2011 confrontation, but above all, it was a line within the countercultural rhizome. This line connected with other lines, such as the leaked torture footage and the demonstrations of Kefaya, and it represented an artistic expression: a visual narrative of the discontent and anger many Egyptians felt at the time. This chapter took a historical and chronological approach to showing and discussing the organic relationship between film and politics in Egypt. As I have shown, this relation goes back to the 1930s with the birth of Egyptian national cinema, and even before that decade. Special focus was on illustrating the socio-economic-political changes which Egypt underwent, and how cinema interacted and coped with these changes. In

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addition, one of the central aspects in this chapter was censorship, which, throughout the history of cinema in Egypt, played an influential role in the production and distribution of films dealing with social, economic, and political themes. It also influenced the filmic language by driving most of filmmakers to employ symbolism in order for their films to escape the scissor of censorship and, thus, to reach the theatres. Up to 2010, the topic of censorship is inseparable from the history of political cinema in Egypt. But in dealing with the three films released between 2010 and 2013, the question of censorship does not have much impact on the process of production, as these three years witnessed a state of flux on various levels: social, political, cultural, and artistic. In fact, the censor almost disappeared during that time. However, following the 2013 coup which ousted Mohammed Morsi and brought Al Sisi to power in 2014, censorship returned more aggressively than ever before.

Censorship Under Al Sisi Regime Censorship under Al Sisi became silent and invisible. The latest two films discussed in this book, In the Last Days of the City (2016) and Clash (2016), came under the hand of the censor. I shall discuss this in detail in my close reading of these two films. Here, I will, however, shed light on three other films which had trouble with the censor: 18 Days (2011), Mohammed Hammad’s Withered Green (2016), and Hala Al Kousy’s Cactus Flower (2017). The first is an analogy film which contains ten different stories, directed by ten different directors, which take place between January 25 and February 11, 2011, the first eighteen days of the uprising which led to the toppling of Mubarak. This film is still banned and had not have commercial release. The other two films suffered for a long period of time until they were allowed to screen. Hammad’s film was, however, a bit luckier than El Kousy’s. First, here is an idea about censorship under Al Sisi. The term “responsible freedom” is now one of the mottos in the public sphere. In 2017, the regime issued the Media Code of Honor and the Guideline of Professional Behavior in the Media. The first article of the former states, “media is a message and the responsible freedom is the base of media practice.” The second article of the latter stresses the duty of the media in “the ordering, drafting and formulation of the published material in a way that reflects the real societal priorities” (Sharawy 2017). Even though I could not find a new or an updated version of the censorship bylaw post-2013, the

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above-mentioned code of honor speaks to how this regime deals with the public sphere. Al Sisi himself stated in 2016 that he does not like films which show the negative aspects in Egypt, especially showing the informal neighborhoods. This alone is sufficient to ban any film whose story takes place in such place (Fazulla 2017). Two years prior, in 2014, former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb ordered the film, Halawet Roh (2014), to be taken out of theatres and be banned due to its sexual content which goes against the values of the Egyptian society. This is the first time since the monarchy that a member of government publicly bans a film with an executive order, a film which was approved by the official censor (Fazulla 2017). Thus, censorship is no longer practiced by a visible institution like it once was. A film, a book, or a song could be banned through many methods and channels. One of these methods is through the judiciary, like in the case of the novelist Ahmed Naji who was sentenced to two years of prison because of his novel, Using Life, in 2015. Naji published chapters of his novel in Akhbar Al Adab. Some person who read the magazine filed a report to the general prosecutor accusing Naji of acts of indecent behavior and the challenging of the Egyptian social and moral values (Abdel Khaleq 2017). This technique was used before against artists and authors under Mubarak: A citizen or a lawyer undertakes such action as an indirect act of hazing by the state. Back to cinema, even though, 18 Days had been produced in 2011 and was even screened in Cannes the same year, the film was not screened in Egypt. It remains a mystery as to why. The censor did not issue an official decision regarding the screening of the film, and upon inquiry, the censor office stated there exists no ban on the film, and that no one applied for screening permission. Some members of the film’s crew, who demanded to remain anonymous, stated, however, that there is a final and absolute decision to ban the film from commercial release (Abu Hemila 2020). The film shows ten short stories which depict some of the events which took place during the first eighteen days of the uprising, including the arrest of an activist and the February 2 attack on Tahrir square by the pro-Mubarak mob. This strategy of a de facto ban without any official statement or decisions is what defines censorship under Al Sisi regime. The censorship apparatus: The Censorship Apparatus of Artistic Work is no longer the main censor, not even administratively as it used to be under Mubarak. Rather, it operates in a vacuum and takes its orders from some obscure authority. In 2018, the film was leaked on YouTube by Ahmed Helmy, one of the actors in the film, as it then, seven years after its production, became clear

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that this film would not see the light (Abu Hemila 2020). While it is logical that such film would not be allowed to screen post the 2013 coup, it is puzzling as to why it did not between 2011 and 2013 as other films such as Tahrir 2011 (2011) and Rags and Tatters (2013) were commercially released. This strategy of censorship is once again evident in the case of the other two films: Mohammed Hammad’s Withered Green (2016) and Hala Al Kousy’s Cactus Flower (2017). Both films were banned for months from screening in Egypt without official rejection by the censor. However, the censor did not issue a permission for screening. Thus, officially, the two films were neither banned nor allowed to screen. The film critic, Amir Al Amry (2017), calls this new method, “the secret censor,” and wonders why these two films share the fate of Tamer El Said’s film. He argues that it is understandable that some authority might consider El Said’s film an agitate, as it predicts the fall of Mubarak’s regime and could raise some unwanted sentiments. But as for Withered Green and Cactus Flower, there exists no reason behind this ban. Al Amry sarcastically asks: “Is it now a new policy to punish young filmmakers whose films participate in international film festivals?” (2017). After a long battle with the censor which according to Hammad demanded that a number of scenes be cut out of the film, Hammad succeeded in getting the permission of his film to be commercially released in cinemas. However, the film was taken out of cinemas after only fifteen days. The official reason was that the film did not gross well (only 112,000 Egyptian Pounds). Film critic Nader Adly argues that this excuse was not realistic, as the film belongs to the so-called low-budget independent cinema. He states the fact that Hammad produced his film from his own personal money, and that the amount the film grossed actually surpassed the production cost. Thus, the film is a financial success (Awad 2017). Tarek Al Shennawy agrees with Adly and claims that this film, despite the low gross, shows that there is an audience for this kind of cinema, especially that the film does not contain any known actors and had no marketing (Al Awad 2017). Thus, it is not really left to one’s imagination to understand the real reason as to why the film was taken out of theatres. As for Cactus Flower, it had very limited commercial release for two weeks in March 2017. In my view, the only explanation for attempting to fully ban these two films is that in terms of subject matter, both films present the gender issue in current Egypt. Withered Green tells the story of Iman, a “lower-mid-class” woman in her thirties who lives with her younger sister

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in Cairo. Iman’s sister is about to get married. Thus, Iman embarks on searching for a male relative to attend the official family visit of her sister’s future husband to ask for the hand of the bride. Even though the two young women live independently with Iman as the provider of the small family, she must find a male relative to meet her sister’s future husband due to the social traditions. Iman’s life is defined by depression and emptiness. According to Egyptian customs, Iman is a spinster. In the beginning of the film, Iman visits a doctor; she tells him that she did not get her period for months. The film does not answer this until its end, leaving the spectator to speculate: Is she ill? Did she have an illegitimate sexual relationship? Toward the ending of the film, the doctor diagnoses her condition as premature menopause. Devastated by this diagnostic and by her nonlife, she goes home and decides to take her own virginity. Mohammed Hammad in his interview with Sameh Al Kahtib of Reuters (2017) did not specify the disputed scenes which the censor demanded to be cut out. But it is obvious that the scene in which Iman takes her own virginity (the scene is not sexually explicit) is among the disputed scenes. In addition, based on the overall approach to art under Al Sisi, the film in general, with its social commentary, is seen as raising negative sentiments about Egyptian society. As for Cactus Flower, it is the story of a young woman and a mid-aged woman who find themselves homeless after being kicked out of their flat. Both women spend the whole film trying to find a safe place to stay. The two women move from one place to the other facing all sorts of difficulties and sometimes disasters two homeless women in Cairo could face: police harassment, sexual harassment, and social rejection. Again, the only explanation for the film’s trouble with the secret censor is that it shows the everyday oppression against women in Egypt. It sounds indeed ridiculous and illogical, but this is a reality in Al Sisi’s Egypt. As I showed in this chapter, censorship played a major role in both the style and the cinematic language employed in films throughout the history of Egyptian cinema. Thus, the following close reading will show, how a new cinematic movement was enabled as a countercultural assemblage that made use of the then newly created space in which the censor’s scissor was absent in the case of Microphone, Rags and Tatters and Coming Forth by Day. And how the return of censorship in the post-2013 coup period affected the other two films, In the Last Days of the City, which was completely banned from screening in Egypt, and even from entering the Cairo International Film Festival, and Clash in which the censor interfered with.

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Ali, Mahmoud. 2008. Meaat Aam Mina Al Reqaba Alaa Al Cinema Al Masreyya. (Hundred Years of Censorship on the Egyptian Cinema). Gizeh: The Higher Counsel of Culture. Awad, David. 2017. “Withered Green … Commercial Success.” Al Monitor. https://www.al-­monitor.com/pulse/ar/originals/2017/12/withered-­green-­ sweeps-­awards-­but-­flops-­at-­box-­office.html. Accessed 18.07.2020. Bashour, Maan. 2014. “The Principles of the July Revolution: A Road Map to Egypt and the ArabNation.” RAI ALYOUM. www.raialyoum.com/?p=129808. Accessed 06.06.2020. Chahine, Youssef, dir. Chaos. 2007; Egypt: Misr International. DVD. Davis, Eric. 1983. Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920–1941. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. El Naccash, Ataa. 1968. “Egyptian Cinema: A Historical Outline.” African Arts 2 (1): 52–55, 70–71. El Shimi, Rawan. 2016. “3 Films That Anticipated the January 25 Revolution.” Mada Masr. www.madamasr.com/en/2016/01/24/feature/culture/3-­films-­ thatanticipated-­the-­january-­25-­revolution/. Accessed 07.06.2020. Fadl, Belal. 2015. “As Sadat W Ma Adrak Ma AsSadat?” (“Sadat. Who Is He?”). Al Araby Al Jadid. https://www.alaraby.co.uk/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D 8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%8C-%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%A3%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%83-%D9%85%D8%A7-%D8%A7% D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AA-7. Accessed 09.06.2020. Fahim, Joseph. 2016. “Remembering Mohamed Khan—The Leader of Egypt’s Neo-Realist Cinema.” Middle East Institute. www.mei.edu. Accessed 09.06.2020. Farid, Samir. 2011. “Introduction to Egyptian Cinema.” Cannes Festival. www. festival-­cannes.fr/en/article/57981.html. Accessed 10.06.2020. Freedman, Lawrence. 2008. A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East. New York: Public Affairs. Fazulla, Hossam. 2017. Why You Cannot Be Creative in Egypt. AFTE. Geroshni, Israel. 1997. “Rethinking the Formation of Arab Nationalism in the Middle Easr, 1920–1945: Old and New Narratives.” In Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East, edited by Israel Geroshni and James P.  Jankowski, 1–25. New York: Columbia UP. Ibrahim, Sadd Eddin. 1996. Egypt, Islam and Democracy. Cairo: The American University in Cairo. Khairallah, Hossam. 2013. “Central Security Forces” (“Al Amn Al Markazy.”) Al Masry Al Youm. www.today.almasryalyoum.com/article2aspx?Articl eID=370642. Accessed 12.06.2020. Marsot Lutfi Al-Sayyid, Afaf. 2007. A History of Egypt: From the Arab Conquest to the Present. Cambridge UP.

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NAM, The Non-Alignment Movement. 2004. www.nam.gov.za/background/ background.htm. Accessed 14.04.2020. Nojumi, Neamatollah. 2002. The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region. Palgrave Macmillan US. Osman, Tarek. 2011. Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak. Revised and updated edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Ramadani, Nabila. 2013. “Women in the 1919 Egyptian Revolution: From Feminist Awakening to Nationalist Political Activism.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 14 (2): 39–52. Reza, Sadiq. 2007. “Endless Emergency: The Case of Egypt.” New Criminal Law Review 10: 532–553. Seddon, David. 1990. “The Politics of Adjustment: Egypt and the IMF, 1987–1990.” Review of African Political Economy 17 (47): 95–104. Séjourné, Marion. 2009. “The History of Informal Settlements.” In Cairo’s Informal Areas. Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials Facts. Voices. Visions, edited by Regina Kipper and Marion Fischer, 17–21. Cairo: GTZ Egypt. Shaaban, Mohammed. 2016. “Al Cinema Al Masreyya W Thawrat Yolio”. (“Egyptian Cinema and the July Revolution.”). Raseef22. www.raseef22.com/ culture/2016/07/23/. Accessed 14. 06. 2020. Sharawy, Fatema. 2017. “The New Media Code of Honor and the Guideline of Professional Behavior in the Media.” Al Ahram. http://gate.ahram.org.eg/ News/1759990.aspx. Accessed 18.07.2020. Shafik, Viola. 2001. “Egyptian Cinema.” In Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film., edited by Oliver Leaman. New  York: Routledge. Shafik, Viola. 2007. Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class, and Nation. Cairo: The American University in Cairo. Taufiq, Saad Eldeen. 1969. Qessat Al Cinema Fi Masr: Derassah Naqdeyya. (The Story of Cinema in Egypt: A Critical Study). Cairo: Al Hilal. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. 2008. “Egypt and the Impact of 27 Years of Emergency on Human Rights.” www.ar.eohr.org. Accessed 01.06.2020. Weaver, Mray Ann. 1999. A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Youssef, Adham. 2014. “Egypt’s Cinematic Gems: An Important Man’s Wife.” Mada Masr. www.madamasr.com/sections/culture/egypt’s-­cinematic-­gems-­ important-­mans-­wife. Accessed 13.06.2020 August 2016.

CHAPTER 4

Countercultural Films 2010–2016: Close Reading

Ahmad Abdallah’s Microphone (2010) Narration Ahmad Abdallah’s second film Microphone is a new experience in Egyptian cinema. Conceived as a documentary about the independent Alexandria art scene, Microphone was supposed to present a number of underground music bands, graffiti artists, and skaters among other artistic activities in Alexandria. Abdallah wanted to shed light on the Alexandrian scene and its special characteristics apart from the exaggerated focus on Cairo. While shooting the documentary, the idea of turning it into a feature film came into being. According to Abdallah, the whole narrative content was improvised; the entire film was shot without a script. Instead, the story line and the dialogue were developed spontaneously. The writing was in fact a cooperative process among all crew members (Taha 2013). The film offers multiple levels of narration and is considered to be one of the few films in Egyptian cinema which employs a large number of amateur actors. In fact, the members of the artistic underground scene presented by the film play themselves. As a result, Microphone is a mix of documentary and fiction in which the two genres blur, dissolve, and intertwine with one another. In terms of narration, the film belongs to art- and experimental cinema. Microphone does not adhere to the concept of the causality of action. Instead, it works with the artcinema characteristics of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1_4

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character causality. However, this character causality is evident only in the world of the central protagonist. His world intersects with other worlds and stories, and in this process of intersection, the protagonist becomes a narrative strand line in a permanent process of connection among all the worlds within the film. In this sense, Microphone can be read as a cinematic rhizome. The narrational representation works horizontally with time no longer being linear. The following reading sheds light on the narrative characteristics in relation to these assumptions. Opening Credits (00:00:07–00:03:36) and the First Sequence: Documentary or Feature? According to David Bordwell and Kirstin Thompson’s methodology of reading film (2008), it is crucial to analyze the first scene. Microphone, however, starts already in the opening credits. The film presents its characters and storylines right after the fade-in. The characters’ introduction takes place in line with the visual and sonic style established by the very first shot. It shows a microphone, followed by a person putting his headphones on and switching on the microphone. The film cuts to a computer display with a recording software, and then a series of rapid shots of a skater, public care workers, a couple, and a jogger are shown. The soundtrack plays the song Welcome to Alexandria by Nosair and Sammaka, a song that combines traditional Alexandrian music (Nosair) with Egyptian Rap (Sammaka). Accordingly, the lyrics of the first track heard, Welcome to Alexandria, take up rap’s trope of talking about and presenting the rapper’s hometown.1 The lyrics play with the stereotype of Alexandria as a holiday retreat for Cairenes and present its dialect as a cliché in Egyptian culture, especially in cinema. In addition, as is typical for territorial “beefs” in hip hop, the song addresses the rivalry between Alexandria and Cairo, the second and the first capital of Egypt. Here, the soundtrack, together with the visual representation, gives the first clue to the location of the film which indeed is Alexandria. Another clue is given about both the subject matter, which is the Alexandrian independent artistic scene, and the style of the film in terms of editing and soundtrack (Fig. 4.1). The spectator is first introduced to the character Khaled, played by Khaled Abu Al Nagga. He is starting his day sitting in the kitchen. The 1  As the film is full of songs, I am not going to excessively cite all lyrics. Instead in some cases, I will merely paraphrase the lyrics, as music and songs play a crucial role in the film.

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Fig. 4.1 Opening credits: characters introduction (00:01:49–00:03:36). “Together for the future.” Dr. Taha Hanafy—The Microphone” (00:04:11–00:04:18)

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film cuts to Hadeer, played by Menna Shalaby, entering a seaside restaurant for a meeting with Khaled. Concerning Khaled’s storyline, which is only one among many, the film employs crosscutting between Khaled’s meeting with Hadeer and his day start in his kitchen, a series of rapid shots of a man running from the police, Salma and Magdy (two young film students) on a roof top, a salesman (Hamota) in the fish market selling fish to Khaled, and Khaled in his office with colleagues, until finally the opening credits end with two graffiti artists spraying a stencil of a man with a microphone head (00:03:36). These first three and a half minutes—quite a long time for opening credits—set the tone and the rhythm of the film. They also introduce the main characters of the film: Khaled, Hadeer, Salma and Magdy, the street-­ salesman, and the man in the fish market. Through the multiple crosscuts employed here, the film positions Khaled’s character as moving within two spheres: a personal, fractured line of narrative in which Hadeer is involved, and the main strand of the narrative in which he moves and connects with the other characters, the young artists. This line is established in the scene where he buys fish from the man in the market, who is later revealed to be a member of a rap group. In addition, even though Khaled can be considered as the nexus in which all other lines connect at some point in time, there are seemingly unconnected segments which create further independent nonnarrational spheres. These are scenes in which the spectator is presented with fragments from the artists’ lives. The multilayered narrative of Microphone is further expanded by a narrative strand concerned with Salma and Magdy, two film students shooting their graduation project, a documentary about the underground scene in Alexandria, which also serves as a meta-commentary on Microphone itself. Over the course of the film, Khaled becomes a part of their project as an important character in the story they tell. Accordingly, the opening credits deliver a taste of what is going to be shown in the film, first of all in terms of style. However, the opening credits also hint at Microphone’s narrative characteristics. This is evident in the representation of Khaled and Hadeer’s storyline which is, as will be shown later, entirely nonlinear, beginning with the nonlinearity of the opening scene. This storyline moves back and forth in time: Khaled in the kitchen, Khaled with Hadeer in the restaurant, Khaled back in his flat, Khaled in the fish market, and Khaled in his office. The chronological order of the events is disturbed. The syuzhet as the representation of the events is not in tune with the fabula, the actual chronological order of the events. This

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narrative strategy is evident throughout the whole film, especially in the scenes in which Khaled is with Hadeer. In the fabula, they would equal one long, sustained sequence, but in the syuzhet, this sequence is cut up and scattered throughout the whole film. When the opening credits end, the spectator has already been introduced to a number of characters as well as to the most important cinematic devices the film employs. The first sequence right after the credits starts with Magdy interviewing Salma as a part of their graduation project. The shot of Salma standing and answering Magdy’s questions comes from Magdy’s camera (a POV shot), not the film’s. In this shot, Magdy asks Salma, “What is the difference between a documentary and a feature?” to which Salma sarcastically answers, “Excuse me?” (00:04:05). This exchange introduces the self-­ referential framework of Microphone. As previously mentioned, Microphone was meant to be a documentary about Alexandria’s underground art scene. Magdy and Salma’s project, as the film later shows, is about the very same subject: the Alexandrian underground scene. In addition, as the film blurs the borders between the two genres, and consciously plays with this theme, this brief shot is also a kind of overt commentary on the nature of the film, on the one hand, and on the rigid and conventional cinema prevalent in Egypt on the other. It also directly foregrounds the complicated relationship of documentary/factual filming and fiction. Arguably, a fully documentary style is impossible. Everything is selected and assembled into a narrative. Thus, the generic double bind of documentary is uncovered in Salma’s short answer. In the following scene, the chase of the street-salesman by the police comes to an end. The salesman hides behind a poster of electoral propaganda, a police car arrives, and the officer orders the chasers to leave him and get back: “Leave him … It is your lucky day … He is not worth breaking the poster for” (00:04:18). The camera shows a part of the poster which proclaims, “together for the future.” When the policemen leave him, the frame widens to include a larger part of the poster: “Dr. Taher Hanafy … The microphone.” In a sarcastic style, the film chooses the words, “together for the future,” as an allusion to the NDP party, that is, President Hosni Mubarak’s party which used slogans like this under the leadership of his son Gamal Mubarak during the last two years of Hosni Mubarak’s reign, for example, “New concept for the future of our country.” In addition, the green background is also used by the NDP in the party’s logo and in almost every poster of electoral propaganda. Moreover, in the Egyptian electoral

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s­ystem, candidates must have an electoral symbol, thus the megaphone which is mistakenly called a microphone. It is important to mention that the visual motif of the microphone appears throughout the film in different contexts. This will be discussed later in more detail. Shot in late 2010, the year of the scandalous parliamentary and local elections, the film uses this poster, among other things, in its socio-­political contextualization. When the officer tells his subordinates to leave the salesman as he is not worth breaking the poster for, Microphone shows how the police-state operates concerning the elections. It also shows how a poster of an NDP candidate is more valuable than an Egyptian citizen or a human being in general. Clearly, this is a reference to the hegemony and control mechanisms installed by the alliance between Mubarak’s party and the police. After this incident, the Salesman chooses the very same place as a safe spot to sell his goods: It is safe from the police because he is under the protection of the poster. The film cuts to Khaled in his kitchen (00:04:26). The shot’s composition is exactly the same as the one in the opening credits: Khaled is sitting at the table, half asleep, and a tea kettle is whistling on the oven (this shot reoccurs throughout the whole film), but this time one element is different: A green notebook lies on the kitchen table. The following scene takes place in the seaside restaurant between him and Hadeer. The transition between the two scenes is done by a match-cut: The camera shows the green notebook in an over-shoulder shot, and the new scene begins with Hadeer’s hand moving the notebook toward Khaled on the restaurant’s table. The technique of the match-cut establishes a sense of continuity between two scenes. Match-cut editing is a cut from one scene to another in which the two camera shots’ compositional elements match (Hickethier 2001). A match-cut can be employed to underline a connection between two separate elements or for purely visual reasons. In a match-cut, an object or action shown in the first shot is repeated in some fashion in the second shot; the objects may be the same, may be similar, or have similar shapes or uses. The main aim of using match-cut editing is to help establish a strong continuity of action and to create the illusion of film reality (Hickethier 2001) (Fig. 4.2). The match-cut here is employed in order to establish Khaled’s personal storyline with Hadeer. The film later informs the spectator that Khaled spent seven years in the United States to study and work as a satellite engineer. He decided to return to Egypt. The film does not reveal the reason

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Fig. 4.2  A match-cut showing an over-shoulder shot of the notebook in Khaled’s kitchen followed by Hadeer’s hand on the notebook in the seaside restaurant (00:04:39–00:04:40)

behind his decision. Khaled and Hadeer were in a romantic relationship before he left Egypt. It was only after his return that they met again. The two scenes conjoined by the notebook shot (00:04:26–00:05:14) show that the meeting between the two occurred in an earlier point in the fabula. The match-cut suggests a flashback: Khaled in his kitchen looking at the notebook and remembering the dialogue with Hadeer. However, perceiving the whole representation of this meeting in fragments throughout the film, this current scene cannot be considered as a flashback, at least not in the traditional sense. The film does treat this meeting neither as a past event that fills a gap in the story or explains a back-story nor even as a subplot. It rather follows the concept of the Time-Image as developed by Deleuze. The scenes between Khaled and Hadeer can be read as a dreamlike sequence: “the character’s mind as screen.” Flashbacks in narrative cinema are subjectively motivated in that the character’s memory is a pretext for a nonchronological syuzhet-arrangement. Optically, however, subjective shots become anchored in an objective context through the use of continuity editing, objective shots, and other devices.2 At first glance, the two scenes here follow exactly the same method: a match-cut transition as a means of continuity. However, in the case of Microphone as a nonlinear, and nonchronological narrative, the match-­cut does not justify a breaking of the chronological representation of the syuzhet by presenting a pretext for a nonchronological arrangement. It rather 2  See David Bordwell’s Narration in Fiction Film (1985) for the explanation of flashbacks in narrative cinema.

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reveals Khaled’s mind as a screen and creates one of the characteristics of the Time-Image which “no longer follows the chronological order and narratological representation of actions and reactions. It makes past, future and present indistinguishable. It also breaks with the Aristotelian principium that defines something as not being its own opposite.” Furthermore, as we are presented with one long cut-up sequence scattered throughout the whole narrative in a nonchronological order both within the order of the sequence itself and within the overall narrative of the film, the achronic meeting sequence is thrown into contrast against the overall style of the film. The meeting’s special placement in the chronological structure is supported by differences in visual esthetics. The camera movement is very restrained; the camera limits itself to static medium shots and angular shot reverse shots. As a result, the optical situation in general is static: There is no character movement, and the mise-en-scene remains unchanged: Comparing the color palette used for the scenes of the meeting with the rest of the film, a clear difference is evident. The color tone in the film in general is a warm one, and in most of the scenes, green and red are the dominant colors. The tone in the seaside restaurant is cold, and the dominant colors are white, blue, and gray. Khaled occupies the right half of the screen and Hadeer the left one, and even when they at some point change tables because it starts to rain, there is almost no visual difference between the inside of the restaurant and the outside. The pictorial squaring even goes one step further by literally adding an axis limiting the character space: The vertical beams that appear in both sequences are almost at the same place. Khaled and Hadeer become visually separated just as they are emotionally separated after the break-up (Fig. 4.3). Moreover, while the first segment of Khaled’s meeting with Hadeer (00:00:46–00:01:04) is chronologically the first, the second segment discussed here (00:04:40–00:05:14) is the last. Hadeer gives Khaled the notebook: Hadeer: Keep it please … Am I supposed to hug you and get emotional … or are we going to meet again? Khaled: I am always here. I am free every evening. Hadeer: We will arrange it. I got to run. Frankly, if this is our last time, whatever I say will sound silly. Khaled: Why do you say it’s the last time? What last time?

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Fig. 4.3  Left, the last meeting between Khaled and Hadeer (00:05:04). Right, chronologically the first meeting of the two (01:00:15) Hadeer: Whatever, I don’t know. Khaled: Is this the last thing you will say? Hadeer: I don’t know. (Abdallah 00:04:40–00:05:14)

Khaled and Hadeer’s relationship is already past and over; it is a pre-­ story whose events are outside of the film’s narrative time and space. However, the film injects it into its main narrative(s), and it becomes a fluid line of permeant connection, disconnection, and reconnection in relation to the other storylines in the film. It establishes a connection with other romantic relationships in the film, temporarily disconnects Khaled from the filmic world, and gives him an extra dimension as a character. Hadeer’s character also functions as a sort of overt commentary, mainly in the social sense in relation to women’s status in Egypt, which will be discussed later. In effect, the overall narrational style in Microphone, and specifically the Hadeer-storyline, tries to engage the spectator actively in what he perceives. The nonlinear representation of the events along with the rapid editing and the various storylines create an urge in the spectator to take part in the construction of the fabula. It also puts him in a permanent state of questioning: How is the story being told? Why tell the story in this way? In terms of narration, Microphone thus clearly belongs to the realm of art film, and this is underlined by the self-reflexivity introduced in the storyline of Magdy and Salma, a storyline of a film within a film through which film as medium is being discussed.

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Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality Microphone’s cinematographer Tarek Hefny shot the film with a Canon EOS 7D (originally intended as a still photography camera) in Full HD 1080p at 24 frames per second. This is the first time ever that an entire feature film was shot with this camera. Released in 2009, the Canon EOS 7D offered an alternative to other digital cinema cameras, especially for low-budget productions. According to Abdallah, the Canon 7D is the closest to a 35-mm film stock camera (Taha 2013). In terms of innovation and experimentation, Microphone entered film history as the first feature film shot with a digital still photography camera. In recent years, a heated debate about digital cinematography has raged. A number of filmmakers criticize and even attack the use of digital cameras in cinema with the claim that it robs cinema of its esthetic dimension. As director Quentin Tarantino states: “As far as I’m concerned, digital projection is the death of cinema” (Smith 2014). In contrast, Michael Mann replies to the massive criticism he faced after the release of his 2009 Public Enemies (a 1930s’ period gangster film shot with a digital camera): Digital makes things feel more real, like you could reach out and touch them [actors] […]You get great depth-of-field, we got very close with the lenses, and you don’t have that fuzzy lack of focus at night. That was why we went digital. I thought I was gonna shoot on film and I did these tests side-by-­ side. I came away from the tests—we just brought a Sony F23 camera out there to look at it, to be diligent—and I looked at them, and that [celluloid] looked like a period film, and this [digital] looked like what it was like to be alive in 1933. In the end it made total sense: video looks like reality, it’s more immediate, it has a vérité surface to it. Film has this liquid kind of surface, feels like something made up. (Patterson 2009)

The debate revives the old question about film as an art form in relation to the representation of reality in film. It is, however, not the aim of this section to launch a discussion about this subject. Instead, I will focus on Mann’s first argument: that digital cinema adds a heightened sense of realism to the medium in terms of the image. High-definition photography/cinematography is able to capture more details of what it records, it delivers an intensified deep focus/depth of field especially in dark settings, and most importantly it creates a mode of realism on the level of perception.

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As a documentary about Alexandria’s underground scene that developed into a fiction film, Microphone has an air of Cinéma vérité about it. The different narrative spheres (as shown before) are marked by a blurring of the line between documentary and fiction. The term Cinéma vérité, also known as Direct Cinema or Truthful Cinema, first appeared during the 1960s in France in relation to the work of Jean Rouch, specifically his 1961s’ Chronique d’un Ete, (Chronicles of Summer). In Cinema vérité, Stephen Mamber (1976) argues, [t]he essential element […] is the act of filming real people in uncontrolled situations. Uncontrolled means that the filmmaker does not function as a “director” nor, for that matter, as a screenwriter. In a cinema-vérité film, no one is told what to say or how to act. A prepared script, however skimpy, is not permissible, nor are verbal suggestions, gestures, or any form of direct communication from the filmmaker to his subject. The filmmaker should in no way indicate that any action is preferred by him over any other. The filmmaker acts as an observer, attempting not to alter the situations he witnesses any more than he must simply by being there (along with, usually, another person recording sound). Cinema vérité has a faith in the spontaneous; the unwillingness to assert control goes so far as to refuse to recreate events, to have people repeat actions for the sake of being filmed. (1976)

However, this is only the strictest definition or description of Cinema vérité. Many documentaries and even feature films employ a looser Cinema vérité esthetics, like hand-held camera, actors’ improvisation, and on the spot script. Microphone uses some of these techniques, yet most of all it shares the spirit of Cinéma vérité. This is seen through the use of direct interviews which interrupt the fictional narrative strand and do not conceal the relationship between the camera and its subject. Moreover, presenting real-life actors in their natural environment is also one characteristic of this style. However, my arguments do not approach Microphone as being entirely Cinéma vérité. Rather, the following reading is concerned with how the film makes use of cinematic language which includes and borrows from various styles in representing its subject matter, Cinéma vérité being one of them. It focuses on the question which cinematic devices are used and how the film employs them in relation to its representation of reality.

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“For a Woman It Is” (00:27:54–00:30:42) This part of the film shows Salma and Magdy’s engagement with a number of artists they interview for their film project. At one point the spectator is introduced to the female Metal band Mascara (00:25:00). The band is at the “National Centre” trying to negotiate with Saleh, the director, about playing in the center’s upcoming concert. Earlier in the film, Khaled and his colleague Hany go to visit Saleh to discuss a project planned by their NGO “Gudran.” During this visit, they meet the hip-hop Band Y-Crew at Saleh’s office, who are also trying to convince Saleh to take them on for the concert. Saleh refuses because of the explicit lyrics of their song, “this is the NATIONAL center, we cannot sponsor such language” (00:07:16). Mascara are confronted with the same mentality when Saleh refuses to include them because they do not sing in Arabic, “this place is called the National centre. The art I support has to speak our nation’s language” (00:24:50). The band’s front woman tries to change his mind, pleading for some diversity and that one song in English would not be a problem. She also complains that the band has been rejected twice already. Saleh refuses and tells the band that in order to prove that the national center is a democratic institution, he would include them in the concert if they played a song in Arabic. The front woman asks him if they could wear masks while playing. Mascara was a real band whose female members hid their faces due to their families’ lack of acceptance for the profession (Taha 2013). At Saleh’s office, the film hides the front woman’s face. Her identity is anonymized by a table lamp. In the following scene (00:25:31), the band has an argument with Salma and Magdy when Magdy gets out his camera and films the band. Here the anonymized shot at Saleh’s office is justified. The band argues with Salma and Magdy about filming them (Fig. 4.4): Band: Magdy, we don’t want any trouble … Put yourself in our shoes Salma: But you played in many concerts, even abroad. Band: Listen Salma, her parents don’t even know she plays music, and we manage to hide her every concert. (Abdallah 00:25:31–00:26:59)

Later on, in the studio, a member of the band Massar Igbary talks to the band and learns about their meeting with Saleh. He suggests that they play a song with Arabic lyrics written by one of Mascara’s members:

Fig. 4.4  Mascara’s front woman anonymized. Upper left, the camera takes the position of the front woman. The camera shows three characters in one shot: two of the band members from the back and Saleh in the middle. The front woman’s face is shown partially, yet her identity remains unrecognizable (00:24:50). Upper right, crosscut: the band with a concealed identity through depth of field and depth of focus (00:29:35). Crosscutting: middle left, Hadeer and Khaled (00:30:35). Middle right, here the camera should take the position of Saleh and the front woman’s face is concealed by the lamp. Bottom, Saleh occupying the frame; rejecting the band to play in the event of the center

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“Aba’ad Makan” (“The Furthest Place”). Now Magdy and Salma arrive at the studio determined to film the band, yet they decide to shoot using only candlelight so that the band members’ identities will not be revealed. Mascara play the song “Aba’ad Makan” (00:27:54–00:30:42), and the film’s perspective on the performance switches between Magdy and Salma’s camera and Hefny’s camera. The scene contains both “professional” shots of the whole studio: the band playing with Magdy and Salma visible while shooting the band on the one hand, and Magdy and Salma’s more amateurish shots of the band which are less steady and in a more straightforward documentary style on the other. Moreover, the film uses the song as background to one of the Khaled and Hadeer fragments, leading to what could be seen as both an esthetics of the music video and a commentary on women’s conditions in Egypt. To return to the scene in Saleh’s office where the film hides the front woman’s face, it is striking how the film implements similar camouflage tactics. As Microphone employs real-life characters, the film deals with the singer’s condition of anonymity in a straightforward fashion. Here the film uses a device borrowed from the documentary genre in which it is acceptable to simply hide a person’s identity. In regular documentaries, those who appear on the screen are not fictional characters but rather real-­ life persons. To protect them, it can become a necessity to anonymize them visually and sonically. Some documentaries use back-shots, dark settings, even blurred faces, and synchronized voices. Microphone deals with what might appear to be a problem in a feature film: hiding an “actor’s” identity in a straightforward manner. The film simply makes this situation explicit. Instead of letting another band member speak, or employing an over-shoulder shot showing Saleh, the scene composition is set up mainly through shot-reverse-shots: The singer is shown in a medium shot with the table lamp hiding her face. However, the camera changes its position to a wider shot showing the three members from the back facing Saleh with the front woman’s face partially shown. Composing the scene from only these two shots—Saleh’s face in a medium shot and the four characters as described above—would have been sufficient to solve the problem of anonymity without drawing attention to it. Yet the film is not concerned with concealing what needs to be concealed, rather it makes a point of revealing this deliberate concealment visually. For this, the film uses intradiegetic props from the setting (the table lamp) to express the fact that this woman cannot appear on screen with her identity fully disclosed. Moreover, the shot reverse shot is

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done in an unorthodox fashion. Normally, this combination of shots takes the position and shares the visual point of view of one character facing the other. When the camera “shows” the front woman’s hidden face, the lens is located next to Saleh with a change of angle violating the eyeline match. Eyeline match means that the gaze of the character in one shot has to be followed by a shot of the person or object look at before (Pramaggiore and Wallis 2005). This scene in Microphone fulfills various aims. The first is a fusion of fiction and reality. The situation shown in this scene belongs to the fictional realm of the film with its intrinsic narrative, while the representation of the three band members derives from their real-life conditions. The band members, especially the front woman, cannot appear on screen due to their social situation. The film does not seek a visual compromise in concealing its means of production; it employs a documentary style (concealed identity) instead and integrates it with the fictional strand of the film by exactly using an intradiegetic object: the table lamp. Secondly, the film sheds light on a social dimension of Egypt in relation to women’s lives and their position in society. Judging from her appearance and her speech, the band’s singer, even though her face is never shown, belongs to an upper-middle-class family. As opposed to many Western readings of the Egyptian social landscape which consider the upper-middle-class as automatically “liberal” and Western-oriented in terms of lifestyle, this social class contains a multitude of different attitudes. An upper-middle-class family in Egypt can be religiously conservative, even a Salafi family. It can also be, and this is fairly common, traditionally conservative, meaning not explicitly religious at least in terms of appearance. A conservative upper-middle-class family in Egypt follows a strict role allocation between males and females. A daughter of such a family still does not enjoy the liberties a male member does. A woman who belongs to this social class enjoys more freedom compared to others from the “lower” classes, but in terms of social concepts such as honor, reputation, and social image, there are no decisive differences. In the case of Mascara’s singer, it is not acceptable for her to make music, especially Metal, or practice any kind of unusual, nontraditional lifestyle with negative connotations in Egypt; it implies emancipation (‫)حترر‬ as well as immoral and shameful behavior, thus harming the family’s reputation. Accordingly, the band deals with this condition by wearing masks, and thus, the name Mascara: While denoting a cosmetic substance used to color the eyelashes and brows—a context strongly evoked by a masked

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all-woman band—it etymologically stems from Spanish mascara “a stain, a mask” and from the same source as Italian maschera “mask” (Oxford Dictionary 2010). Accordingly, Microphone circumvents the singer’s condition by creating a visually artificial situation. In other words, the film adopts the same strategy of masquerade that the band uses in order to protect their identity, while at the same time giving them a voice. This is repeated once more in the studio scene where Magdy and Salma film the band by low-key candlelight (00:28:12). Again, the band’s identities are protected and at the same time are given a voice through their music. Moreover, the straightforward identity concealment is now replaced by esthetic devices: an atmospheric low-key light, depth of field and depth of focus.3 Here, the spectator sees the band through the cameras of Magdy and Salma as well as through the Hefny’s camera which in turn shows the shooting process of the two young filmmakers, thereby allowing for a meta-level of filmmaking. The film’s camera, the Canon EOS 7D, allows videographers to capture images in the lowest of light situations with a powerful depth of field (Taha 2013). The film employs the song “The Furthest Place” as a kind of internal soundtrack. While not being diegetic sound, it is motivated by the syuzhet of intertwining the different narratives via crosscutting scenes from both plot strands. While the song starts playing in the studio, the film cuts to Khaled doing crosswords in his kitchen, writing down the word “Hadeer” in response to the cue “the sound of powerfully flowing water” (00:29:16). The film switches again to the band in the studio, then to Khaled and Hadeer in the seaside restaurant. The song ends with Khaled sitting alone on a cliff drinking from his flask. Thus, the song lyrics and their water imagery become one of the two motivations for the syuzhet. Through the overt artificiality of this sequence and its metalevel in the embedded documentary plot and techniques, Microphone offers an insight into the process of filmmaking, or more specifically the process of independent and low-­ budget filmmaking in Egypt. Furthermore, this sequence among others throughout the film is all about the nature of film as a medium. It serves as a powerful reminder that what is being seen is a film. 3  Depth of Field refers to the appearance of relative image sharpness in the objects in the scene toward which the lens is pointed. Contrarily, Depth of Focus refers to characteristics of the projected image inside the camera at the location of the film or digital sensor (Pentland 1987).

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The other point of connection that intertwines the two fabulae of the meta-documentary and the fictional Khaled-Hadeer story into Microphone’s syuzhet is the social commentary on the position of women in Egypt’s society inherent to Mascara’s story and voiced by Hadeer in the parallel scene. With Khaled and Hadeer in the restaurant, the song still plays in the background as they talk, though it is not present within the scene as diegetic sound. Hadeer tells Khaled that she does not want him to leave feeling angered or disappointed, to which he answers that he was prepared to feel disappointed but never imagined that it would be the last time he sees her: Hadeer: I am tired … I really can’t take it anymore … The day I locked the car door as soon as I got in, I knew I couldn’t live in this country anymore. Khaled: Why lock it? You think someone will just hop in while you are driving? Hadeer: Yes, it actually happened. Khaled: Listen, I just got back, but I don’t think that things are as bad as you are saying. Hadeer: Maybe, for a man it is not, but for a woman it certainly is. (00:29:53–00:30:35)

This dialogue establishes the conceptual connection with the situation of the female band. While the band members suffer from social oppression mainly imposed by the family structures in Egypt, Hadeer’s story of the intruder in her car hints at another aspect of oppression: sexual harassment. In recent years, the problem of sexual harassment in Egypt has become a grave issue. According to a report released in 2013 by the UNFPA Egypt, “the country ranks second in the world after Afghanistan in terms of this issue” (2013). Furthermore, the research “Study on Ways and Methods to Eliminate Sexual Harassment in Egypt” carried out by UN Women in 2013 revealed that over 99.3 % of Egyptian girls and women surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime. According to the same study 82.6 percent of the total female respondents did not feel safe or secure in the street. The percentage increased to 86.5 percent with regard to safety and security in public transportation. (2013)

In addition, the problem of sexual harassment in Egypt is marked by group harassment in which a large number of males, mostly under 20 years of age, attack women in open streets and harass them, leaving their victims

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physically injured, not to speak of the psychological damage that results from these experiences. One of the first known incidents of this kind occurred in 2006 in downtown Cairo. On the first day of the Fetr Feast, over fifty young males attacked two young women in one of the most crowded streets in downtown Cairo under the eyes of police patrol who did not interfere at all (albawaba.com). Since then, observers and NGOs speak of a plague which increasingly takes various shapes and methods. By the time of writing these lines in 2020, it is fairly common in Egypt that a woman is harassed in her car, on the street, in public transportation, and in fact in every public space. Accordingly, Khaled’s naïve and optimistic attitude concerning life in Egypt is confronted with Hadeer’s sober and even painful reality of living in a country where she as a human being and especially as a woman is violated and unsafe. Hadeer closes this fragment by directly telling Khaled that “things” are actually that bad, especially for a woman. This statement strongly emphasizes the syuzhet’s double structure by overtly voicing the shared concern of both narrative layers. The film places the fictional fragment parallel to Mascara’s song, thereby opening an interplay between the two spheres: the semi-documentary and the fictional. One complements the other. Both comment on one another. Firstly, the masked female band oppressed by a social structure (the family) and by the state apparatus (Saleh’s National Centre). Secondly, Hadeer, a woman on her way to breaking loose from the same structures of control which lead to being “a certified copy” (00:35:53) of everybody else, “living other people’s choices” (00:35:46). Hadeer is oppressed by a male-dominated misogynist culture in which she feels that she does not share a common ground with anyone, and, as she tells Khaled later in the film, a culture in which people watch a film telling the story of a man manipulating three sisters and getting sexually involved with them as a comedy (00:35:16).4 It is this same culture which led 99.3% of Egyptian women to be a victim of sexual harassment. In sum, the cinematic language employed in Microphone creates an open landscape in which thoughts, individuals, situations, and styles connect and interact with one another. The nonlinearity of the narration with its movements in both time and space along with the stylistic fusions let the film function horizontally: as a flat surface with no beginning or end. In other words, Microphone can be read as a rhizome: a-centered, 4

 Yousry Nasrallah’s Ehky ya Shahrazad (2009).

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­ on­linear, and nonvertical. Even though Khaled could be seen as the main n “protagonist,” the film is not centered on him. Instead, Khaled is a line which moves and connects with other lines out of which new lines come into being. Rebellion Microphone was shot in 2010, a year of huge discontent in Egypt and the last year of Mubarak’s rule. As discussed in Chap. 2, the year 2010 witnessed various events which led to the eruption of the Revolution on January 25, 2011. Among these events were the forgery of the parliamentary elections and the murder of Khaled Said, an Alexandrian young man, by two police officers. These two events are reflected in Microphone. Thus, on the level of content, the film mirrors the feelings of discontent, disappointment, desperation, and anger which were dominant among most Egyptians at the time. The film also hints at various social problems as well, such as, especially, sexual harassment and the condition of women in society. Moreover, as a film about the “independent” art scene in Alexandria, Microphone sheds light on the struggle of creating new spaces of artistic expression away from the dominant structures and styles which control the artistic space. On the one hand, the film picks Alexandria as an alternative space of creativity, and thus tackles the notion of the Egyptian central state where Cairo is the one and only space for every aspect of life; in this case for art. On the other hand, Microphone depicts the attempts to create a process of artistic deterritorialization for young independent artists who aim at opening a new space for their art away from the dominant market, and who struggle with the state as a machine of control (the National Centre). Accordingly, on the level of perception, as the film was only shown after the eruption of the revolution and the toppling of Mubarak, it captured a very topical moment. The film also paved the way for and enhanced the perception of a then new wave of independent artists: musicians, graffiti artists, and filmmakers who used the new spaces created by the socio-political upheaval during the revolution. On the level of form and style, the film is the first in Egypt to employ real-life characters on this scale. It is also the first to undertake a stylistic fusion which combines documentary and fiction. In terms of narration, Microphone can be seen as an initiator of nonlinear and multilayered narratives in Egyptian cinema, a mode which had only been anticipated in

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Yussef Chahin’s autobiographical films. Unlike Chahin’s work, however, which still had a specific audience and a very exclusive mode of perception, Microphone makes this style of narration more accessible for the audience. In this sense, the notion of rebellion is evident on all levels: the levels of production and perception, and the levels of content and form/style. Project Ceen: Project Tahmeer (01:11:54–01:13:13) This scene belongs to the narrative strand of Magdy and Salma’s project in which Magdy films the hip-hop group Y-Crew. The previous scene shows Yassin, the skateboarding child, handing Khaled’s headphones to his colleagues in the office. The film cuts to Boflot, a member of Y-Crew jamming with another rapper. Here, the spectator moves again into the semi-documentary line represented by Magdy and Salma’s project of shooting a film about the underground Alexandrian artists. There is no connection whatsoever with the previous scene. Instead, the film once again delivers a scene that mainly works as overt commentary. The two rappers perform a track called “Project Ceen,” which is translated in the subtitle as “Project X.” Ceen ‫ س‬is an Arabic letter which is equivalent to the letter S. The use of the letter ‫ س‬in this context is equivalent to the use of the letter X, when referring to someone or something without naming him/it. The lyrics of the track as translated in the subtitles are (Fig. 4.5): Project [Ceen]5 They are all against me. But I am not alone. You’re not gonna get away with it. Take it as a challenge. There ain’t no peaceful solution, not one that’s fair for me. This is what I’ve got. Hear what I say: [People and People] They lost their sensation, they locked their brains. Those around us are running ahead, but [in our] state, we’re crawling. Our music is gonna change you. Our politics is part of you. You may not like it ‘cause you hate the truth, but I’m not here to give you advice. I’m trying to wake you up [because you fell asleep]. Conferences, governments … Exploiting the people with their laws Project X [Ceen], Project [el Tahmeer] will turn you into donkeys, It’s a project for progress. 5  In many cases, the film’s subtitle is poorly translated. Thus, I employed my own translation to reveal the right meaning, especially in the case of this song.

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Fig. 4.5  Up, Y-Crew performing. Bottom left and bottom right, real footage of the demonstration against Khaled Said’s murder in Alexandria Dictator! [security measures] to protect the statesmen. Demonstrations! Objections! Who lives in the slums? The majority. Who rules? A capitalist minority. Conferences, governments […] Project [Ceen] Project [el Tahmeer].

The lyrics address the Egypt’s political situation in 2010. They are straightforward and accessible except for the allusion of the phrase ­“Project

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Ceen, Project Tahmeer.” The word “Tahmeer” is the verbal of Homar which means donkey. In the Egyptian idiom, calling someone a donkey is an insult: A donkey stands for someone who is stupid and ignorant. The word “Tahmeer” also is an allusion to the word “Tawreeth” meaning “bequeathment.” This refers to Mubarak’s project of bequeathing power to his son, which was called Mashrou’a al Twreeth and propagated as a progressive step toward a better future. The track’s “Project X” or “el Tahmeer” turns people into fools, exploits them, and extends the reach of social, political, and economic oppression. In this sense, the track refers to Gamal Mubarak’s succession of his father in particular and the overall situation in general. It addresses poverty and social injustice (“Who lives in the slums? The majority. Who rules? A capitalist minority.”) as well as oppression (“Dictator! [security measures] to protect the statesmen.”) and sends a clear message from the artist about violent change: “There ain’t no peaceful solution, not one that’s fair for me.” The footage of the mass demonstration in Alexandria after the murder of Khaled Said goes with the lines: Dictator! [security measures] to protect the statesmen. Demonstrations! Objections!

As mentioned in Egypt 2011, the murder of Khaled Said was one of the factors to spur the revolution in January 2011, and Said became an icon of the revolution. The mass demonstrations it ignited are generally considered as a dress rehearsal for the uprising Egypt was about to witness. In addition, the film manages to capture the overall feeling of discontent, disorientation, frustration, and even anger in pre-2011 Egypt. The lyrics of this track are by no means uniquely subversive, and both the theme and the wording can be found in many other Egyptian songs. What lends this text as special power is its pairing with the visual images of the film on the one hand and its position among the other songs in the film on the other. The fact that Microphone was only screened after the toppling of Mubarak increases its impact. Through watching the film as a whole, and this track in particular, a striking sense of topicality is evoked, as if the film was actually shot after the eruption of the revolution, not before. When the rappers utter the line “There is no peaceful solution,” the spectator is led to revisit the past four years until this very moment. Questions might be raised about the false notion of the peaceful revolution, the ways and the tools of

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social, political, and economic change, and also the question of mutation and creativity. The music’s effect is heightened as the scene does not contain any additional narrative situation whatsoever. Magdy films the two rappers; the camera then switches to Khaled walking in the streets, Hamota holding a glass container with a small fish inside, and then back to the two rappers and Magdy. After this, the film inserts real footage of protests in both Cairo and Alexandria (one of which shows the significant demonstration against Khaled Said’s murder in Alexandria). Finally, Khaled is shown sitting on a stony beach drinking. All these images are shown with the rap track running on in the background. The cinematic act of rebellion that matches the political lyrics is an esthetic one: Microphone’s treatment and representation of time undercuts traditional notions of linearity and causality. Through the multiple narrational and nonnarrational spheres and the fusion of various cinematic devices, the overall mode of the film moves into the realm of the time-­ image. The characters in Microphone do not act upon or react to what they perceive, and action is not the driving force in the film. The line containing Khaled’s work and his interaction with the other characters could be described as the most linear in the film. However, Khaled himself is sliding from one situation to the next and is by no means tied to a narrative teleology, or simply any goal-oriented action or movement. Furthermore, within his line of narration, his fractured time with Hadeer is intertwined with his present, and thus Hadeer enters into the present, and actually, is in herself the present. Also, the various songs and tracks in the film, with most of them commenting on Khaled, are positioned apart from real time of the filmic world as a continuum, thus creating a sense of “spatialized time.” Not only this, as in the scene which plays the song “Zar”6 by the band Sout fi el Zahma (Voice in the Crowd) (00:39:27), the film departs completely from any trace of causality, action, or chronology. The film employs a time-lapse sequence depicting the movement of the people during a Friday prayer, which a technique that undermines the relationship between time and movement: here, it is not time that follows and is defined by movement, rather, movement becomes temporalized in the image. 6  A Zar is an old Egyptian exorcism practice. In a Zar, the person haunted by a demon stands in a middle of a group playing different kinds of drums and chanting. The haunted person starts to dance with the players and the dance develops into erratic movements.

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Consequently, Microphone does not employ an understanding of time as linear and continuous, with a possibility for successfully representing past, present, and future by a film in which the images refer to one another in a linear and causal order. In short: the film is not arranged chronologically. It does not isolate the image for the purpose of action. Instead, it lets the image orient itself toward memory: “the virtual potential of the past.” This is evident in the plot line of Khaled and Hadeer, but also in the sequence of “Project X,” precisely through the real footage of the protests. However, the political context as represented in the lyrics cannot be separated from the esthetic aspect of representing time. First, all these images shown do not refer to one another at all; they do not construct a linearity or a narrative causality. Furthermore, the images of Khaled and Hamota are outside the narrational time. It is not even clear whether Khaled and Hamota are shown within the same temporal range. The protest footage is imported from beyond the story world of the film and is not related to the characters in the sequence. The only established relation here is between the track and the protest footage, while the images of Khaled and Hamota could be read as a visual extension of discontent as presented in the track. This scene can be read as an example for the representation of time in Microphone as a whole. Time emerges as a line of deterritorialization in terms of cinema. In What is Philosophy? Deleuze argues that the task of philosophy is to create new concepts (1994). The same goes for cinema: “film has the potential to create its own fluid movements and temporalities” (Herzog 2000). Thus, the notion of perception becomes an act of permanent creation. In the words of Dorothea Olkowski who argues that through the time-image, “every perception becomes an act of creation in which the perception opens as many circuits as there are memory images attracted by this new perception, making of every perception a qualitative multiplicity” (1999). This is exactly what takes place in this scene when the documentary footage is paired with the track “Project X.” For if we go back to the concept of memory as a virtual potential of the past that is no longer separated from present and future, one has to consider Microphone’s political context as a potential anticipation of political unrest in Egypt’s present and future. In the historical past of the 2107 spectator, but in the film’s recent present and close future is the image of Khaled Said, the memory of his murder, the protest against the regime, the 2011 uprising, and the toppling of Mubarak. And in the real Egypt of 2017, there are other “Khaled Saids,” a new dictator, the impossibility of achieving change

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by the means employed in 2011, and the same sense of frustration and discontent. The filmic past potential became actualized in the spectator’s present. For Deleuze, this power of cinema is like philosophy: It takes its active force when it invokes the more fundamental movement of the impersonal form of time and eternal recurrence (Rodwick 1997). To sum up in relation to the concept of counterculture: If counterculture is about enforcing and empowering the virtual as opposed to the actual, and if film is seen as an observational machine, Microphone with its time-image characteristics works as an assemblage in which perception is an active force of creation and mutation. This assemblage is evident in the content of the film, as well as in its form and structure. There are bodies, actions, and passions on the one hand, and enunciation, acts, and statements of incorporeal transformations attributed to these bodies on the other. In terms of content, the artists and later on Khaled are depicted in their repeated attempts to draw lines of flight, trying to create spaces apart from the capture-machine of the state represented in the National Centre and in the general cultural industry in Egypt. Within this assemblage, there are smaller assemblages which also try to break away from social and economic structures of control, such as family, tradition, religion, and gender. In terms of form/structure, these small assemblages with their fractured and brief stories and situations are portrayed as lines which interact, sometimes in terms of narration, but most of the times in terms of expression. In Microphone, time is open and not motivated by movement. The film ends with a severe disappointment when this assemblage fails to occupy a public space to stage a concert. This realistic ending is neither pessimistic, nor is it a sort of a revolutionary call. Instead, it illustrates a rhizome forming anew, an assemblage which might enter a larger one. Khaled and the artists end up on the shore together, finally united in one frame. The film does not offer a happy end, but neither does it end as it began with showing its characters isolated in their separate strands. On a metaphorical level, however, the concrete boulders, wave breakers and part of Alexandria’s sea wall, represent the rock on which the characters’ dreams and aims break, and also, the state of fixity they arrived at. Until Khaled’s and the artists’ failure to occupy the public space for their concert, the rhizome was in constant movement, now it came to a halt. The visual representation with the concrete boulders reveals this break on the structural level: The rhizomatic smooth movement has stopped; the rhizome

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broke and reached a state of fixity. The film closes with the song “I Don’t Want Anything Anymore”: I don’t want anything anymore, nor do I need anything even if I actually wanted something you didn’t leave me anything I don’t fear anything, nor do I have any connections Suppose I say anything, What could ever happen? Nothing!”. (Massar Igbary)

Obviously, these words reveal a great deal of desperation and frustration. The song also sums up the notion of closed spaces and indicates the impossibility of change from within. However, I would argue that this closing note is not about winning or losing, hope or despair, but rather about having nothing to lose; the voice in the song admits that nothing could ever be changed by saying anything, yet this line is preceded by the statement of fearing nothing, wanting nothing, and being left with nothing. Carrying this observation over to reading this song in relation to the visual representation (the group of artists altogether on the stony beach, Hamota releasing the small fish into the sea and Magdy having closure, or more of a tentative reconciliation with Salma after their failed romance, while continuing the film project alone) leads to the conclusion that only action and not words could make a difference. By connecting the lines in Microphone, it is evident that what seem to be various, separate disappointments is in fact an ongoing struggle resulting mostly in new forms of creativity and mutation. Furthermore, connecting the last song in the film with Boflot’s “Project X” from a 2017 point of view, it is striking to see how Microphone captured the reality of this moment in Egypt’s history. In “Project X,” the voice clearly states that there can be no peaceful change and names the police as the main enemy accompanied by documentary footage as discussed above. The attempt to stage a concert in a public space fails for two reasons. The first is that some conservative Salafist groups object to having the concert in this venue because there is a mosque nearby. Khaled and the artists engage in a heated discussion with this group trying to convince them otherwise (01:52:35). The second reason: as this heated discussion takes place, a police car arrives, and the officer asks about the stage and the

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equipment. When he learns about the concert, he orders the soldiers to remove the stage and clear the place. What happens here is art as a social practice seeking new spaces, but it ends up being caught between the hammer and the anvil: the state apparatus as represented by the police, and the religious right as represented by the Muslim Brothers/the Salafists. The film illustrates this idea visually: In a high-angle shot, the camera shows Khaled and the artists positioned between the police and the Salafists (01:54:06). When the soldiers approach, the whole situation is over and the artists can only start to pack up their equipment. Here, the film highlights a very important aspect, namely the duality of power in the Egyptian social landscape: the state and the Islamists. It clearly shows Mubarak’s political agenda of having a conditioned alliance with the religious right. The Mubarak regime exerted political oppression against the so-called political Islam on the one hand, while allowing the Muslim Brotherhood and especially the Salafists to occupy certain social spaces, such as Mosques, private media outlets, charity, health care, and above all, the monopoly of religious thought and practice. In this fashion, the regime used political Islam to withdraw any open space from secular movements. Consequently, Mubarak was able to weaken the existence of the secular and leftist opposition, while at the same time, on the level of foreign policy, playing the card of the political Islam as the only alternative to his own rule. Accordingly, Microphone makes it very clear that any struggle for social change does not only have to face the state apparatus. Instead, it has to pay attention to the whole social structure including middle-class conservatism and especially the religious right. The concert scene stresses the idea of a delayed, yet necessary conflict with political Islam. Once more, looking at it from the perspective of the post-Mubarak era, this is exactly what took place: an alliance between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood that allowed the latter to capture secular and leftist projects and to turn the post-Mubarak era into a question of identity. As a result, the main conflict emerged between the military as representatives of the state and political Islam, leaving the revolution a total failure and with closed spaces (Fig. 4.6). The last song “I Don’t Want Anything Anymore” speaks of shut channels and of having nothing to lose, which results in not fearing anything anymore. The most prominent analysis in all media outlets, studies, and among Egyptians right after January 25, 2011, was that Egyptians broke the barrier of fear. This is exactly what took place on January 25, 2011, and beyond. The war-machine assemblage encountered war with the state,

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Fig. 4.6  Top, Hamota releases his fish (01:56:59). Middle, Salma hands Magdy the tapes of their unfinished project, it is also their breakup (01:55:53). Bottom, high-angle shot: Khaled and the artist are caught in the middle between the police and the Salafists (01:54:06)

and the security forces were defeated with a huge number of casualties and injuries. Ironically, the very day Microphone was planned to be screened in the cinemas turned out to be the day almost all of the film’s crew participated in the uprising. They, later on, were able to create an artistic space for themselves: rappers, rockers, graffiti artists, and independent filmmakers including Ahmad Abdallah himself, who went on to become a renowned director both in Egypt and internationally.

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Ahmad Abdallah’s Rags and Tatters (2013) Narration: Running Scared—The First Sequence (00:00:47–00:10:00) Ahmad Abdallah’s third film, Rags and Tatters, sets out to tell the story— or at least one version of it—of the untold, the repressed, and the forgotten subjects of the Egyptian Revolution. By choosing to depict the journey of an escaped convict through a dystopian Cairo during the upheavals of the first days of the Revolution, Rags and Tatters posits itself as an “other,” a counter narrative to the “main” narrative of events during the infamous eighteen days that lead to Mubarak’s fall on February 11, 2011. The events of the film take place between January 28, 2011, and approximately February 6, 2011. The unnamed convict, played by Asser Yassin, is one of the victims of the sudden opening of prisons by the police that took place on January 28, 2011 (Fig. 4.7). Fig. 4.7  Top, the real footage from Al Qatta Jail (00:00:47). Bottom, The Protagonist with his injured companion in the hut (00:05:43)

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Rags and Tatters opens with the following statement: “In January 2011, Egyptians rose up against the regime. The state apparatus collapsed, and the army seized power. Thousands have been arrested. For an unknown reason, prisons have been opened” (Abdallah 00:00:46).7 The first scene shows some cell phone video footage recorded by one of the prisoners on January 28, the so-called Friday of Wrath, in which two prisoners are shot and injured. In the background, screams and gunshots can be heard. This footage is not played in its entirety. The film then cuts to its title: Rags and Tatters. Opening the film with this footage establishes a kind of overt narrational commentary, and together with the initial statement, the spectator is given a cue about what the story is about. This piece of footage is one of many that show the opening of the prisons in the evening of January 28, 2011, and which all went viral on YouTube during the now-infamous eighteen days of the revolution. Whereas this footage, along with the prisoners’ testimonies, clearly demonstrates the police’s involvement in these acts, the regime deployed a narrative wherein the “jailbreaks” were attributed to Hamas and Hezbollah—as part of their supposed plan to precipitate Egypt into mayhem. State television broadcasting further reinforced this strategy of deliberately instilling fear and a sense of insecurity among the population: After the withdrawal of the police from the public spaces in Egypt, the state media focused on addressing those who did not participate in the protests, calling upon them to protect their homes, streets, and businesses against the so-called “criminals, thugs and escaped prisoners filling the streets of Egypt.” The state had already prepared a counterattack in order to deal with the war-machine assemblage that had emerged on January 28, 2011. The opening of the prisons was part of the regime’s overall tactics of facing the revolution. In accordance with the principle of “divide and conquer,” the government aimed at sowing mistrust among the people. By insinuating the threat of a foreign conspiracy, the regime tried to create two “camps”: the good Egyptian patriots and the foreign-­ sponsored traitors. Located somewhere in between a third entity figured: the so-called thugs, a stereotype which took on two shapes—those who threatened the “good citizens” and those who attacked the protesters on February 2–3, 2011, on Tahrir Square. The “escaped” prisoners belonged to the former category, those who threatened the “good citizens.” In

7

 All the film’s dialogue is translated by the author.

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invoking this narrative, the state issued a subliminal license to kill these human beings. By showing this footage at the very beginning, Rags and Tatters emphasizes the reality of these historical events and insists on giving these human beings a face. Furthermore, by presenting this specific footage of the two prisoners lying on the ground, injured, apparently dying, and crying out for help, the film clearly positions itself within the narrative of the protesters. In terms of events, the transition from the documentary footage to the first “proper” scene of the film is carried out by a black screen displaying the title of the film. However, Abdallah also establishes a visual continuity with the cell phone footage. The first scene is also shot by a cell phone camera with low-key lighting; the spectator sees shaky and blurred images of headlights and people running and screaming. Gunshots are audible, and it soon becomes obvious that these people are trying to escape from something; they are, in fact, running for their lives. The audience comes to see the unnamed protagonist, hiding from the shooting behind a rock near a highway. Shortly afterward, he is shot in the leg. The visual confusion continues, and then another character appears in the frame, shot in the stomach. The two characters enter a wooden hut where the protagonist tries to help the other with his wound. The dominant sounds of this first sequence are gunshots, unclear shouts, and the heavy breathing of the main character. Throughout the whole sequence, no spoken words are heard between the two, only their low unclear voices as they exchange two words. The communication of the two characters is mainly nonverbal, which is another clue to the representation of sound and the role (or rather absence) of dialogue in the film. In his Toronto Film Review in Variety, Jay Weissberg argues that Rags and Tatters’s “payoff comes in the combination of neorealist sensibilities with an almost phantasmagoric sense of a locale living in a vacuum” (Weissberg 2013). Furthermore, the spectator starts to perceive certain cues and information by which s*he can construct the fabula. The badly injured character hands an envelope to the main character who tries to return it, but the former refuses to take it back, signaling that he is dying and wants his companion to deliver this envelope. A further cue is given when the protagonist switches on the TV found in the hut. The channel coming on is Al Jazeera reporting on the escalating situation of the evening of January 28, 2011. The spoken words coming from the TV are the first coherent, clear words the spectator hears. The sequence ends with the protagonist

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exiting the hut after taking possession of the dying man’s cell phone and the envelope. For the first time, the spectator hears the voice of the main character; still pretty low in the sound design of the film, telling the dying man, “I will come back for you” (Abdallah 00:08:57). Discussing this first sequence and its connection to the opening cell phone footage is indeed crucial for any reading of the film. With the use of authentic documentary footage, Rags and Tatters employs a well-­ established cinematic technique already encountered in Microphone. In the case at hand, the amateur footage captured by a prisoner documents a crime committed by the police against the prisoners in one of the prisons outside Cairo, Al Qatta. In addition, the first events of the fictional plot are shot in the same fashion, that is, with a cell phone camera in an amateur manner: The images are shaky, unclear, and dark, as if shot by a scared, running person. This technique is supposed to create a sense of realness and realism on the one hand and adds a sense of artifice on the other. In the shots that are rendered in this amateur fashion, the film positions itself within the realm of citizen journalism which became, in the last four years, a major and oftentimes the most reliable source of all the events related to the Egyptian revolution. Starting from January 25, 2011, until this very day, the narrative of the revolution has been documented by activists and protesters from within the events, whether in a semi-professional manner (using a “proper” digital camera), or in a completely amateur one by using a cell phone camera. This footage, as opposed to professional news footage, shows what the latter could not depict. In his review of Rags and Tatters in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw states that the film “draws on the aesthetics and the rhetoric of YouTube and the mobile-phone videoclip, famously of course the medium in which people in a sense consumed and made sense of these events as they happened” (Bradshaw 2013). As far as the willful act of opening the prisons is concerned, the only footage/evidence that exists is what the prisoners were able to shoot with their cell phones. Abdallah employs a cell phone camera here to visually match the real footage shown at the very beginning of the film. This technique establishes a visual and affective continuity of action. It also fits this representation within what I call the visual characteristics of the revolution represented by citizen journalism. Another dimension of the use of this technique is its focus on the fates of the repressed and the forgotten. Among the many events and the tragedies of the Egyptian Revolution, the prison openings are considered both the saddest and the most unspoken of. The social reality in Egypt, as in many other countries, puts convicts

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and prisoners among other social groups at the very bottom of the pyramid. It is indeed true that the question of “human rights” in Egypt is most problematic, whether in the practices of the state, or in the understanding of many privileged social groups. However, the Revolution adopted Human Dignity as one of the four components of its slogan.8 The notion of “human rights” was and still is intensively addressed, especially since police brutality and systematic torture constituted the cause of the revolution. Nevertheless, the prison openings with their killings, missing prisoners, and systematic abuse remain the most repressed and deliberately forgotten topic of the revolution. Furthermore, the state media and the pro-state groups often argue that those prisoners who were killed and those missing should not be considered or counted among the “martyrs” of the revolution. This line of argumentation is in accord with the state narrative of thugs and criminals vs. the noble educated youth discussed earlier in Egypt 2011. By employing the characteristic features of amateur/documentary/citizen journalism, Rags and Tatters attempts to reinforce the notion of authenticity and reality by convincing the spectator that what he perceives and will perceive on the screen (even though represented in a “usual” visual fashion) did “in fact” happen. However, besides thematically addressing the medial reality of the revolution, this technique also creates a sense of artifice, as the use of a cell phone camera violates the filmic norms of the concealment of production as the basis for creating the illusion of filmic reality. Another aspect of this technique is the low-key lighting. Throughout the first sequence, the spectators can hardly even recognize the features of the two men. Here the mode of representation points to the repression of the topic of the prison openings and ironically mirrors the alleged insignificance of the prisoners and their dehumanization by society. The film depicts them as ghosts, black featureless shapes. The spectator realizes from the very beginning that he is watching a film. The first sequence invites the spectator to engage actively with what s*he sees, to ask himself: What is happening? Who are these people? Why is it represented like this? However, as of the second sequence, the film does not employ this technique again until the last scene. Consequently, both the first sequence and the last scene create a sort of extra narrative sphere: a film-within-a-film (this will be discussed in detail in the following section). It is only later on, the spectator comes to know that the main 8

 The full slogan was “Bread, Freedom, Human Dignity and Social Justice.” See Egypt 2011.

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character carries a video testimony of the events that took place back in prison, shot by the dying companion he left behind. In the second sequence (00:12:39), the main character briefly plays the video on the cell phone. The spectator does not see the mobile screen; one only hears the following words: “This is my testimony about what happens … I want people to see this” (Abdallah 00:12:40). The Odyssey Begins (00:08:50–00:14:20) The second sequence begins with the main character leaving the hut at dawn after the shooting has stopped. He finds other prisoners rushing toward a truck on the road, begging the driver to give them a ride. He joins them and mounts the truck with the other prisoners. During the ride, the man sitting next to the protagonist is arbitrarily shot from a police car approaching from the opposite direction. For the second time, the film thus adopts the narrative of the revolution: the police killing the prisoners. As a result of the shooting on board, the driver forces the prisoners to leave the truck. The protagonist finds a mawkaf, a microbus station, and takes a microbus to Cairo, using some of the money from the envelope he took from his dying companion back in the hut. Here the film refers to its title Rags and Tatters (Farsh w Ghata): When the main character settles down in the microbus, a cassette tape catches his eye. The protagonist picks it up, and the camera focuses on the cassette’s title that plays on the microbus’ stereo: Rags and Tatters, a Sufi music album by Berain and Al Agouz, two of the most famous mounshedeen, Sufi singers in Egypt. According to director Ahmed Abdallah, the film is named after this album for two reasons. On the one hand, he chose the title because of the meditative nature of this music genre. In Egypt, Sufi music is related to and listened to in an atmosphere of calm and meditation, away from “the earthly pressures” (Taha 2013). The second reason is that the meaning of these words in the Egyptian idiom, especially among the poor, refers to the notion of home, safety, and peace: A rag symbolizes a bed and a tatter a blanket. The Egyptians say, “I don’t expect from life more than a rag and a tatter,” or “thank God I have a rag and a tatter” (Taha 2013). It is a phrase used as a metaphor for satisfaction with what one has; in Sufi terminology, it is zuhd, asceticism. In relation to the main character, a convict and a fugitive, it is an allusion to his nightmarish odyssey in dystopian Cairo, hoping to find refuge, a bed, and a blanket. Furthermore, as will be discussed later, the Sufi practice of meditation is connected to the absence

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of dialogue, or rather the verbal silence of the film. It challenges the spectator to engage with what he sees in an active way, by concentrating on the images as main vehicles of the narrative. The second sequence also asserts that the film will not offer a lot of dialogue, but when the microbus has entered Cairo, a voice from the off, a fellow-passenger’s voice, begins to speak of the prison openings and the tragedy of the fugitives. He says he saw a bulldozer digging a collective grave in the desert and about twenty or thirty dead fugitives in it. He wonders if anybody will know who is responsible for the prison openings and the violence against the prisoners: Everybody is killing them; the Bedouins in the desert; the guards on the road; a bulldozer rigged a hole in the desert and threw about 20 or 30 bodies in it. For the state these prisoners do not matter, but these are human beings and they have families. They matter to their families. Now, nobody knows who is who and which is which. Right now, each and every one of these prisoners has only one thing in mind ‘what about my family? Are they OK?’ We live in very difficult days; it is chaos and we have no idea how all this will end. Again, what about these prisoners? Who can tell who is alive and who is dead? Can the police find them? If they could not, will they crack down? on their homes arresting and abusing the families as usual? (Abdallah 00:12:58–00:14:04)

The off-screen voice of this passenger starts off as diegetic, as it comes from within the world of the film. As the spectator listens to the words of this man, the camera shows the protagonist from behind in a semi-over-­ shoulder shot, which implies that the camera shares the speaker’s perspective. However, the voice remains off-frame, and it thus becomes clear that it is delivering a monologue. Moreover, this monologue gradually turns into an extradiegetic sound; it becomes a voice-over from outside the filmic world dominating the sound of the entire scene while all other diegetic sounds disappear. The visual representation of the sequence emphasizes that what is heard is to be perceived as a voice-over. While the man speaks his mind, the microbus has already entered Cairo and the camera is employed in a pan shot, first showing the main character’s profile, and then adopting his point of view, showing the sidewalks, the house entrances, the walls, and the neighborhood watches, while the bus drives through the city.

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This technique of combining the voice-over and the visual representation of the scene has a documentary quality. It functions as an overt narrational commentary. In addition, the use of this cinematic device, the voice-over (in the case of Rags and Tatters), creates an extra narrative sphere through the insertion of a nonfilmic element: a direct commentary which once more violates the notion of concealment of production and the illusion of filmic reality. Mary Ann Doane argues that the voice-over deepens the diegesis, gives it an extent which exceeds that of the image, and thus supports the claim that there is a space in the fictional world which the camera does not register. It is a sound which is first and foremost in the service of the film’s construction of space […] It validates both what the screen reveals of the diegesis and what it conceals. (1980)

In this sense, the use of the overt narrational commentary—whether visually (i.e. the real video footage and the first scene), sonically (the absence of dialogue and the unrealistic sound), or verbally (the voice-over with its disjunction of the sound design)—belongs to the characteristics of art cinema. David Bordwell explains the impact of the overt narrational commentary in relation to art cinema by seeing it as a third schema aside from “objective” and “subjective” verisimilitude. He argues that in applying this schema, the viewer looks for those moments in which the narrational act interrupts the transmission of fabula information and highlights its own role [… ] [A]rt cinema violates the idea of the invisible observer as well as the concealment of production […] Art film makes use of certain stylistic devices in order to create the narration‘s commentary; an unusual camera angle, striking camera movement, voice-over/voice-off narration, discontinuity editing (jump cuts), an unrealistic and artificial shift in lightning or setting, a disjunction on the sound track, or any other breakdown of objective realism which is not subjectively motivated. (Bordwell 1985)

Accordingly, the use of the voice-over in this sequence creates a narrational sphere which extends what is seen in the image by connecting what is being perceived to the nonfictional “real world.” It is the voice of a citizen, a faceless one, an unheard voice talking about an unnecessary topic in this very moment of the Tahrir narrative. It is a single personal voice that stands out from the loud noise of Tahrir, from the political struggle. The film briefly gives voice to the voiceless by which the silence is broken.

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However, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that this voice and two similar voices at a later stage (in the third and in the last segments) are lost in a vacuum. They remain unheard and insignificant in the world outside and around Tahrir. Moreover, the film’s narrative is based on character causality, which, in contrast to the causality of action, supports a construction based on an episodic series of events. Accordingly, the main character, as will be discussed later on, does not move toward a target. Instead, the protagonist slides passively from one situation to another. Once more this is another characteristic of art film narration as employed by Rags and Tatters. The unnamed hero acts in accordance with Bordwell’s characterization of an art film protagonist: he “traces out an itinerary which surveys the film’s social world” (Bordwell and Thompson 2008). In addition, the voice-­ over’s shift from diegetic to extradiegetic sound also fulfills the above-­ mentioned function to break the objective reality established by the visual representation of the shots. For these shots are not subjectively motivated by the main character. Along with the voice-over functioning as a sort of social commentary, it also corresponds to the protagonist’s feelings and the thoughts; it is the monologue of a prisoner on the run: “Right now each and every one of these prisoners has only one thing in mind: ‘What about my family? Are they OK?’” (Abdallah 00:14:00). Accordingly, the second sequence represents the second stage of the main character’s odyssey into the unknown through a dystopian city. It ends with him arriving at his family’s neighborhood. The two examples illustrated how the film presents its ideas through its narrative style. Reading the first two sequences in addition to the authentic cell phone footage helps to understand the strategy of the film narrative. Abdallah employs a combination of neorealist cinema and art cinema techniques in his film. The documentary characteristics represented in cell phone footage and its visual continuity throughout the first sequence reveal this combination: a real amateur documentary integrated into the narrative and the escape’s esthetic representation executed with the same technique. Thus, the film tries to create a sense of realism mixed with a call for active, narrational engagement on the part of the spectator. Moreover, the film borrows the visual aspect from the revolution’s archive, or its visual memory, and employs it as a narrational component. Furthermore, the use of a narrational overt commentary in form of a voice-over aligns with the cinematic traditions of both the documentary and the art film. However, the question here is not mainly a formalistic or

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a structuralist one, it is rather a question of how and why the two genres are employed in relation to the content and the subject matter, and further, how they are tied to the socio-political and the cultural moment in Egypt. There is also the question of the postmodern characteristics of the narrational style. This will be discussed in detail in the Cinematic Language section, however. Instead, I will close this section by referring to another function of the first cell phone footage on the one hand, and the amateur style on the other. As the film progresses, the footage on the dead prisoner’s cell phone influences the narrative even while it is true that this footage is never played in its entirety, nor it is shown on the screen, which reinforces the idea of forgetfulness and repression presented in the film. Nevertheless, this footage soon becomes a sort of motivation and purpose for the main character, and I argue that this unseen footage functions also as a film-within-a-film that remains concealed.9 In addition, there is also another film-within-the-film shot invisibly by a cell phone: While the events of the film start with the main character running for his life and hiding in a hut with another escaped prisoner, the film ends with the main character lying dead in the Christian neighborhood Ezzbet Al Zabaleen (City of Garbage). Both scenes are recorded with a cell phone, while the scenes between them are shot by a cinematic camera. In closing the film with the same mode of visual representation as used in the opening scene, Rags and Tatters suggests that there is another version of the events and thus a different story which is also not played or shown in its entirety. Whether it is only another version in terms of visual technique or another version of the story with unseen or concealed events which the film does not show, or maybe a version in which the characters are “heard” in dialogues, remains for the spectator to decide. The next section will deal with the cinematic language in Rags and Tatters in relation to the narrational style this section discussed. Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality Perceiving the cinematic style of Rags and Tatters, it is clear that the film uses the images as a vehicle to tell its story. The spectator constructs the fabula mainly through the visual representation. In terms of narration, Rags and Tatters belongs to the narrational realm of art cinema, in which 9

 This is discussed in more detail in the following section.

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the concept of contingency and character causality are favored over the causality of action of narrative cinema. Rags and Tatters also presents its content in the form of episodes or segments. It is true that the events of the film take place in a chronological manner, meaning that the syuzhet is in tune with the fabula. However, the absence of dialogue necessitates the spectator to actively re-construct the fabula by filling in the verbal gaps, only to then replace these gaps by decoding the image and the characters’ facial expressions and gestures. This absence also urges or even forces the spectator to intensively engage with the main character’s feelings and thoughts and encourages a sense of identification with him. The nameless voiceless protagonist is not merely a carrier of the story in Rags and Tatters; his existence is the very story. If the film takes away his voice and does not name him, it does so only to highlight and to deepen the notion of his presence, his existence. This presence is his physical being within the image through which the spectator gets emotionally, intellectually, and psychologically involved with him. The muteness of the unnamed character compels the spectator’s eye to close read him: his face, his eyes, his gestures, his clothes, and his relationship to himself, to the other characters, and to the world. Having said this, it is essential to discuss the visual style of the film in relation to the absence of dialogue to examine how and if Rags and Tatters succeeds in presenting its ideas. In order to do this, two scenes will be analyzed which will help to explore the cinematic language of the film in relation to the notion of the representation of reality. No Strangers Allowed: The Third Sequence (00:14:37–00:16:37) The third sequence starts with the unnamed protagonist arriving in his neighborhood. His arrival is depicted in a medium, almost wide shot. The camera shows the unnamed character approaching a neighborhood watch of two barricades guarded by five men. They stop him, corner him, and grab him. The scene cuts to the protagonist attempting to run from these men. The following scene is shot in a clear wide shot with a pan from left to right adopting the movement of the action (first image). The men catch him and drag him out of the frame where they beat him up. The camera does not show the beating, instead the spectator hears it. The camera remains in its position showing only two figures standing and watching the action (Fig. 4.8). The visual style of these two scenes emphasizes the protagonist’s loneliness, weakness, and insignificance. The first scene is shown in a semi-wide

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Fig. 4.8  Top, the protagonist beaten by the neighborhood watch. Bottom, an old man saves him from the attackers (00:15:18–01:16:07)

shot in which the composition of the scene is as follows: (1) The five men are in focus and are clearer and taller than the unnamed character. (2) The unnamed character has almost ghostly characteristics; he appears small and blurred. (3) The unnamed character occupies the lower half of the screen while the five men take up the upper half. In terms of cinematic composition, all these three points reveal a construction concerned with the power relations among the figures in action. Along with what is represented and shown in the frame (the selection of images), the manner of this representation creates meaning. What is represented is a neighborhood watch consisting of five men bearing sticks and knives, and a single figure approaching them. In terms of content, it is clear that these five men are in control; they have the upper hand over the protagonist. Visually this concept is also highlighted: in An Introduction to Film Analysis Technique and Meaning in Narrative Film, Michael Ryan and Melissa Lenos (2012) discuss how

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meaning is produced in terms of visual representation. They argue that the way characters are placed in the frame is a key element in the interpretation of a film, especially for reading relations of power (2012). Placing a character in the lower part of the frame usually suggests a weaker position, morally, socially, or according to a certain situation, while a character in the upper half suggests domination, power, and control (Ryan and Lenos 2012). Furthermore, the physical distance of the characters to the camera and to each other within the frame also produces certain meanings. One possible reading of a character distant to the camera, thus appearing small, contrasted with others who are positioned closer to the camera who thus appear larger, is the helplessness, weakness, and the vulnerability of the former and the control, domination, and power the latter possesses (Ryan and Lenos 2012). In a similar way, the first scene of the second sequence establishes a similar meaning visually, that is, the powerlessness of the unnamed character and his weak position as an escaped prisoner: first a target of the police and now of the neighborhood watch. In addition, the camera work creates a similar effect. Both scenes (the arrival scene and the fight scene) are delivered in wide shots. More specifically: while the former is shown in a semi-wide shot, the latter is clearly done with a wide shot. Employing this camera technique once more stresses the notion of the “insignificance” of the unnamed character’s existence and shows him as prey to and a victim of violence. Establishing this distance from the camera functions on two levels: the first is the facelessness of this character, which dehumanizes the representation. The second level is the position of the camera itself; the camera keeps its distance from the violence and remains static with no movement whatsoever. The camera assumes the position and the point of view of a spectator, in fact a voyeur, a passive/negative watcher. The camera thus creates a voyeuristic viewing experience, displaying no engagement and no involvement. In the following scene (00:15:18), the camera changes its position/perspective, with a minimal movement, as it moves from left to right from behind a wall in an extreme wide shot and quickly returns to a standstill. The notion of the passive/negative spectator, which was established in the previous scene, is now confirmed. The camera leaves the scene of action and moves away from it, evidently becoming a voyeur, who is watching in stealth. Again, no involvement at all is displayed, as the camera remains distant and static even though the attackers move their victim out of the frame.

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Another visual aspect appears in the second scene (00:15:18); the wide shot creates an open frame through which the location itself is allowed to become a carrier of further meaning. The camera is positioned at the end of an alley in which signs of ruin and decay are evident: an old dirty motorcycle, ruins, and rocks of a dilapidating house. At the end of the alley, the protagonist is being beaten up. This is a further cue concerning the forgotten and the unseen within the Tahrir narrative, the dystopian Cairo where poverty, decay, and violence are a reality. The visual representation just discussed manipulates the spectator emotionally by confronting him with his own voyeuristic tendencies. It questions and even confronts him with his role as a passive spectator on the one hand and as a visual consumer of violence on the other. Rags and Tatters tries to shed light on the medial, predominantly visual consumption of violent events of the revolution. At a certain point, watching footage involving killings and street violence became a sort of daily practice for many people. Consuming media objects of real-life violence became a normality wherein assailants and victims became mere objects, nameless and often faceless. This is the case with the camera as a spectator that is willing to watch yet keeps its distance. It observes but never gets involved. The last scene in this sequence (second image) shows the protagonist tied up and lying on the ground, while an old man hovers over him. The old man talks to the men from the neighborhood watch, and one of them frees the prisoner. In contrast to the two previous scenes, this scene is shot in a close frame fashion with a low angle shot where the main character is shown from behind (the spectator sees the back of his head). His figure is in focus while the old man is shown out of focus. Once more, the protagonist occupies the lower half of the screen and is rendered faceless. As one of the vigilantes approaches him, the focus changes; the violent man is now in focus while cutting him loose. The powerlessness of the unnamed protagonist is confirmed again and again. He has no control; he is driven by contingency, and others determine his fate. Had the old man not intervened, he might have ended up dead or have been handed over to the military police.10 In discussing the visual representation of these scenes, the notion of second-order observation needs to be addressed. As discussed earlier, film as a medium can be seen as doubly observational; it observes and produces 10  In a later scene, the unnamed character hides in a mosque, while the military police, now in control of security after the withdrawal of the police, searches for demonstrators.

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observation. Here in these two scenes, the camera assumes the position of a passive spectator, a voyeur. In both scenes, the camera reveals its existence, not by movement or involvement or even by concealment, but rather by remaining static, distant, and passive. On one level, the camera observes the action taking place, the protagonist being attacked and beaten by the neighborhood watch. On a second level, it produces an observational mode of spectatorship marked by pure passivity which Jean Baudrillard calls “the spectator as pure screen,” nothing more than a recipient of images (1994). On a third level, the film reflects upon this notion of the passive role of the spectator, especially through the wide shot in which the protagonist is being beaten while the camera is distant and static. Accordingly, Rags and Tatters establishes a process of double observation: First, it observes what is inside the filmic world (the action and the events) in relation to the subject matter (the real events), and second, it observes and reflects upon itself as film. In addition, the film also produces a doubly observational mode for the spectator: the act of spectating as such, and a confrontation with the spectator’s passive role as a mere reflector which is produced by the visual technique the film employs. In effect, and especially within the Egyptian cinematic context, Rags and Tatters commits an act of defiance against narrative conventional cinema on the one hand and against the “dominant” narrative of the revolution on the other. The film rejects and even goes against the notion of a “Grand Narrative;” a unified truth. Rags and Tatters does not leave gaps or blind spots in the narrative; however, it reveals itself as a film from the very start. It also opens the door to the possibility that other versions of this story might exist. The next chapter discusses these ideas as related to the notion of representation of reality within the realm of the post-modern. “So, People know What Happened.”: The Last Stage of the Journey (01:02:00–01:20:02) The last sequence of Rags and Tatters takes place in the “City of Garbage” in uphill Cairo, the Mokattam district. It is the home of the protagonist’s companion who died in the beginning of the film: the cell phone’s owner. Before embarking on the last stage of his odyssey, the protagonist spends some time in the “City of the Dead” working as an electrician. He finally decides to show the cell phone video to the old man who took him in. In

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this last stage of the protagonist’s odyssey, a slight change in his actions takes place. For the first time throughout the whole film, he gets actively involved in something other than his own survival. He asks the old man to take him back to the hut in the desert where he left his companion, only to find no trace of him whatsoever. After he returns to the City of the Dead, having watched the cell phone footage, the old man finds an announcement in a newspaper encouraging people who shot any footage during the uprising to upload them to a website or to deliver them to a given address. The old man cuts it out and hands it to the main character. The protagonist decides to find the place where the family of his companion lives with a little hope of finding him, but most of all to deliver the envelope with the money to his family. The old man drives him to the “City of Garbage” where the protagonist meets the family, the wife and the son, and finds out that the man is dead. He also attends the funeral with the family in the ancient mountain Church.11 It is important to mention that this “City of Garbage” is a Christian quarter where all the garbage of Cairo is dumped to be sorted out, recycled, and resold. The garbage “business” has been in the hands of the Christian community since the late nineteenth century. Although several such “garbage cities” exist, the one in Mokattam is the largest, acting as the central waste disposal facility in Cairo. The film’s choice of such a location is once again significant. The main locations are the desert, protagonist’s neighborhood, the City of the Dead, and the City of Garbage. All share the associations of desolation, decay, and oblivion. Nevertheless, while the desert and the neighborhood represent danger and violence, the City of the Dead signifies calm and temporary peace and even a possibility of love and (com)passion (there is mutual attraction between the protagonist and the old man’s daughter). Also, in terms of filmic language and techniques, most of the shots taken in the City of the Dead are marked by wide angles and high-key lighting (it is also shot in daylight). It is also the only phase in the film where the spectator sees the protagonist smiling. This is indeed a clear metaphor: only in death does man find eternal peace; only while by living among the dead, might one feel a momentary sense of peace and calm. This notion is also linked to the Sufi culture and its notion of zuhd. For the City of the Dead witnesses the last Sufi singing in the film in a significant shot (00:48:00). The protagonist stands watching and listening to the two  The film does not explain how the body of the man reached his family.

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Fig. 4.9  Handing the cell phone from behind a gravestone (00:48:00)

monshedeen, the Sufi singers, and signals to one of his hosts to come and talk to him. Both men move closer to a grave, the protagonist stands behind the gravestone and hands the cell phone to the other character. The man plays the footage. Here the sound mix lowers the voice of the monshed while the footage sound is amplified and interrupts the singing. The shot is composed in a way to not show the protagonist, only his hand is seen while giving the cell phone to the other man (Fig. 4.9). This shot reveals various things, both on the level of meaning making or on the level of narrational cues. As ever, the combination of sound and image is essential in order to read this shot. The image shows only the hand of the protagonist while standing behind the gravestone. His being blocked out is a further representation of his nonexistence and invisibility. While standing behind the gravestone suggests death in both the symbolic and the physical sense (foreshadowing his death in the end), it also establishes a link to the beginning of the film: a dying man handing an unknown and unwanted “truth” to another man. This scene represents the same idea. In terms of narration, this shot gives a clue about what is going to happen later on in the film, first, the end of this calm and peaceful stage of

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the journey as revealed by the sound mixing: the fading of the Sufi singing and the ever-louder violent, distorted sound of the cell phone footage After this meeting, the protagonist leaves the safe haven that the City of the Dead is to him; he decides to go back to the desert and find the family of the original cell phone owner. Second, and most obviously, the foreshadowing of death itself: It is the protagonist’s own death (while trying to save the son of his dead companion) which is hinted at by the visual representation of stretching out his hand from behind (or out of) the grave. In contrast to the previous location (the City of the Dead), the City of Garbage as the final stage of the journey represents an extreme version of the notions of the forgotten, the unseen, and the repressed. By selecting this location, the film uncovers deeper layers of Egypt’s social fabric. It points to a minority within a minority within a minority. To clarify this statement, we need to look again at the film’s choice of the subject matter: the abused, murdered, and runaway prisoners are a minority in the sense that they are unspoken of, forgotten, and unwanted. By choosing to reveal the dead character’s identity as being Christian, that is, a member of a minority12 and subject to social, political, and religious discrimination, the film digs deeper into the social realities of Egypt. The dead prisoner is on one level a representative of one minority (the prisoners) within another minority (his religion). Furthermore, he is a member of a minority within his larger religious minority for even within the Christian community the garbage business as such is stigmatized, especially from the point of view of its upper-middle-class center. Garbage men in Egypt are associated with filth, crime, and secret wealth, and are treated accordingly. After arriving in the City of Garbage and paying respect to the family, the protagonist shows the cell phone footage to the son. The boy takes him to a local cybercafé in order to upload the footage on the website from the advertisement. As the film takes place between January 28 and February 6,13 a time in which the government disrupted the internet service, the boy fails to upload the footage. The protagonist spends the night there and receives, for the last time, a “rag and a tatter.” After attending the funeral, the next morning, the boy returns the cell phone. The main 12  The Egyptian government refuses to release the exact numbers of the Christian population. 13  The film keeps a clear timeline by showing every now and then some news footage which took place between January 28 and February 6. Also, the scene where the young man argues with his family in the City of the Dead (00:58:49) marks February 3 and 4, the two days the State-sponsored thugs attacked Tahrir.

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character decides to go to the address given in the announcement to hand in the footage in person. He arrives at the address (Almasry Alyoum Newspaper) and finally meets Bassam Mortada, a real-life press photographer and cameraman, known, among other things, for his important pictures and video footage during the first days of the revolution. In the end, the cell phone is handed over. While waiting, a video has just arrived showing the latest Mansheyet Nasser clashes. On March 9, 2011, a large number of Christians demonstrated in Giza against the burning of two churches in Sol village. They were attacked by Salafists, who (according to the demonstrators) arrived under the protection of the military. They claimed that the military started shooting the demonstrators and opened the way for the Salafists to attack them. On that day, 13 Christians were killed and 110 injured (Al Marsy Al Youm 2011). Abdallah inserts this incident into the film and once more merges real events with fiction. However, situated in March 2011, the film’s narrative timeline “borrows” from a future and proleptically integrates the Giza massacre in the filmic narration. Like the tragedy of the prison openings, this massacre was also widely repressed and went almost forgotten. The sectarian violence did not fit in with the narrative of the revolution, or rather the Tahrir narrative in which pictures and videos of the Islamic crescent “hugged” the cross: Moslems and Christians strode hand in hand against the regime, and Christians protected Moslems during their prayer. Of course, it did not fit either with the official narrative, for violence against Christians could not be published by the State-controlled media, let alone this time with the sectarian violence initiated by the Salafists but supported by the state. In referencing this incident, Rags and Tatters follows a postmodern understanding of time. Even though the film moves through in a linear manner—chronologically narrated, with no jumping back and forth— Rags and Tatters addresses concepts of representation of reality in relation to time. The last phase of the protagonist’s journey is an example of this notion. By inserting the Giza incident into the time frame of the narrative, Rags and Tatters adapts a form of time which is defined by Paul Smethurst as “Historical Time” in its “postmodern” guise. In The Postmodern Chronotope (2001), he defines Historical Time “as chronology, elapsed and completed time, and records of the past, but chronological data are often reordered and reformed to suit demands of present-day society; as narrative, no longer the time of history, but of writing history—historiographic time” (2001).

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In other words, the film is not concerned with the time of history as a chronicle, as encapsulated in the question “When did something happen?” Instead, it is just interested in the fact that something did happen. In addition, the use of documentary footage gives credibility and stresses on the notion of the real. Abdallah goes a step further with an act of montage. He inserts a shot of the boy (the son of the dead man) into the real footage. The boy is seen wounded and crying between two authentic shots. Consequently, the film erases the boundaries between reality and fiction and merges them together creating a new reality, a filmic reality which corresponds with actual events. This representation of reality does not contradict the real and the actual, it rather rearranges it, reforms it, and records it anew. In this context, one should also mention that Abdallah cast nonactors for most of the roles. One of these amateurs is the son of the dead man. In an earlier scene, the protagonist sits with the boy and one of his friends. The boy’s friend starts to talk about his experience as a garbage man. He recounts an incident in which he was insulted and threatened by a police officer’s wife, only because of his profession as garbage man. As in the first overt commentary (the voice-over in the bus scene), the film gives voice to another “unheard” member of society. While the man in the bus was not seen and only heard, this teenager’s voice first comes from the off, then he is briefly captured on camera while telling his story, but soon the camera leaves him and moves toward the piles of garbage all around them. This scene enhances once more the “realness” of both the characters and the upcoming events, and it is also a social commentary in the form of an overt commentary which breaks the illusion of filmic reality. After the protagonist sees the clashes on the screen at the newspaper’s office, or more precisely: after seeing the boy wounded, he rushes out of the office and hurries to the City of Garbage to look for the boy. He finds him but loses sight when the boy disappears behind a group of men carrying sticks, guns, and Molotov cocktails. These attackers open fire in a narrow alley. When the protagonist tries to flee, he gets hit by a bullet and falls to the ground, wounded. As in the beginning, the whole sequence is shot by a “non­professional,” shaky camera, probably a cell phone. This being the last sequence of the film, Abdallah thus establishes a visual link to the first sequence by using the same amateur esthetics of citizen journalism. The camera changes its position permanently. First, it captures the protagonist’s running feet from a POV perspective, suggesting that he himself is the one who is filming. It then changes to an over-shoulder shot capturing him from behind while

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he is running in search of the boy. When he arrives on the scene of the clashes and finds the boy, the camera moves back in a medium shot, then takes his POV again showing the boy sitting on the ground, the group of men passing, and the empty spot where the boy sat. When the attackers arrive, the camera changes again, rapidly switching between POV and medium length until it finally draws back to capture the protagonist getting shot. When he hits the ground, the camera falls with him, capturing two buildings in a low angle shot accompanied by a sound of heavy breathing. The film ends with the words: “I shot this video, so people know what happened” (Abdallah 01:19:48). The change of cameras here suggests that the film ends when the protagonist arrives at the City of Garbage after accomplishing the “mission” of passing the truth to the “people”: He delivered the envelope to the family and the phone to the newspaper. The end in this case would be open: Will he save the boy? Will he die? Will the boy live, and he die saving him? Will both die? However, by employing this nonprofessional camera style, which is used in the first sequence, the notion of a “purely” esthetic use is no more evident. Rather, the spectator might very well be seeing two narratives with two different narrators: the one with the cell phone camera and the other with the professional camera. This might also suggest that what is perceived from the second sequence onward until the protagonist arrives in the City of Garbage after handing in the cell phone to the newspaper is selectively chosen. And there might be another narrative shot and recorded by this anonymous narrator/phone which is not seen in its entirety, only the beginning and the end. While the permanent change of perspective in the last sequence might suggest that there is a third narrator (POV shots) who is the protagonist, I would reject this suggestion, for the POV shots could be shot by a person other than the protagonist, namely a second narrator taking the protagonist’s position while remaining physically close to him. Rags and Tatters already used such a perspective earlier to create a voyeuristic focus on the events. The evidence for such double structure in the final sequence is the distance kept in the last shot as well as the position and perspective (low angle shot) of the camera. However, the fate of the anonymous narrator is shared by and is even the same as the protagonist’s and vice versa. This notion is evident by the position of the camera, for while its distance to the protagonist suggests the possibility of escape and survival, the camera stays where it is, it refuses to turn and leave; in fact, the camera stands its ground and captures the body of the protagonist on the ground until it

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Fig. 4.10  The end scene: cellphone esthetics (01:17:30–01:20:02)

too falls. The person holding the camera is clearly hit after the protagonist (Fig. 4.10). In this sense, Rags and Tatters could be read as a film-within-a-film, a text which examines the nature of film as medium and its role in capturing, rearranging, and (re)writing both reality and history. While the film does not argue for a universal unified truth, it sheds light on the notion of the forgotten, unseen, and repressed truth(s) on the one hand, and on the idea of dominant and selective narratives standing in for the truth on the other. The film’s cinematic language is clearly motivated by acknowledging the problematic nature of any representation of reality. The spatial and the temporal selection of the narrative shows the possibilities which could be created through film as a doubly observational medium: an observer and producer of observation. It also opens the door for a revolutionary counter-counternarrative within the Egyptian context by depicting two of

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many tragic yet forgotten and repressed events during the Egyptian revolution, and by offering an alternative writing of history in a mode of historiography which is not concerned with the hegemonic chronology of events, but with the actuality of these events and their effect on the socio-­ political reality in general and on other specific events within the revolution in particular. Rebellion In the rhizomatic terms of counterculture, Rags and Tatters can be seen as a line of flight. On the level of content, it departs from the romantic and central narrative of the revolution represented in the utopian “Tahrir-­ Egypt” with all its heroic and spectacular details and dives into Cairo’s dystopian reality of violence and decay. In other words, the film tries to create and even enforce an awareness of an existing yet repressed space (e.g. the spatial ruptures that became visible in the prison openings), a space captured and reterritorialized by the “state” (the escaped prisoners that were appropriated by the state narrative and stylized as thugs sprung free by a foreign or Islamist conspiracy to topple the state). Yet, this space was also not embraced and addressed sufficiently by the revolutionary camp. It was empty space that incited a political and social horror vacui. In this sense, the film tries to transform the oppositional defensive tone faced with this misery into a collision with the dominant narrative by producing and watching it as an act of deterritorialization. On the level of form and style, the film chooses to employ a cinematic language which belongs to both neorealist and art cinema. This choice runs counter to the dominant narrative cinema in Egypt in every sense. The most striking element is indeed the absence of dialogue, which makes Rags and Tatters almost a silent film about a very “loud” topic. In effect, the narrative is presented through the image, and it is the camera that tells the story, whether through real footage in the beginning, the semi-real cell phone camera in the first and last sequences, or the regular, filmic camera in between. For the most part, the latter assumes the role of a distant and sometimes even voyeuristic observer. In addition, as cinema within the Egyptian context, the film can be seen as a part of a process of creativity, mutation, and change. Commercially, Rags and Tatters was considered a risk, mainly because of its style, and that is why the production company opted for a special publication strategy already in the pre-production phase. The strategy was to

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rely on ­international festivals and to sell the film to Arabic and European television networks with only one week of cinema screenings in Egypt. However, its theater run surprisingly was extended for two more weeks upon viewers’ demand (Taha 2013), and even an eight-week screening would have been possible in the light of its box office success, had the pre-signed deal not been struck. This part will focus on the notion of silence, the absence of dialogue in Rags and Tatters as a form and as an expression of rebellion. I am going to discuss two scenes, which are exemplary for the effect of silence in terms of nonverbal action, reaction and interaction, and for the strategy of deliberately “silencing” dialogue as an act of deterritorialization. The Prodigal Son Comes Home: Silence as Force (00:17:29–00:22:14) This first scene in question shows the protagonist returning home to his family after the old man saved him from the neighborhood watch. The scene starts with the protagonist knocking on the door of a flat. His mother opens the door to find her son in front of her. She stares briefly at him, opens her arms, and hugs him. The shot does not include any sound. Neither the mother nor the son utters a word, not even a low scream of joy, nothing. Everything seems muted: the characters and the surroundings. Some films use such a technique, especially in emotional moments, so there is no claim to uniqueness here. However, while the whole film is marked by a lack of dialogue and verbal expression, this scene would be the scene where a verbal or even a sonic reaction is most needed, or would seem most suitable to break the silence, especially after the overt commentary in the bus about the prisoners’ families. Moreover, the news of the “prison breaks” were all over the news. The state television released its version of foreign powers storming prisons and freeing the Islamist prisoners and cutting the other criminals loose to spread violence, chaos, and mayhem in the country. Other news channels like Al Jazeera reported the killing and the chasing of the prisoners by the police. Accordingly, a different reaction would be expected at least from the mother: to sob, to say her son’s name, or just a sigh of relief. Furthermore, in an Egyptian context, such a silent reaction would be impossible. This is why this scene was

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heavily criticized by many spectators14 as being unrealistic, deliberately done without grounding, and as some cinematic show-off by the director. While the scene’s silence may not be unique as a filmic technique, the audience reaction is ample proof for Abdallah’s willingness to go against the mainstream. To rephrase this more positively and to the point: the film’s rebellion crystallizes in this scene. Rags and Tatters defies Egyptian traditional cinema in terms of narration through its semi-documentary style, neorealist postmodern approach, and indeed the lack of dialogue. Furthermore, the film attempts to create a counter-counternarrative of the revolution. This scene clearly is a revolt against spectators’ expectations and at the same time against the whole “loud” emotional and sentimental dimension of the early days of the revolution. There is also a revolt against a specific stereotype involved: “the lower-class simple mother” as an irrational, self-sacrificing, loud, and emotional being, the typical portrait of a mother in Egyptian films set in a “lower-class” neighborhood, in the countryside, or in Upper Egypt. The film breaks with all these clichés by de-dramatizing the moment of return. The embrace of the mother and son is shown very briefly, and the door of the flat swings back to be shut. In other words, the film shuts the spectator out from this moment. Consequently, the film is not at all shy of exhibiting its nature as a medium; it demonstrates over and over again that the lack of dialogue is done on purpose and is not by any means “naturalised.” While employing minimum dialogue would have been more natural for many, and thus more accepted, the (en)forced silence and muting is clearly artificial and creates a confrontational dimension between what is shown and what is perceived, between the mode of production and the mode of perception, and between film and audience. What follows in this sequence makes the representation of this shot easier to digest. The sequence takes place in the flat where the protagonist’s family lives: his mother, sister, brother-in-law, and their child. The dominant sound in this sequence is that of the TV. Al Jazeera shows Tahrir Square with an ongoing commentary on the situation at hand. The mother treats his wounded foot, the sister brings him tea, and later all of them share a meal together. However, the sequence also reveals a sense of discomfort and tension, especially on the part of the brother-in-law. The 14  This is a personal observation based on the two times I watched the film in two different theaters, given the fact that the screening lasted only two weeks. This observation was confirmed by the wide discussions which took place on Social Media, with Abdallah included.

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dominant sound of the TV is another aspect that needs to be briefly discussed. The composition of these scenes in the flat with their sound design shows that the whole Tahrir situation is far away from the world of the family. They are indeed affected by the events (the brother-in-law is one of the neighborhood watch), but they do not actively take part in them. The TV is on, yet no one watches it, it is a background, except for once, when the protagonist watches it closely. The film does not show, or rather is not concerned with showing, whether the family is for or against the revolution, but it clearly shows that the revolution (the Tahrir narrative) is not the center of their everyday life and is clearly not the center of their attention. Rather, it is their everyday life, their “bread and butter” and accordingly, what matters is how to deal with the new situation in the everyday context. This is a criticism of the Tahrir narrative with its idealistic political thrust, which later on, after the toppling of Mubarak, failed to include many groups, classes, and individuals. While the three keywords of the revolution were Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice, freedom in the political sense was the single aspect that the revolution concentrated upon. Social justice somehow remained in a state of limbo. It was wielded as a slogan, yet “bread,” just like social justice, did not see any improvement with the revolution’s focus fixed on the political struggle. This was exploited by the counter revolution which used the longing for stability and the economical card to turn the people, especially the middle-class, against the revolution. In every media outlet, voices were heard condemning the ongoing protests, strikes, and sit-ins as the main reasons for the economic crisis, while the security vacuum was blamed on the Revolution. After going out to see his fiancée and finding that she is now involved with another man, the protagonist returns home one last time. It then becomes clear to him that he needs to leave, as he realizes that staying with his family would endanger them, and that he is not really wanted there. Even his mother does not show any signs of involvement other than giving him some money before he leaves the first time, which suggests that she knows that he should be out of the house. He takes a bus, but a military check point forces the bus driver to turn around. The protagonist returns to the neighborhood and helps fixing the lighting in a mosque, where wounded demonstrators are secretly treated. Here he meets a young man who helps him hide from a military police raid to arrest the wounded protesters in the mosque. The second stage of the journey ends when this young man takes the protagonist to the City of the Dead where he lives with his family.

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In sum, the whole sequence can be seen as a self-criticism of the revolution, and as a revolt against the Tahrir narrative from within the revolutionary camp. It is also a revolt against traditional Egyptian narrative cinema, a revolt which tries to establish a new cinematic language in relation to the new subject matter the film engages with. This cinematic language is concerned with provoking a confrontational dimension between the medium and the audience. Moreover, the film can be seen as a line of flight of the revolution’s narrative, a line of deterritorialization within the artistic realm of the War-Machine. The close reading of the following scene deals with this notion in a more detailed way. Louder Than Words: Thou Shalt Not Be Heard (00:58:49) This scene takes place in the City of the Dead, where one of the family giving shelter to the protagonist returns home from Tahrir on a motorcycle with a leg injury. First, the camera depicts how the family helps the young man. The film then cuts to the protagonist curiously watching the family while to his right side, the motorcycle is moving back and forth. The words “the people there lost their eyes … What are you doing sitting here?” (01:02:00) are uttered by the young man. However, the dominant sound in the scene is that of the motorcycle. When the scene cuts back to the young man angrily shouting at the family, the young man’s voice is completely distorted and drowned out by the engine’s noise, his words remain intelligible (Fig. 4.11). Technically, the first shot is shown close to the position of the young man and his family, enabling the spectator to hear the words despite the engine’s noise. But when the scene cuts to show the young man and his family from the protagonist’s perspective, with the motorcycle positioned right in front of him, the spectator hears nothing except some fragments, such as “We are fighting for you; your freedom.” Instead, he sees the angry expressions of the young man while talking to his family. It is clear then that the young man attacks the passivity, indifference, and inaction of his family concerning the protests, and urges them to take part in the events. While the previously discussed scene silences the emotional reaction between mother and returned son, this scene mutes the loud verbal and, in fact, defensive argument of the Tahrir rhetoric with noise. The film allows a character to speak and to speak loudly as is typical when it comes to the revolution. However, the film interferes violently and enforces its

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Fig. 4.11  Top, the protagonist watching the young man arguing with his family while motorcycle engine is distorting the sound. Middle, protagonist’s POV: the young man is engaging his family in a heated debate. Bottom, the young man looks at the protagonist suspiciously (00:58:49–01:02:26)

own will through the loud, irritating noise of the motorcycle’s engine. In addition, Rags and Tatters performs its own sonic shout in the face of the Tahrir narrative and says enough. It is important to mention the whole defensive and sometimes frustratingly arrogant rhetoric of the revolutionary camp. From day one, both sides, the protesters and the State, each with their own purpose, strove for a peaceful discourse, though each side with its own agenda. The January revolution is peaceful, as it was sparked

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by the civilized, well-educated youth. The ideals were clear-cut: “We” the revolutionaries are against violence. Moreover, those from the revolutionary camp who spoke in the media were mostly from the upper middle class and naturally adopted a language of political correctness and sometimes arrogance. During the first eighteen days and beyond, having failed to control the state media, there existed a gap between the various voices of the revolutionary camp in the media and the reality on the streets. The whole discourse concentrated on the emotional aspect: the martyrs’ narrative “they died for you, your freedom, your future, they died for Egypt.”15 This is the very argument heard in the scene “We are fighting for you; your freedom” (01:03:44) and was said over and over again. Incidents such as the burning of police stations had to be condemned by many. The inaction by many Egyptians who did not participate or support the revolution was also attacked and criticized. The State’s position with its counterrevolutionary rhetoric succeeded in putting the revolution in the defensive by blaming every negative incident on the ongoing protests. In addition, the counterrevolution adopted the argument that called on anyone not to speak on behalf of the “Egyptian People” and attacked the notion of “We are fighting for your freedom.” Gradually, the counterrevolution with its medial machinery gained ground, especially when the burnings of the police stations were debated, forcing the other side (the revolutionaries) to blame this action on “thugs” in a rhetoric similar to the State’s and to distance itself from it. Here a process of reterritorialization started to take place, and it succeeded. The State’s narrative which adopted a categorization and division of the social assemblage into peaceful-upper-middle-class youth and lower-class violent thugs was somehow forced on the revolutionary camp. In effect, the war-machine assemblage was broken and reterritorialized into the striated spaces of the State. Accordingly, Rags and Tatters in general, and this scene in particular, offers a line of flight of the revolution which breaks away from this reterritorialized narrative, a line of deterritorialization which resists the process of capture by the State, and which tries to enable a new space for an alternative narrative of the revolution. It is a nomadic movement which belongs to the realm of art represented in film as the main medium through which the narrative of the revolution is told. Getting back to the scene, the visual composition along with the sound design shows a process of exclusion in 15  These phrases and quotes were an everyday reality. They were heard on television, on the street, and even in family discussions. Hence, no source.

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which the protagonist, an escaped prisoner, a “thug,” is willfully excluded from the revolutionary action represented by Tahrir. He sits apart from the family, completely cut off and isolated both spatially and sonically. He is not only a stranger to the family; he is also a stranger and an outsider to the revolution even though he is a part of it. The shot prior to this scene also reveals this exclusion by the injured young man in which he looks at the protagonist suspiciously and with silent hostility (00:58:38). Here is where both camps, the State and the revolutionaries, are in tune with each other: Both are hostile to what they call “thugs.” While the State murdered them and gave license to kill them, the revolutionary camp is suspicious or at least indifferent toward them, and it surely excludes them. In sum, the film performs its own revolutionary act against the State and its process of reterritorialization by highlighting the failure of the war-­ machine assemblage, which is now no more, and by trying to form a filmic war-machine on various levels: the content, the form, and the style. Through its artificial silence/lack of dialogue, Rags and Tatters seeks to examine film as medium with all its facets: film as art, film as a generator and teller of stories, film as memory in the Baeckerian sense: an operation of objection of excluded possibilities to apprehended possibilities, and as a process of including and engaging the excluded. Rags and Tatters also follows the notion of memory as Baecker understands it by reproducing “the official” narrative of the revolution and recalling an alternative narrative which puts the former into question. Furthermore, the film examines the medium of film itself as a recorder of reality and as a potential writer of history: a historiography machine. In effect, the notion of rebellion in Rags and Tatters can be read in relation to the concept of counterculture as defined in this dissertation. It is a countercultural film in the sense of being a line within a nomadic war-machine, a filmic war-machine which is an observer and producer of observations on the one hand, and a transformer of these observational oppositional qualities into a collision with the narrative of the revolution as captured and controlled by the State on the other.

Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day (2012) Narration Hala Lotfy’s debut film, released in 2013, was chosen by the critics’ collective of the Dubai Film Festival in 2013 to be on the list of the hundred

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most influential Arabic films of all times (Talaat 2013). Made almost entirely as a team effort for over a period of five years, Coming Forth by Day is indeed, as the Egyptian critic Samir Farid commented, “a birth of a new Egyptian cinema” (2011). In my interview with the Egyptian critic, Esaam Zakareya (Taha 2014), he referred to the film’s title in relation to its content. Coming Forth by Day is the literal and original name of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, the sacred funerary collection of spells and prayers about the journey of the dead through the dark underworld into the light of resurrection and eternity (Taha 2014). Coming Forth by Day has almost no narrative content in terms of causality and action. It is an anti-dramatic film about a day in the life of three people in a lower-middle-class family: Soad, a woman in her thirties, and her parents. Her mother provides for the family, working as a nurse. Her father is an old man disabled by a stroke. Soad is responsible for caring for her incapacitated father. The spectator follows a day in a life of these three “living dead” persons, almost zombies. The film is divided into two parts: the first part plays out in their dark, old, decaying, and “oppressive” flat on the outskirts of Cairo, and the second part takes place in the world outside of the home of Soad. The film’s first part follows the family from the morning until the afternoon. The main focus is on Soad’s nonlife. As mentioned above, the film focuses on the details of everyday life much more than it is interested in producing a proper narrative. On one level, the relationship between Soad and her mother is stressed, and on another level, there is the absence of life/livelihood with the overall presence of death. The film is characterized by a minimum of dialogue. As with Rags and Tatters, the image is the main force through which the closed world of the film and its characters is shown. Consequently, the film belongs to art cinema in terms of narration/nonnarration and offers a neo-Bazinian form of realism which represents a serious challenge to the spectator. The following close reading explores the notion of narration in Coming Forth by Day. The First Sequence (00:01:12–00:04:28) Lotfy’s film is all about capturing a disjointed here and now, a present cut off from its past and disconnected from its future. The Deleuzian concept of the time-image can be very well applied to Coming Forth by Day, which “no longer follows the chronological order and narratological representation of actions and reactions. It makes past, future and present

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i­ndistinguishable. It also breaks with the Aristotelian principium that defines something as not being its own opposite” (1985). However, the film does not present nonlinear narration, nor does it offer dream sequences which can be read as a kind of visual interior monologue. When talking about Deleuze’s time-image, almost every film scholar deals with themes such as the representation of time, the actual versus the virtual, nonlinear narration, and the notion of drams in relation to time. In this vein, I argue that the notion of the time-image in Coming Forth by Day is evident through the pure visual image which captures a moment in time, a sort of perpetual present (Fig. 4.12). The film starts with the mother waking her daughter. It takes place in Soad’s room, which lies in darkness except for some pale rays coming in through the closed window. The dominant colors in this shot (and the following sequence) are black, yellow, and brown. The camera moves from the pale light to complete darkness and back to the mother opening the window. Right from the beginning, the film establishes both its lighting and visual style in relation to its subject matter. The following shot (00:02:29–00:02:43) shows Soad sleeping on her bed and her mother sitting on the opposite one. The open window and the sound coming from the radio indicate that it is day. However, the room is dark. This shot (00:02:29–00:02:43) establishes the oppressive nature of Soad’s home and thus also introduces the depressing atmosphere of the film. Deprived of light, the shot, in terms of visual composition, shows the two characters as ghosts. It is also an establishing-shot in which the set is the dominant aspect, not the characters. The camera does not reveal the countenances of the characters, just their figures in a closed frame: both

Fig. 4.12  Opening scene: setting the tone of the film regarding the notion of light/dark (00:01:12–00:01:16)

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are contained by the set: the shared room. This shot also contains no action and no movement; Soad and her mother appear to be two static objects within the set. Furthermore, the camera stays static in the same position for almost ninety seconds. The mother stands up and leaves the room in a very slow and lifeless fashion. Soad sits up and switches off the radio, tries to get back to sleep, but finally sits up again and leaves the bed (00:03:55). On the sonic level, the scene is accompanied only by intradiegetic sounds: the news on the radio and some noise from the street. The film does not have any musical score, and the sound design relies only on diegetic sounds. The distant yet annoying noise coming from the street fulfills the same function as the daylight in that both are part of an outside world. This outside world remains evident, yet it is only a limited and liminal presence in the life of the three characters. The first sequence establishes these topics along with the rhythm and the pace of the film. The daylight remains unreachable throughout the whole film. In the first part of the film, light only functions to stress the existence and even the omnipresence of darkness. It (almost shyly) streams into the flat creating shadows. Most of the space remains unlit. As for the sounds, they remain mostly insignificant in the lives of the characters, except for one occasion that will be discussed in detail later. Even though these sounds—radio, television, and outside noise—are diegetic, they are always related to the “narrative” content as being part of an outside world. They are an indicator for a life cut off from its surroundings. The following scene (00:04:28) introduces the beginning day by the family’s morning activities. The camera is placed in the dark, showing the Mother moving about aimlessly in the flat. The visual representation of the mother is ghost-like. Again, the light remains seen only in the background, and it is unreachable from where the mother is. The camera movement continues to be minimal and slow. Accordingly, Coming Forth by Day is exemplary for Deleuze’s time-image. In discussing the neorealist cinema as an example of the time-image, Deleuze (1985) argues that the camera movements “take place less and less frequently: tracking shots are slow, low ‘blocs of movement’; the always low camera is usually fixed, frontal or at an unchanging angle” (1985). After Soad leaves the bed, there is the first dialogue with the mother. The spectator gets to know the situation of the family which is centered on the ill father. In the exchange between Soad and her mother, the sense of disconnection, resentment, and “nonlife” is strongly evident. It is not only the dialogue evoking this aura, but also the silence in between the words

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and the physical interaction between the two speakers. In addition, the whole mise-en-scéne enhances the notion of the depressive life in this household: Soad: You did not go to work?16 Mother: The shift changed. Soad: Oh, it has been six months already? It is better this way. You could sleep for a couple of hours at the hospital, and come in the morning, sit with Dad till I wake up Mother: Oh really? You care so much that you wake up at dawn to take care of him, huh? (Lotfy 00:04:28–00:08:01)

The minimal dialogue and the visual style (which reveals the physical characteristics of both women) on the one hand, and the lighting on the other, are an example of how Coming Forth by Day relies entirely on the pure visual image of the characters and on purely optical situations,17 rather than on the movement-image. In Cinema 1, Deleuze (1986) explains that the movement-image follows a sensory-motor scheme: characters in certain situations react upon what they perceive. The movement-image proceeds by narratological and linear incisions and references. Action sequences have a (chrono)logical order which is represented through actions in a spatial configuration […] The spectator immediately recognises whether a scene refers to something that has happened in the past or alludes to something that is going to happen in the future. (1986)

Coming Forth by Day is about the everyday life of three people. As in the case of neorealism, everything “remains real […] (whether it is film set or exteriors) but, between the reality of the setting and that of the action, it is no longer a motor extension which is established” (Deleuze 1985). Rather, as Deleuze argues, neorealism is often concerned with the banality of the everyday, where “the action-image and even the movement-image tend to disappear in favor of pure optical situations, but these reveal connections of a new type, which are no longer sensory-motor, and which bring the emancipated senses into direct relation with time and thought”  All the dialogues cited are from the subtitle.  For Deleuze, the time-image contains both the visual and the sonic. An optical situation consists of the visual image and the sound image. 16 17

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(1985). This is what takes place in Coming Forth by Day in general and in this scene in particular. The choice of actors in this sense is essential. The film’s minimalistic dialogue contains a sense of banality, and most of the time it seems that the character’s lines do not make any difference in relation to the events. Actually, most of the dialogue could be left out. That is why, as Deleuze argues, in the case of neorealist films “the only things that count are the choices of actors according to their physical […] appearance, and the establishment of any dialogue whatever, apparently without a precise subject-matter” (Deleuze 1985). Perceiving the physical appearance of the mother, the spectator becomes immediately aware of the condition of this character. She is thin; her back is slightly crooked; her face is dim, dull, and tired; her eyes are glassy with dark circles around them; and her movements are slow and lifeless. Throughout the whole film, she never smiles, and the words barely come out of her mouth with repressed anger: a woman who gave up on living. As for Soad, she seems somehow to be the younger version of her mother: while her physical appearance reveals some resemblance between the two, the characters share a sense of lifelessness, tiredness, and anger. In the scene where the first real verbal interaction between Soad and her mother takes place (00:04:28–00:08:01), the visual image becomes the dominant tool to reveal the relationship between Soad and her mother. This is the first time the spectator sees the two in the light. However, the color tone is yellowish which produces a sense of decay, illness, and depression. In addition, Lotfy employs a cold tone in this scene, for even though the color yellow possesses these “negative” characteristics, it is often presented in a warm tone. In post-production, Lotfy manipulated the coloring by cooling the tone of the scene into an off-yellow: a dingy yellow, which enhances the feeling of decay and illness. The setting and the costumes also add to this overall atmosphere: yellowish walls and an old brown sofa; Soad is pale and colorless, and the mother wears a brown gown which is very close to the color of the sofa. Here, once again, the mother with her brown gown seems to be almost a part of the sofa, a dead object. In terms of dialogue, the few words both characters exchange reveal a clear sense of the same anger, tiredness, frustration, and resentment seen earlier, also a strong sense of disconnection. However, the dialogue has natural characteristics with no rhythm and not much coherence. It starts with the mother telling her daughter that her shift changed at work (see the quote above). Soad then asks her if she has bought bread. The dialogue ends with Soad asking her mother if the father is awake.

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In this sense, the film offers a still life of an Egyptian family, a still life which is “defined by the presence and composition of objects which are wrapped up in themselves or become their own container” (Deleuze 1985). Furthermore, the film’s narration—even though the events are linearly presented, with no temporal gaps or dream sequences—supports the notion of time-image in relation to the esthetics of neorealism in which everything remains real in “a dreamlike connection through the intermediary of the liberated sense organs. It is as if the action floats in the situation, rather than bringing it to a conclusion or strengthening it” (Deleuze 1985). Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality The cinematic language in Coming Forth by Day, like that of Rags and Tatters, relies completely on the image. However, the slow pace of Lotfy’s film, along with its minimum narrative content, goes a step further in the direction of what I argue to be New Egyptian Cinema. While Rags and Tatters shows the odyssey of a character through a dystopian Cairo and is thus, among other things, about space, Coming Forth by Day is all about time. The still life of Soad is, as Deleuze argues concerning neorealist films, a direct image of time in which each aspect is “time, on each occasion, under various conditions of that which changes in time. Time is the full, that is, the unalterable form filled by change. Time is ‘the visual reserve of events in their appropriateness’” (1985). This is evident in the choice of the subject matter in relation to the visual style of the film. The use of long takes, minimal camera movement, simple and direct cuts, lighting, and sound design is what creates a time-­ image film. The notion of narrative causality is entirely missing in the film, even character causality, which is one of the characteristics of art cinema, does not exist. Character causality, as Bordwell argues, supports a construction based on episodic series of events. The art film protagonist does not speed toward the target; instead, he slides passively from one situation to another (1985). Throughout the whole film, none of the three characters is derived from or defined by the past, nor are they motivated by or moving toward the future. The film can be read as portraying the coexistence of and the interplay between life and death, despair and hope, light and darkness, and the end scene might represent a beginning of a different reality driven by a relief from awaiting death. However, Soad and her mother are caught in

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a reality marked by lifelessness and forgetfulness. In fact, they are caught in time itself: “the unalterable form.” The life of this family becomes in itself an everyday banality in the larger context of the life of many Egyptian families. Deleuze discusses Ozu’s cinema by arguing that “in Ozu, everything is ordinary or banal, even death and the dead who are the object of a natural forgetting” (1985). Coming Forth by Day can be read along the same lines: Soad’s imprisonment, her failed romance, the mother’s burden, the dying father, and even talking about the burial of the not-yet-­ dead father are all ordinary. The question is how the film presents all these ideas visually. Preparing the Dead (24:37:02–32:43:17) Lotfy called this scene the master scene of the film (Lotfy). She explained that this scene was shot twenty-three times. And indeed, this scene offers one of the few emotional moments in the film. Soad and her mother nurse the disabled father. It is the daily time to change the bed sheets, dress him in fresh clothes, and attend to his bed sores. The scene takes place in the father’s room which is, unlike the other rooms of the flat, lit up by daylight. After the mother has succeeded in feeding her husband a quick breakfast, Soad takes her father to the balcony, so he can get some sunlight. For the first and last time in the film, the spectator hears the father’s voice telling Soad to put him back to bed and that he is bothered and bored (Fig. 4.13). For the first time, the spectator moves with Soad and her father closer to the outside world. The scene (00:23:06–00:24:36) is set on the balcony, and for a very short time, daylight is fully present. However, the scene is shot in a close frame. Soad stretches her father’s leg and tries to expose his skin to the sunlight; the camera does not show any sign of the outside world, only Soad and the father’s decaying body. When the father utters the first and last words heard from him in the film, the frame widens a bit, but it still remains in close range: The father is in focus occupying the lower right of the frame, while Soad is out of focus in the upper left. The distant outside world is completely out of focus, rather blurred in the background (Fig. 4.14). The composition of the scene, even though shot in natural daylight (not in the dark and dim lighting of the flat), remains true to the notion of the family’s nonlife cut off from the outside world. It is the father, the dying man, whose position in the frame clearly receives the light. For the

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Fig. 4.13  Soad and her mother tending to the father

most part, Soad is in the shade, and when she moves toward the light, she immediately moves out of focus. While placing a character in the lower half of the frame in relation to another character in the upper half often indicates a weakness and helplessness of the former and power and dominion of the latter, this is not quite the case here. Ironically, the father doesn’t desire being in the light and demands to be put back to bed, he is b ­ othered

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Fig. 4.14  Out in the light (00:23:51– 00:24:20)

and bored. The composition suggests a possible meaning of the scene by placing the father in focus and closer to the camera. The position of the father sets the tone and the atmosphere of the frame, the father being in focus, and the scene stresses the presence or even omnipresence of Death. This omnipresence is at the same time an absence of this character. While the father’s body is there, as a person he is not. It is solely his near death that dominates the lives of all the characters. Being in the light (symbolizing life) is no longer his desire. Only when the father speaks does he become present. His words are a clear statement, “put me back to bed! I am bothered … I am bored” (00:24:20). He is bothered and bored with life and desires to go back to his bed where death is near. In addition, Soad

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with her distance to the camera and being out of focus is the helpless and nonliving character. She is caught between the permanent presence of death and a desire to live: a death about to happen and a life which is taking place without her somewhere on the outside. Furthermore, the sound design plays a major part. In support of the visual style, the sound design enhances the atmosphere of this scene. Out on the balcony, the spectator hears a mixture of distant sounds in the background. In fact, this mixture becomes a dull noise: birds, radio, shouting, and car sounds. The film keeps the volume of this background low, so it never becomes the dominant sound of the scene. Instead, silence is. Accordingly, it seems that nothing is able to take place in the life of the three characters: not a sound and not a light. Life, in Coming Forth at Day, is all on the outside and never a part of the inside. I will now discuss the following scene (00:24:36), in which Soad changes her father’s bed sheets and prepares to dress his wounds. The whole scene, in which Soad and then her mother change the father’s clothes and attend to his wounds, is shot in one long take of eight minutes. The scene contains almost no narrative content, rather it is a long and a slow representation of a painful and dull situation. It also shows and reveals the whole life situation of the three characters. The camera only minimally changes its position throughout the whole scene; it is placed on the bright balcony capturing what is happening in the scene with only slow movements. The scene starts, after a direct cut, with Soad taking the sheets and the clothes out of a wardrobe. Again, Soad is captured in a total low-key light. This visual feature matches her character traits outlined in the previous scene, where Soad was shown out of focus: positioning Soad in the shadow suggests that she is the character who psychologically suffers the most. In addition, the camera follows Soad’s movements, showing every detail: the clothes, the dirty old mattress, the allegedly fresh sheet with its stains and holes, and the new bandages. When Soad starts to move her father to put him to bed, the camera becomes static. Here, the treatment of the father’s illness, which really is more of a palliative alleviation of the symptoms, mirrors the preparation of the dead for their journey to and through death. The father gets fresh clothes, and his sores get disinfected and covered in what appears to be a metaphorical act of mummification. The positioning of the father within the frame enhances this notion; what the spectator sees is mainly his body from behind. From the moment Soad puts him to bed, the father’s face is no longer seen, except when Soad and her mother lay him down. Even then, he seems like a

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mummy with a vacant look and a stiff body. Throughout the whole scene, he does not utter a word, nor does he make a sound. Shortly after Soad starts attending to her father, the mother appears out of the dark space outside the room. She moves in her lifeless fashion and starts to help Soad. The composition of the frame shows the three of them: Soad on the left, the father in the center, and the mother on the right. The tense and sad relationship between the two is immediately evident the moment the mother enters. The mother asks, what she can get Soad, and Soad tells her impatiently to get her the ointment. The mother sits down and tells Soad, “leave him … I will hold him” (00:28:03). Throughout the whole scene, the two exchange resentful looks. The few words they exchange are full of accusations and resentment. Their only topic is the father whom they talk about in the third person, although he is present: The mother: Shouldn’t you have let the mattress air out a bit? It smells really bad. Soad: What have you done about the medical mattress? The mother: I will ask about the price today. Soad: Please don’t forget. Ok? As you see, the sores are getting worse. This mattress doesn’t work. The mother: Leave him, leave him … Hold him from the other side! Hold him well! The mother: Leave him to me! … Hold! Soad: Please don’t forget about the mattress! The Mother: We’ll see … I will go rest for a while before the shift. (Lotfy 00:28:11–00:31:50)

In this dialogue, it becomes clear how both characters project all their personal frustration onto one another and how they use the father to do so. The sense of disconnection among all three characters is also evident. The father does not react or interact in any way. Both women communicate with each other, or rather miscommunicate, in a very impersonal manner. Soad and her mother are caught in this miserable situation centered on the father; they both have no life; each is dead in her own way. The process of tending to the father is visually sad, yet it is also banal. The realist dimension of this scene is represented in the camera position, the minimal camera movement, the absence of cuts (being shot in a long take), the lighting, and the physical appearance of the characters in addition to the acting, which shows the emotional numbness and psychological exhaustion of the two women. These characteristics also effect dullness

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and suggest a sense of detachment and heaviness on the level of perception. The position of the camera in the outside world, on the bright side as it were, with its semi-static nature (only the lens moves) establishes a spectator’s point of view. Not only showing but also watching, the camera produces a mode of observation very much concerned with details: objects, bodies, and characters. Moreover, the use of long takes enhances the sense that what is being seen is a real-life situation without a narrative superimposed on it. This is again what Deleuze hints at when he discusses the concept of the time-image in which the action floats in the situation rather than bringing it to a conclusion. The eight-minute sequence is a scene where everything remains real within the reality of the setting. There is nothing but the dull room, the old dirty mattress, the stained sheet, the yellowish lighting, the sores on the father’s back, the “zombie-like” mother, and the pale and frustrated Soad. In terms of action, what takes place is: changing the sheets, dressing the sores, and clothing the father which are all done also in “real time.” In addition, Deleuze (1985) refers also to the concept of “still life” in neo-realist cinema, which can be evoked for this scene. As cited earlier, he argues, “the still life is defined by the presence and composition of objects which are wrapped up in themselves or become their own container” (1985). To this definition, I want to add that there is an embodied absence in this scene that is related to what Deleuze writes about the presence and the composition of objects. For the very physical presence of the father’s body is in fact an absence of his character and vice versa. Earlier, I referred to how both women talk about him in the third person and never directly talk to him throughout the whole scene. What they both deal with is his body and nothing more. Even the father himself does not interact with anyone or react to anything, neither his daughter nor his wife. They never look at him; neither does he look at them. Taking into account the composition of the three characters within the frame, the father is positioned in the center between Soad and the mother. Their lives are arranged around the father’s illness, and while his body stands physically between them in the scene, his absence/presence is also what stands between them emotionally in their lives. It is the presence of the body that connects the two women, yet the absence of the father as a person is what disconnects them and separates them from one another. In this sense, it is one of the pure optical situations “which bring the emancipated senses into direct relation with time and thought. This is the very special extension of the opsign: to make time and thought perceptible, to make them visible and of sound” (Deleuze 1985).

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Rebellion Coming Forth by Day first came out in a time of political turmoil, a couple of months after the military coup which ousted the Egyptian Muslim Brothers’ president Mohammed Morsi and the Raba’a massacre on August 13, 2013. Cinema production since 2011 has presented a number of films, which somehow negotiate or at least refer to the Egyptian Revolution, such as Ibrahim El Battout’s Winter of Discontent (2012), Yusri Nasrallah’s After the Battle (2012), and Ahmad Abdallah’s Rags and Tatters. At the first glance, Coming Forth by Day has nothing to do with the Revolution whatsoever, at least in terms of content. While Rags and Tatters delivers a counter-counternarrative concerning the Revolution, Lotfy’s film seems to be completely detached from the political dimension of Egyptian society. However, in terms of both production and reception, this film would not have had a chance to be made and shown before 2011. Accordingly, the uprising succeeded in creating a new artistic space for film. With regard to Coming Forth by Day, it is important to mention that the main production company of the film is Hassala, an independent cooperative production founded by a group of artists including Hala Lotfy in June 2010 (Taha 2015). It was only after three years, in 2013, that Hassala released its first feature film: Coming Forth by Day. The independent production allowed the filmmaker(s) to take their own artistic freedom, an endeavor which runs counter to the mainstream mode of production in the Egyptian context. In this sense, addressing rebellion in Lotfy’s debut film begins with the process of production itself. However, what I am more concerned with is the birth of a new cinematic language out of this process. I argue that the notion of rebellion as related to the film’s subject matter is suggested by the time it was released amidst the eruptive socio-­ political situation in 2013. It is about a day in the life of an Egyptian family in which two women struggle on a daily basis to survive in the severe social and economic situation in Egypt. According to The Central Agency for Public Mobilization // Statistics and The National Centre for Social & Criminological Research in Egypt, 34% of all households in Egypt today are solely supported by women (The World Bank 2018). One element of this situation is where the man is disabled and not able to receive proper medical care due to the family’s financial situation. In this film, it is the daughter and the mother who have this responsibility. Their lives are defined by the illness of the father and the presence of death, while

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revolutions and political strife are relegated to a far-away outside world. However, the still life of this family is shaped by oppression, poverty, ill health, disconnection, and injustice among other things. If Rags and Tatters is about the flipside of the Revolution, the forgotten and the nameless within the Tahrir narrative, Coming Forth by Day is about the very life of those left behind, the everyday nameless faces living unnoticed regardless of the times, events, or even history. Such a reading of Coming Forth by Day views it as social commentary in spite of its seeming remoteness from public or political social affairs. However, it is all about the image; the visual representation is the driving force of any possible meaning in the film. The film’s realism is that of rhythm, silence, lightings, camera, settings, and bodies. The cinematic language itself is the rebel; it stages time and not action; it is concerned with what is rather than with what is to come or what was. The following section tries to further analyze how this understanding of rebellion is developed in and from Coming Forth by Day. To Catch Up with the Light? (50:32:59–59:56:22) The next section deals with the second half of Lotfy’s film. It is set in the outside world after Soad leaves the apartment. This section discusses two sequences: the first is the scene in which Soad leaves the flat and goes out (50:32:55). The second scene is the ending of the film. In the first sequence, Soad tells her mother that she will go out to visit a friend. But later the viewer sees Soad only on the streets or in microbuses, moving from place to place almost aimlessly. The sequence starts with Soad having her hair done at a hairdresser’s (00:50:53). For the first time, Soad is shown fully in the daylight; however, the lighting remains yellowish with a cold color tone which indicates that it is late afternoon. Both the lighting and the tone continue to be realistic in portraying the dull and chaotic characteristics of this part of Cairo. The film does not name in which neighborhood Soad lives, but it is clear that it is one of the lower-middle-­ class neighborhoods near downtown Cairo. After leaving the hairdresser, Soad gets into a microbus heading for Tahrir. This sequence (00:52:46–00:59:56) signifies a change in terms of montage/editing. For the first time, with Soad now out of the flat, the film employs parallel montage. When Soad gets into the microbus, the film cuts back to the flat and shows the mother cleaning the floor (00:53:27). Here, the interplay of light and darkness is thrown into starker contrast with Soad being in the

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outside world in daylight, and the mother in the dark flat. The effect is heightened by still portraying the mother in a lifeless and ghostly way. The film cuts back to Soad in the microbus (00:54:20) introducing one of the most powerful scenes in the film. This scene is a long take showing an interaction between Soad and a young woman setting next to her. The young woman starts a conversation, or rather a monologue with Soad as audience. She starts by asking Soad, whether her head scarf is properly covering her hair, then she asks her about the direction of the microbus, telling her she wants to go to Helwan, one of Cairo’s outer districts. She then compliments Soad’s handbag and asks her where she got it. When Soad tells her that it is old, the young woman says, that it actually looks old. It becomes evident that this young woman behaves rather oddly. She changes the subject, and abruptly asks Soad whether she is Christian, because she does not wear a head scarf. Soad uneasily says no: Young woman: Well, I was like you … Then, I have been told…Well, I am possessed. Soad: What do you mean? Young woman: Possessed … A spell was cast on me, and something haunts me, you know; they say; it is easier to be possessed if your hair is uncovered… You are not married, are you? Soad: No, I am not. Young woman: What is this then? Soad: Just a ring. Young woman: I am 26, and I still have not got married. Soad: You are still young. Young woman: No, I should have got married a long time ago … but the person who cast the spell meant for me to be viewed as a chimp, so I would not get married … She … She … (angrily) It is her, that bitch that cast the spell on me. Soad: Who is the bitch? Young woman: My stepmother, I know it is her … Soad: How[did] you know it is her? Young woman: I know, she does not like me, but … Soad: How[did] you know it is your stepmother? Young woman: I know it is her, she does not like me, but I am … Well, I am going to Helwan to see a certain priest in a church there … they say, he is very good … so yeah, I have gone to many sheikhs and done all I could, but nothing worked … Soad: What [happens] to you?

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Young woman: But with God’s will, they will undo the spell … I will keep on going there until they undo the spell … Sometimes, I wake up and I find these things … you know … look … See? See? (shows Soad her arm) Soad: There is nothing. There is nothing wrong with you. Young woman: I don’t … look! I mean, he sucks my blood, look how my veins are popping, look! … I have had enough, seriously. He comes at times, while I am sleeping. That son of a bitch … but I will undo it; I will undo it … He comes while I am asleep, and sometimes I hear voices before dawn, and I wake up frightened. I never see him, but I can feel him … So, that is it, I became a spinster … Soad: Spinster? You are still young. Young woman: No, young? Women my age are all married … You know, I had a lot of suitors, but the spell. (Lotfy 00:54:20:–00:58:58)

At this point the film employs a rough cut, almost a jump cut within the scene. The scene continues with the young woman asking Soad if she has money to change. Soad asks her how much and takes out her purse, but the young woman snaps a banknote telling Soad, “this one is good.” Shortly after, the young woman stops the microbus and gets out; the camera moves out of the bus showing her standing there, confused, but only for a second, and then walking off the frame. The camera gets back to Soad, and the scene ends with a cut back to the mother in the flat (00:59:57). This encounter with the young woman along with the whole dialogue can be read in many different ways. One way is viewing it as a sort of social commentary. The unstable behavior of the young woman and her ranting reveal a number of possible readings addressed below. Other than her mother and father, this is the only person with whom Soad has an active encounter in the film. Following the neorealist esthetics, Lotfy employs a single long take of almost five minutes. The scene is shown in a medium shot and with one camera position. For the first and only time in the film, a scene is shot with a hand-held camera. The camera adapts the movements of the microbus, effectively adding to the verisimilitude of the optical situation. This visual quality establishes the sense of an active observer intruding into the personal space of the two characters. This is not done forcefully, but rather in a realistic tone, for in public transportation in general, and in these microbuses in particular, there is no personal space at all as is shown through the two men sitting behind Soad and the young woman. During the whole scene, both men, and especially the one on the right, are quiet listeners, leaning toward the

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dialogue, a passive part in the conversation between the two women. Visually, the man on the right is taking the same camera angle as the spectator. This also appeals to the film’s realism: The violation of the personal space in Egypt is an everyday reality on the streets, in public, and even in private transport (Fig. 4.15). Thus, in discussing the dialogue between Soad and the young woman, the implicit social commentary needs to be addressed. The character of this woman is a very tragic one, however; and the impression of everyday banality which I discussed earlier is again evident here. The young woman directly tries to define Soad with her supposed religious identity: no head scarf, thus she has to be Christian. She starts then to talk about her misery; also based on religious background: she got possessed because she did not wear a head scarf and her stepmother cast a spell on her, so she would not get married. Here comes the second social aspect of marriage for women. It is still a tradition in Egyptian low and lower-middle classes that a woman must get married at a young age. The idea of becoming a “spinster” still is a social stigma for women. A spinster in these social classes is a woman

Fig. 4.15  The young woman talking to Soad with a passive participation of the man behind: “Are you Christian?” (00:25:24)

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who is approaching or just entered her thirties. The film does not offer an explanation or a cause for the young woman’s mental illness and is not even concerned with the omission. Yet, it is important to provide a social reading which might help to understand why this woman reached this situation, or at least, to say that her condition seems to be connected to certain social aspects. A social aspect to discuss here is the religious dimension already hinted at earlier. Religion plays a key role in this scene on different levels. Firstly, one has to reckon the sectarian situation in Egypt. Since the 1970s, with the beginning of Anwar El Sadat’s rule, Egypt witnessed the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a tool used by the regime to crush the Egyptian left (El Khouly 1986; Zeghal 1999; Mustafa 1992). Sadat deployed a new socio-­ political strategy, which meant to replace Nasser’s socialist and progressive orientation with conservative Islamic values. After Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and the 1960s, Sadat started his rule by releasing all imprisoned Muslim Brothers and giving them space to practice religious, social, and political activities (Osman 2011). After the 1973 war with Israel, also known as Yom Kippur War, this socio-political strategy started to become obvious. Egyptian Universities witnessed the rise of Islamic groups, and soon these groups fought the activities of all leftist groups, and even violently confronted them with the unofficial blessing of the authorities (Osman 2011). Moreover, in gaining more social space, mosques were filled with fundamentalist Imams preaching values and concepts of Wahhabi Islam imported from Saudi Arabia. In effect, the second half of the 1970s, specifically after the 1973, witnessed many changes in the Egyptian society, one of them being the rise of new exclusive religious groups. A conservative and radical strain of Islam came into being accompanied by a certain social code and lifestyle. An example of this new lifestyle was the rise, or rather the return, of the veil: Hijab among Egyptian women (Ahmed 2011). During the 1970s, the new Islamic costume, Ziyy, had been confined to certain groups such as the Muslim Brothers (in this case the sisters). It was not until the 1980s that the Hijab entered the mainstream and became visible all  across the country  (Ahmed 2011; Radwan 1982). In addition, Wahhabi Islam is marked by a strong sense of sectarianism. In 1981, the last year of Sadat’s rule, eighty-six Christians were killed in the Zawya Al Hamra neighborhood in Cairo over an ordinary neighbors’ fight (Ayalon 1999). This neighborhood

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was a hotbed of the Islamic Jihad, Jama’a Islamiyya, and Al Takfir w Al Hidjra. In this sense, the young woman with her psychological condition voices this sectarian prejudice openly when asking Soad if she is Christian because Soad does not wear a headscarf. In addition, when Soad reluctantly tells her that she is not Christian, the young woman brands her with another stigma. The young woman warns Soad about not wearing a headscarf, telling her that she was like her and that is why she is possessed. In the literature and the preaching of the Wahhabi brand of Islam, women occupy two thirds of Hell.18 Women are/can be cause of Fitna, Sedition (Mernissi 1987), and those who wear their hair uncovered shall be hung from their hair in Hell (Rustomji 2009). Accordingly, in life, they are vulnerable to the touch of the devil, and are easily possessed. This leads to the second aspect of the dialogue’s religious dimension, which is a kind of religious oppression and manipulation: the practice of exorcism. Exorcism is indeed not an Islamic phenomenon in Egypt. Black magic, possession, and spells go back centuries to old Pharaonic Egypt and stay present until this very day. In recent years however, many Salafi Sheikhs adopted this “business” and offered the so-called Healing by Qur’an arguing that magic is mentioned in the Qur’an and is indeed true. Accordingly, discussing the social background of the young woman, though she obviously belongs to the lower middle class, is not significant here because exorcisms are not bound to specific classes. She believes her psychological condition to be caused by some spell cast on her solely for her noncommitment to religion. Psychological treatment is replaced by mythical religious practices for which, as she tells Soad, she went to many Sheikhs who could not heal her. To her, her social condition as a spinster is caused by the same factors. The young woman thus moves within a socio-religious chain of oppression. The social is represented on the one hand by the pressure to marry at a certain age in order not to become a spinster and, on the other, by breaking loose from family oppression, which is an arena to an antagonism between the daughter and the stepmother. The religious aspect is evident, firstly, in the earthly punishment of being possessed because of not committing to the teachings of Islam by wearing her hair uncovered. Secondly, she became a victim of the religious exorcism business, which controls her

 This is based on Hadith 28 in Al Bukhary.

18

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life entirely, keeps her in a vicious cycle, and worsens her psychological condition. Moreover, the vicious cycle of religious oppression now widens. After exhausting her options with the Sheikhs, she reaches now to the “other side,” the very side she is prejudiced about: the Christians. She tells Soad that she is on her way to Helwan to a famous priest who practices exorcism in a church. The film here hints at Mar Gergers Coptic Church which is known for holding mass exorcisms on a regular basis, and it also opens its doors to Muslims. In spite of the increasing sectarian tension in the last forty years in Egypt, there are still many signs of a normal co-existence among Egyptians of different backgrounds. One of the most explicit examples is a Muslim believing in the power of Christ and Mary to cure and heal despite the radical differences of both religious persuasions. Nevertheless, the film here also refers to the other side of the coin: the religious oppression within the Coptic community. It was also in the 1970s when the Coptic church under Pope Shenoda III became a political entity. The Church turned into a state within a state, and the Pope became the leader of a minority (Fahmi 2014). The Coptic community became closed, following and living by the rules of a Church, which controls almost every detail of the individual’s life (Fahmi 2014). In fact, there exist many kinds of oppression the Coptic Church shares with the “other side.” Fundamentalism and sectarianism live on both sides, Muslims and Copts. One aspect shared is the practice of exorcism and the religious myths it goes back to. The concepts of noncommitment, sin, and secular lifestyle, which result in being possessed and touched by the devil, are also found in the Coptic community. To summarize, this scene cleverly delivers a social commentary via a realistic dialogue between Soad and the young woman. I argue that the choice of Doaa Oreyqat who played the role of the young woman was crucial to this scene. Along with her acting abilities (which gained praise from all critics), her physical appearance helped to produce a sense of realness about her character: skin color, facial features, and costumes. In terms of physical appearance, just like Soad and her mother, she is one of the ordinary and unnoticed humans, someone who can be encountered every day in the streets of Cairo, one of those who are not remembered. As the film proceeds, the young woman is again “forgotten,” she vanishes from the film’s memory. What is striking about this encounter is not the fact that it is tragic but rather the banality of this tragedy. The script along with the acting invokes a sense of black humor in the way the young woman

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talks, her incoherence, and how she communicates with Soad. The spectator is somehow induced to laugh when she negatively comments on Soad’s bag right after she compliments her about it, when she suddenly asks Soad if she is Christian and finally when she snatches a banknote from Soad’s purse and immediately gets off the bus. The look of concern and sympathy on Soad’s face when her eyes follow the young woman out of the bus is only temporary. The concern on Soad’s face is mixed with some irritation about being “robbed” of money (which will affect her later on). The scene ends with the young woman confusedly stepping out of the frame and Soad checking her purse looking concerned and irritated. This long scene is an encounter of two miserable characters, two tragedies. A young woman probably suffering from psychosis, caught in a vicious cycle of social oppression, and Soad, a thirtyish woman, actually a spinster, whose family life is her prison, a life defined by a death-in-waiting. The moment the young woman steps out of the frame, she ceases to exist entirely. It seems that her existence is completely contingent and banal. The very topics addressed flow “naturally” in the scene and disappear again without any trace. The young woman is an object of natural forgetting. Her being is as banal as the nature of the conversation which lacks a precise subject matter. In effect, the rebellious aspect in this scene is mainly defined by a rebellion of form rather than of the content. The observational quality of this long-take establishes a sense of continuity of action. However, it is not the content of the action which is being focused on here. Rather, if this scene generates any kind of reflection, it is “not simply focused on the content of the image but on its form, its means and functions, its falsifications and creativities, on the relations within it between the sound dimension and the optical” (Deleuze 1985). In other words, as the film belongs to the cinema of time-image, this scene, which employs neo-realist esthetics, is marked by an absence of plot in favor of the visual image. In sum, whether within the Egyptian context, or beyond, Coming Forth by Day is yet another line of flight from the dominant narrative cinema. In times of socio-political eruption in Egypt, the film shows a story of an ordinary woman who suffers a life defined by death. A story of loss, or rather a story of parting from someone you love. Despite the fact that the film, as any other text, is open to interpretation, Coming Forth by Day is remarkably loyal to its story. While the scene discussed contains social commentary, both its form and style deliver a sense of banality which causes a natural forgetting through the visual image. Tragedies, injustices,

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oppression and suffering are of no importance, they are not the topic; they are just there. Death and All Its Friends (01:00:10–01:04:30) The previous scene ends by cutting back to the mother in the flat (01:00:10:09). In this scene (01:00:10:09–01:04:30:58), the spectator sees for the first and last time a glimpse of intimacy between the mother and the father. For the first time also, a smile on the mother’s face is shown, and the camera captures the father in a close up showing his face. When the film cuts back to the mother after the dialogue between Soad and the young woman, she has finished showering. She picks up the cassette recorder and puts it on the commode beside the father’s bed. She starts the tape and the audience hears the voice of Om Kolthum19 singing an old song. She asks the father, “how about we listen to Om Kolthum?” (01:02:40). She then helps him up and gives him a sip of tea. This moment ends very soon with a new shot showing the mother sitting in the living room, and the father on his bed with Om Kolthum singing still (01:03:45). This scene is the prelude of the father’s awaited death. The very brief intimate moment when the mother becomes the wife and the disabled father a husband is quickly followed by a wide shot of both characters again separated by a wall. The glimpse of possible vividness evaporates into the dull reality of their life. The scene begins with the mother coming out of the bathroom taking a shower. She stands before the mirror while combing her hair. On her way out of her room, she stops briefly and touches her neck and goes to pick up the cassette recorder and brings it to the father’s room. When she gives the father a sip of tea, the camera, for the first and the last time, captures a ghost of a smile on her. Here, a corporeal awareness becomes existent on two different levels. Firstly, the mother seems to briefly remember the existence of her body, her corporeality, and thus her individual existence. After being (re-)presented as lifeless throughout the film up until this moment with dull and robotic movements and mostly a single facial expression, a slight change occurs now. Alone in the flat with her husband, some traces of life return, and she becomes self-aware: her wet hair, her reflection in the mirror and the touch of her own skin. Her movements are no longer robotic and 19  Om Kolthum was the ultimate singer star from the 1920s up till her death in 1975. She remains an icon until this very day.

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aimless. The attempt at creating an intimate moment is her only deliberate act. Secondly, up to this point the physical interaction between her and her husband has only taken place in relation to the father’s disability, as, for example, in the scene when Soad and her Mother tend to the father. Now, listening to Om Kolthum and drinking tea together on the bed while embracing him from behind, the two bodies regain their individual existence. The father is no longer the crisis, no longer the decaying body who sucks life and replaces it with the omnipresence of death. He is now the missed husband, and the mother is the yearning wife. After the viewer sees each character separately, listening to Om Kolthum in medium shots, the camera is again positioned further away from the two characters who return to their normal places, each is alone in the dark, each is undead in his/her own way. The scene ends with two close shots; first the mother sits alone in the dark, and finally a close up of the father’s face as he lies in his bed (01:04:30:55). The film then cuts to Soad, and when it cuts back to the flat, the father falls out of his bed and the mother runs to him and gets him to the hospital (01:07:58:57) (Fig. 4.16). While the scene in which Soad and her mother tend to the father can be seen as physically preparing the father for his last journey in death, the scene at hand represents an emotional and personal farewell. Briefly, the father regains his human presence before getting back to being a broken body indicating death’s omnipresence. The mother too has briefly shown a sign of life.

Fig. 4.16  Left, the mother alone listening to Om Kolthum (01:03:53). Right, the father alone in his bed listening to Om Kolthum, before the film cuts to Soad in the city (01:04:30)

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Here, Coming Forth by Day again rebels against any possibility of an emotional cliché. By choosing to show this moment of intimacy in a very short scene and ending it abruptly, only to follow it by the shots discussed above, the film refuses to give in to any easy representation of sentiments. The mother’s desire to have a sort of normalcy does not last long, in fact, the abrupt ending of this shot shows that this intimacy is unbearable for the mother. Once more, the action flows into the optical situation, and the mother’s desire is contingent and does not contain any motivation whatsoever, neither on the level of the plot, nor was it visually hinted at before. The whole sequence of the mother and the father in the flat is marked by a sober realism, which gets its power from the reality of the setting: the dark flat, and from the physical appearance of the characters. In other words, the optical situation is the dominant factor, which is why this moment too becomes a subject of natural forgetting. Thus, the farewell cannot be read as emotionally motivated, rather as purely visual with no feeling of an intended symbolism behind it. Furthermore, Coming Forth by Day plays with the very notion of emotional clichés when playing Om Kolthum’s song We Were Unjust to Love. Some critics rushed to the conclusion that the song offers a chance of interpretation to tell the spectator something about the unknown past of this couple, especially through its lyrics: …and now, I never forget it, and you never forget it we never find it … you and I You and I were unjust to love Through jealousy, and opened the door To suspicions And we paid farewell to hope many times Between doubt and confusion.

I argue that the lyrics do not add any personal dimension to the relationship between the couple, as the film itself is not concerned with offering any past of this family. Jealousy, doubt, and suspicions do not have a place in the life situation the two characters have; a dying man and a lifeless woman. I also argue that it is likely that the song is chosen randomly, and if it serves any purpose, it would be stressing the sense of sought intimacy, stillness, and actually dullness, not love, hope, or joy.

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Coming Forth: The Ending After the mother called Soad and told her that she has brought the father to the hospital, Soad rushes there, but soon leaves again. She spends the next hours wandering aimlessly, until she reaches the City of the Dead where she spends the rest of the night alone. Except for her encounter with the deranged young woman, Soad’s whole wandering in the outside world is marked by loneliness. Following the scene discussed above (01:00:10:09–01:04:30:58), the film cuts back to Soad. The sun is now about to set, and she asks a street vendor if she could make a cellphone call. She calls someone with whom she is in a romantic, though troubled relationship. The brief call and the fact that she is calling him not from her cellphone reveal that this person is avoiding her.20 Soad then moves on and calls Ne’maat, her friend, whom she told her mother she was going to meet. After the father has fallen from his bed, the film cuts again to Soad stepping into a shop and asking the price of the medical mattress. She goes out and then receives a call from her mother about what happened to her father. Soad goes to the hospital where her mother works as a nurse, she briefly takes a look at her father in the hospital bed. Her mother sends her home, telling her she should leave because she does not like hospitals. For the first time, an emotional bond between Soad and the mother is established. When Soad enters the room where her mother sits, the following dialogue takes place: Mother: You got your hair done? Soad: Are you ok? Mother: Go home! You don’t like hospitals Soad: Go home and do what by myself? Let me stay here with you and Dad. Mother: Don’t be a child. Get up, I need to go give your father a Shot. (Lotfy 01:12:10–01:13:51)

Unlike the previous dialogues, this one emanates some warmth. For the first time, the spectator senses a sort of ordinary mother-daughter relationship distinguished by care and love instead of the resentful and hostile atmosphere felt throughout the film up until now. This is stressed visually,

20  Earlier in the film, Soad tries to call a number many times, but she never gets an answer. In this scene, she talks to this person and asks him, why wouldn’t he answer his phone and tells him that he avoids her.

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when also for the first time a physical interaction between the two takes place, as the mother caresses Soad (01:13:51). Soad leaves the hospital and decides to not go home directly. Out of the hospital, she receives a call from her unknown lover she called earlier. She tells him not to call her anymore. Then, Soad visits the Al Hussein Mosque, where she prays and then leaves. The camera accompanies Soad while she walks aimlessly through the city. Every now and then, the camera leaves her and captures the nightlife in the crowded Al Hussein area.21 Leaving Al Hussein on the main road, Soad stops a microbus to go home. However, the hostile and unfriendly driver kicks her out in the middle of nowhere after she tells him that he should have picked up an old man for whom the driver refused to stop. Having no more money, Soad

Fig. 4.17  Soad all alone in the City of the Dead. (01:32:29)

21  Al Hussein area is a very popular place in Cairo for people to visit. The Mosque is an attraction for many Egyptians as it is supposed to contain the grave of Mohammad’s grandson Al Hussein. Around and near to the Mosque, there are many street Cafes and famous restaurants. The area contains also the Khan Al Khalili Bazar which is the most famous Bazar in Cairo; it is also a popular tourist attraction.

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walks all alone on the dark road until she reaches the City of the Dead (01:30:00). The diegetic sound design includes some singing voices of Sufi Inshad. Soad follows these voices until she finds an old man fishing in the Ain Al Seera lake which is located within the City of the Dead. She sits there all alone until the morning (Fig. 4.17). The film cuts to the mother in the hospital (01:31:21:43). A colleague of hers comes and relieves her from her shift and tells her to go home to her daughter. Finally, the spectator gets to know the mother’s name: Hayat. Ironically, the name Hayat means “Life” in Arabic. Accordingly, this part of the film, starting from the intimate moment in the flat, throughout the dialogue with Soad in the hospital, and this scene where the film reveals her name, the mother’s character slowly gains a human and personal dimension. This only takes place while the film is close to its end. In fact, the closer the father’s death is, the more she becomes alive. She seeks an intimate moment with her husband, a smile on her face is briefly captured, she is finally seen outside of the flat with different clothes and in more light, she shows some emotional warmth toward Soad and finally, she has a name. The last scene (01:32:5–01:35:42) begins with Soad entering the flat in the morning. While Soad slowly enters the frame, a banging sound can be heard. Soad enters the mother’s room to find her sitting on the floor with the inside of a mattress all over the place. The mother bangs with a wooden stick into the cotton pieces, imitating upholsters and attempting to fix the mattress. Soad asks her: Soad: What are you doing? Mother: I am fixing your father’s mattress. Smells bad … He can’t sleep on it. Mother: Where were you? I thought you were buying bread. Soad: I don’t have money at all. I came walking from Al Hussein. Mother: You went to Al Hussein? Soad: How is he doing? Mother: Sick. Soad: Where are we going to bury Dad? Where is our cemetery located? (Lotfy 01:33:12–01:35:27)

After Soad asks her mother about what she is doing, she sits next to her, the room is lightened by daylight, and for the first time, the sun is strongly flowing into the flat. The Mother is located entirely in the light, while Soad is in the shadow. However, compared to the whole interior shots, this shot is brighter and less depressive in terms of lightning. The dialogue

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Fig. 4.18  The mother looking into the light (01:35:27)

taking place between the two women represents a sort of relief that goes along with the visual characteristics: This could perhaps even be the beginning of a new phase in their lives. There is no trace of tension or resentment between the mother and her daughter, rather a sense of calm and maybe compassion is felt in this shot. In addition, fixing the mattress seems to be an act of self-occupation rather than an act of denial, given the fact that the father is probably about to die. After the meaningless interaction about where Soad was, Soad asks a meaningful and real question: “Where are we going to bury Dad? Where is our Cemetery located?” (01:35:27:57). The reaction of the mother is silently looking into the streaming sunlight coming from the outside and the film ends, fading out to black (Fig. 4.18). With this ending, Soad is stating the fact that hers and her mother’s life could be “reanimated” only after the departure of the father. This life begins with the question of the burial, the ultimate goodbye. Soad’s journey in the outside world might be a prelude of her coming forth to live. The cinematography during her outside journey makes clear how she is cut off from life. The potential lover ignores her, and the friend she wanted

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to meet is not even shown in the film. When she goes into the Mosque— an almost typical social reaction to the father’s condition being near to death—the act is meaningless to her. The camera shows her among other women who stand before Al Hussein’s shrine praying. She stands there and does not pray. She is confused and does not know what to do. She watches the other women and tries to find out how they are doing it, but she does not join them. Accordingly, religion does not help her in any way and does not offer an answer or even a brief respite. Outside the Mosque, she is all alone watching life going on around her: vividness, noise and people talking and joking. It seems that only after she was surrounded by death and the dead as the last stage of her journey, she can ask her mother the right question. Where religion does not help, the reality of death as represented by the City of the Dead does. In and even beyond the Egyptian context, the film breaks the taboo of death and its religious and social sacredness, especially where it concerns a family member with a fatal illness. One does not speak of the burial before the death. The accepted way of dealing with this condition is signified by the mother’s act of fixing the mattress, but then the mother accepts the reality evoked by Soad’s question. This reality is that the father’s departure, his physical death is a relief to all, a notion that cannot be accepted socially. The life of a person disabled by a stroke becomes a burden for any family, especially in the middle and lower-middle classes with no possibility of proper health care. At a certain point, it becomes clear under these conditions that the death of this family member is the only way out of this miserable situation. This relief is indeed never shown, nor spoken of. Coming Forth by Day tackles this idea from the very beginning and thus breaks this taboo with its neorealist esthetics, which rely completely on the power of the image. In addition, though the film is about the loss of a beloved person Lotfy succeeds to free the film from any shallow, sentimental emotionality. In fact, the film does not contain any melodramatic buildup at all. Rather, Coming Forth by Day shows this loss as a real-life situation, even in the scene where the two women attend to the father, the banality of the action and its representation are what might be emotionally striking, and not the act itself. Even more than Rags and Tatters, the film delivers a different kind of cinema within the Egyptian context and beyond. In relation to the Egyptian cinema, Coming Forth by Day creates a new cinematic language on every level. By no means can Lotfy’s film be considered as a narrative film. The notion of rebellion in Coming Forth by Day is evident mostly in the visual style contains the social commentary. The film

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is another line of flight from the traditional Egyptian cinema on every level: funding, production, genre and esthetics.

Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City (2016) Narration Like Microphone, El Said’s film captures the notion of filmmaking and exposes its spectators to its preoccupation with the nature of film as a medium. In the last Days of the City shows its protagonist’s failing journey in a city (Cairo) on the brink of a subtle change. Khalid, played by Egyptian-­British actor Khalid Abdallah, is a filmmaker who works on a personal documentary. His mother is dying in a hospital bed, he needs to find an apartment as his landlord gave him a month to leave his current one and his ex-girlfriend is leaving Egypt. El Said’s film had been seven years in the making. It all started in 2009 until its release in 2016. The shooting of the film was done in Cairo, Beirut, and Baghdad. The film events take place mainly in Cairo, one to two years prior to the 2011 Egyptian Uprising. In terms of narration, the film is presented nonlinearly and moves mainly among three levels of narrations. One level is Khalid’s present, another level is his past and the third level is Khalid’s film. All these three levels are blurred and intertwined. Furthermore, and like Microphone, both fiction and documentary genres are also blurred and dissolved in the overall narrative. However, the documentary element here is multilayered. Time in this film is also an important notion, especially in relation to sound design. In the following reading, I argue that In the Last Days of the City succeeds to portray the sense of loss, chaos and decay of both protagonist and his city through its narrational representation. The film utilizes art cinema characteristics when it comes to the notion of character causality, cinematography and editing. However, and this is not necessarily a negative “verdict,” the film does not establish a dramatic coherence whether deliberately, or it simply fails to do so. What stands out as remarkable is the film’s understanding of time and space. The Opening Sequence (00:01:10–00:05:40) The film starts with the date: December 2009. It opens with an establishing shot of Cairo’s infamous Qasr El Nil bridge (00:10:00), followed by a

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Fig. 4.19  Upper left, establishing Shot of Cairo. Upper right, Khalid looking out of the hospital’s window. Bottom left, Khalid’s mother in focus. Bottom right, Khalid, his mother and the background all in focus (00:01:10–00:01:59)

medium shot of Khalid looking out of a window at a different view of the Nile (00:01:25), this is followed by a long shot of Khalid and his ill mother (00:02:10) (Fig. 4.19). The establishing shot of Qasr El Nil bridge marks the film’s first line of narration; actually, the engulfing one. Cairo in this film stands as an autonomous entity which tells its own story and most of the time guides the film’s other lines of narration. Cairo with its streets, shops, colors, and random and anonymous people is the visual force of the film; the sonic too. The city is the film’s main protagonist/antagonist. Thus, In the Last Days of the City chooses to start with its main subject: Cairo, then it cuts to its human protagonist, Khalid (00:01:25). The two shots are similar in terms of color and composition. It is not clear, however, if it is dawn or dusk. Khalid is shot from the side in the foreground while the Nile in the background, both in focus. The idea, which is presented in the establishing shot, that Cairo being the engulfing line of narration, is asserted here in this shot, as Khalid is placed in the left half of the frame. Khalid’s face is also not shown, only his profile. The background

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shows a green space on the east bank of the Nile, the river and on the left bank stand some ugly red-brick high buildings. This Cairo-contradiction, as I call it, is shown throughout the whole film: beauty hand in hand with ugliness; joy with depression; wealth with poverty; water with dust. The third shot (00:01:50), the film cuts to Khalid standing next to his mother’s bed. Both Khalid and his mother are put against the light which shows them as shadows: a lost man and his dying mother. The following shot is Khalid’s mother in an extreme close-up, also shown in profile (00:01:54). After visually establishing the film’s first cue, which is one of Khalid’s crisis: the illness of his mother, the film asserts the idea of Cairo as a protagonist/antagonist. Khalid is on the street now picking a cab to downtown (00:02:04). In the cab, the camera depicts the outside: people and objects. However, the people this shot depicts are ghostly figures (00:02:27–00:03:08). The camera first shows Khalid, once more in profile in focus while the street is out of focus in the background. Then, the camera adopting the cab’s speed shows the outside of the cab. Only, the Nile is clear despite the movement. Everything else is shadowy and eschewed in terms of lighting, and this sequence uses the same esthetics which were employed in the hospital scene. The figures are positioned against the light as well. Like Khalid, these anonymous people are just shadows engulfed by the city. This scene (00:02:41–00:3:07) is done in one shot in which the movement creates a continuity of bodies, objects, and shapes braided in one another: people and horses are ghosts. Fences, car frames, and trees become shapes of prison bars (Fig. 4.20). In terms of sound design, In the Last Days of the City utilizes sound as an extra sphere of narration, whether as an overt commentary, or in enhancing nonlinearity and in connecting the various lines of narration the film contains. In this sequence, while the camera shows these images, the voice of a news reporter is heard off camera coming from the cab’s radio: Egyptian-French relations, Mubarak’s statement on the Middle East Peace Process, and Egyptian and Arab diaspora celebrating Mubarak’s visit. The Radio news playing from the off reoccurs throughout the whole film. I ague that this feature does not necessarily aim at delivering a subtle political message, rather, it is a historiographical soundtrack. As the production started in 2009, and the film was screened seven years later, these radio-­ news operate as a topical archive and as a process of memory. Like Microphone, In the Last Days of the City plays the notion of memory as a virtual potential of the past. In 2016 and even now, listening to this news in the way it is represented cannot be separated from present or future.

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Fig. 4.20  (00:02:07–00:03:08)

Specifically, for the spectator who is up to date concerning Egypt’s course from 2011 until present day. In this very day in the year 2020, Egypt is ruled by a ruthless military regime; the worst version of Mubarak’s regime. One only needs to listen to the Egyptian news to find that the only difference is the name of the president: instead of “President Mubarak stated” it is “President Al Sisi stated.” The virtual potentiality of the past in Tamer El Said’s film captures the present sense of loss and depression. The virtual in the socio-political context in no more. However, the virtuality here is the act of living the past potentiality anew; this time with a pre-existing knowledge: the future that was. The Second Sequence: Time and Film (00:05:40–00:08:10) In this sequence (00:05:40–00:08:10), Khalid has just finished his meeting with a realtor for viewing an apartment. The film employs its sound design here and throughout the whole film to create both: continuity and discontinuity. The previous scene ends sonically with the realtor telling

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Khalid to be flexible about his choice of the apartments (00:05:37). The spectator receives the information that Khalid is searching for an apartment for some time now without success. He meets Gaber, the realtor and he shows him a wrecked apartment in which chicken are being raised. The realtor utters his last words off camera, while the film shows an old lady selling flowers walking in the street followed by an advertisement man blowing bubbles in front of a shop. Here and once more, Cairo’s line of narration is present. The camera travels away from Khalid and Gaber and captures two random people on the street. While Gaber’s last words are uttered off camera, it is not certain, if these two images: the old lady and the advertisement man exist in the same temporal frame in which Khalid and Gaber are. The following sequence starts sonically. An off-camera female voice asks Khalid, “When are you moving out?” (00:05:40), while the camera still shows the advertisement man blowing bubbles. Employing this technique creates a sense of continuity as means of transition between two scenes, and it provides information about Khalid’s search for a new apartment. Now, the spectator knows that Khalid is leaving his current apartment. However, employing this voice-off causes a visual discontinuity, especially after the previous abrupt cut from Khalid and Gaber to the old lady. In addition, the question of the temporal frame still remains intact. The female voice is of Hanan, Khalid’s relative whom he interviews for his Documentary. The film cuts to a shot of a car’s rear mirror as Khalid answers, “I have till mid-February” (00:05:42). The film continues employing the off-camera sound: Hanan: Have you found a flat? Khalid: I am looking. Hanan: So, what do you want from me? To find you a flat? Khalid: No, I want you to tell Hanan: About? Khalid: Your Home in Alexandria. (00:05:40–00:05:56)

Throughout this dialogue, both characters speak off-camera, while the camera shows blurred images of a rear mirror, a driving wheel and a driver. The film here introduces the spectator to Hanan, one of Khalid’s characters in his Documentary, and she is a relative of his. Also, it gives the information about Khalid’s situation: he has two months to find a new flat and moves out.

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The camera cuts to Hanan’s face at last, and for the most part her voice is not synched to the image. Khalid is asking her about her home in Alexandria to which she answers that she does not like to talk about this topic. However, she briefly speaks about it. In his review of The Last Days of the City, Jan Weissberg (2016) comments on this sound-design technique: Sound design is a key element, with passages of dialogue layered over shots in which people aren’t seen speaking or have just spoken. This approach allows Said to concentrate on faces that often convey enough emotion on their own, reinforcing Hanan’s implication that words inadequately communicate emotional depth: For that, there are images. Music is used sparingly, and in a non-manipulative way.

In addition, the overlaying of the sound over the images in an unsynchronized manner creates a nonlinearity of action, and above all emphasizes the notion of narrational entanglement in which the various levels and lines of narration are not separated and also are not arranged chronologically. This becomes clearer through the following scene (00:07:12). Hanan’s face now appears on a computer screen using an over-the-­ shoulder-­shot over Khalid’s. The film uses a dissolve editing technique here to create and manipulate a sense of continuity. In the previous scene, Hanan seems to be depicted by the film’s (In the Last Days of the City) camera, now she is in Khalid’s film, a film within a film. Thus, the dubbing of the sound, in this case, Hanan’s words, is done by Khalid in producing his own documentary. The temporal representation here is not only nonlinear within the world of El Said’s film, it is, I argue, of the nature of film as a medium. The entanglement of the various lines of narration is evident on both levels: content and form. Hanan speaking in the cab (00:05:57–00:07:11) can be perceived as (a) Khalid’s line of narration, that is In the Last Days of the City’s protagonist. (b) Khalid’s own film, that is Khalid’s camera: the documentary line. (c) El Said’s film filming his protagonist’s film. As the scene progresses, Khalid’s editor rewinds the footage for a second, and asks him, if he should cut “here” (00:07:24). This “here” is the same shot the previous scene ended with, or better to say dissolved into the computer screen (Fig. 4.21). The acts of recording, rewinding and editing in filmmaking is presented in El Said’s film to the extent that it becomes a vital part of the narration. In the Last Days of the City, I argue, is not concerned with

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Fig. 4.21  Upper left, Hanan in the cab with her words overlaid. Upper right: The film cuts in dissolve to Khalid’s editing room. Now Hanan (same shot) appears on the computer screen (00:07:10–00:07:11) Bottom left and bottom right, the editor rewinds and pauses the footage, asking Khalid, if he should cut here. Khalid is not satisfied with “the Alexandria Story” (00:07:27–00:07:29)

examining the nature of film as medium as do Microphone and Rags and Tatters, it rather integrates its process of production in its entity. The process of creating a construct is very much evident throughout the whole film. This construct is not much concerned with self-reflexivity, let alone with dramatic ­coherence. Time in this film flows horizontally, and for the most part, there is no fabula (the chronological order of events) to be constructed by the spectator. The flow of time is a matter of fact, rather than a question of representation or style. For instance, arriving at this scene in which Khalid and his editor are working on the footage, if the spectator pays attention to the costumes, it becomes clear that this scene takes place in a different time sphere than the scene in which Khalid views the apartment. Accordingly, the footage of Hanan in the cab and consequently the editing room scene do not follow the previous

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scene directly, or even not at all. Hanan exists in an own line of narration and time sphere, that is Khalid’s documentary. It is an anonymous time frame, probably, sometime prior to the current events. Furthermore, within the frame of the current events, which is the nonlinear stream of action, December 2009 to ­approximately January 2010, Khalid revisits and reworks his documentary. Thus, and in terms of narration, and like Microphone, Rags and Tatters and Coming Forth by Day the notion of causality of action is not present in El Said’s film. What might exist is the concept of character causality: Khalid’s psychology as the driving force of action. However, even this character causality seems to be of little importance in the process of meaning making in The Last Days of the City, yet it sets the atmosphere of the whole film. Khalid’s situation is defined by depression, loss and disorientation. The same can be said about the film itself: the narration is lacking an overall coherence, and the story has no conclusion. Whether deliberately or as a shortcoming, the narrational style of the film reflects these notions. In the Last Days of the City is a sum of its parts: a body of fragmentation which includes nonconcluded segments with no clear links among one another. Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality The fragmented segments of the different narrative lines discussed above are engulfed in an overall visual style which is the only coherent component of the film. I have argued that Cairo in this film is a protagonist/ antagonist: ancient, vibrant, dusty and oxidized. The coloring of the film adapts to these characteristics. The film also tries to use natural lighting as much as it could. The image’s tonality is warm, and the colors Green, Yellow, and Brown are dominant. This creates a sense of decay, stress, and depression but also implies the idea of an eruption in the making. This tonality can be seen as a continuous twilight: an in-between. It is both an end of a phase and a beginning of a new one. Khalid is caught in a phase of expended transition: his mother is dying, his ex-girlfriend is leaving the city, he must leave his apartment and cannot find a new one, and his film is shot but stuck in post-production and not progressing. Taking place in late 2009 and 2010, Egypt is boiling under the surface: demonstrations and police oppression; political discontent and joyous celebration of the Egyptian national football team winning the African Cup. In the Last Days of the City relies completely on the image as its main force, but unlike Coming Forth by Day and Rags and Tatters, Khalid in this

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film, even though, the spectator learns glimpses about his history, he remains yet another fragment. It seems at the first glance that Khalid is the emotional vehicle of the film, but he is not. It can be argued that the film fails to deliver a sufficient emotional depth of its characters, but at the same time, we have Cairo as a protagonist; the city which has its toll on its inhabitants. Everybody in the film seems to be emotionally drained, and thus also has little control of his/her life. Similar to Hala Lotfy’s film, the notion of the banality of everyday life is evident in In the Last Days of the City. It is, however, stretched to the extreme to the point where one may question the banality and the aimlessness of the film itself. What saves the film from this question is its cinematic language: above all the total blurring of documentary and fiction; both on the level of content and on the level of style. The narrational fluidity of time is met with a fluidity of style. Visually, Khalid’s documentary flows organically into the film, so do all the other narrational lines to the point where the question of “which is?” is no longer present. If Microphone examines the nature of film as medium and plays with and rejects the notion of division between documentary and fiction, In the Last Days of the City doesn’t bother examining or playing with these notions, instead, it erases all these boundaries with no compromises or secondary thoughts, and thus, contains a quality of the time image: a rapturous and discontinuous relation to its object which problematizes the notion of truth (Deleuze 1985). This problematization of truth causes the emergence of a virtual production of multiplicities of affects and times. On Natural Forgetfulness and the Real (01:09:17–01:09:33) The entire film is shot in real-life locations; mainly downtown Cairo where Khalid lives. Khalid roams the street of downtown Cairo mostly without a clear dramatic reason rather than viewing an apartment or visiting his mother in the hospital. However, in these aimless walks, Khalid randomly films what he sees on the streets. Some other times, he is just a silent observer of what is taking place around him. One of these times is a scene (01:09:17) in which he observes a heavy presence of the police in downtown. The following shot shows Khalid arriving at a fire in downtown (Fig. 4.22). The camera shows the whole action while placed either over Khalid’s shoulder, or from behind him in low angle. This over-the-shoulder shot creates a sense of voyeurism on Khalid’s part, but also reveals how

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Fig. 4.22  Top, Khalid in a close-up disoriented and confused (01:09:30). Middle and bottom, Khalid observing a heavy presence of the police and a burning building (01:09:17–01:09:26)

confused and powerless Khalid is. The shot cuts to Khalid’s profile in a close-­up looking disoriented and confused. The significance of this scene does not lie in its place in the narrative, nor in the emotional sphere of the protagonist. In fact, and by this point in the film, one has indeed given up on both. This scene among other scenes captures and records real events contingently. This film is largely unscripted in its making. In this scene, Khalid the protagonist is blurred with Khalid Abdallah the actor who stands watching a real fire taking place. These shots which are captured by

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the film’s camera are too blurred with the idea of real footage taken by someone who was accidently in that place in that particular time. In my interview with Tamer El Said (2019), he told the story of this scene. According to him, the crew was shooting a scene in a coffee shop when they heard that a nearby building caught fire. El Said decided to interrupt the shooting at hand and head to where the fire was taking place and films it (Taha 2019). This real-life situation is a banality of everyday life. The act of recording this real-life situation is also a banality whose reality is no longer sensory motor, rather is a pure optical situation. Furthermore, the fire is a potential tragedy, or in fact it is a tragedy, even though the film does not show the details. This tragedy as banality is an object of natural forgetting. The pure optical situation serves only in revealing the temporary feeling of confusion of Khalid yet does not affect any further event, nor is it an effect of a prior cause in the narration. In this sense, the recorded real events in the film, the fire being an example, are not a foreign body inserted to create a documentary effect, they are yet another fragment on a horizontal plane. In Deleuzian term, this film can be seen as a plane of visual consistency. This scene in which a real event takes place in a real location in real time possesses the same visual style of the whole film. The lighting is dim, warm and yellowish, the camera is handheld, and the action is edited. It is a modified and enhanced reality that is no more. The coloring of this scene, as I mentioned before is in tune with the overall tone of the film. Unlike Rags and Tatters which inserts real armature and news footage into its narrative to create a historiography of the uprising, In the Last Days of the City is a histography of itself. The film is a testimony of its making; a certain history was already happening throughout production and is happening throughout perception. There exist no external sources of the images; there are no different styles entangled with one another, rather different concepts or genres in one style. The film happened as a building caught fire, as Egypt won the African Cup of Nations and as the protests against Mubarak were on the streets of downtown. Khalid’s powerlessness and confusion watching the fire is met with these of an Egyptian spectator’s who most likely would not remember or even know what building that was. A non-Egyptian spectator might perceive Khalid’s emotions displayed on the screen, but as the film progresses, this incident is of no significance to the story. Both ways, that is on the level of actual history, and on the level of the filmic world, this situation is a subject of natural forgetfulness.

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Green Is the Color (01:10:40–01:12:44) The afore-discussed scene ends with a transition to Khalid’s study. The radio is announcing a series of news: the extension of emergency law, Mubarak congratulates the national team for qualifying to the next round in the African Cup of Nations, the Minister of Culture is cleared of any wrongdoing in the Bani Souif theater incident,22 and the arrest of a number of Muslim Brothers’ leaders. Khalid turns the radio off and starts working on his documentary on his laptop. Once more, Hanan is talking, but Khalid rewinds the footage. A series of shots are now shown. Once more, “Khalid’s images” are visually no different than EL Saied’s. In a collage of images, the spectator sees Downtown Cairo on a Friday noon; during the Friday prayer. The main components in this sequence are the correlation between the prayer; its preparation and the sermon on the hand, and the police presence, on the other. Also, individuals and objects appear in this sequence (Fig. 4.23). The sound design plays the Friday sermon in the background: “The word Islam, comes from the word for submission. Submission means obedience and loyalty to God […] Your role is to obey and to listen” (01:11:19–01:11:30). El Saied uses color in this sequence to create this correlation. Green is the thematic color in these images, the prayer rugs which people unfold on the street, the central security cars, advertising signs, people’s clothes, windowpanes, and light reflections. In color theory, green is a color of nature that classically stands for fertility, peace and calm. However, in certain contexts, and in film, it also stands for tension, superficiality and decay (The Cinema Cartography 2015). The complementary color for green in film is usually red (The Cinema Cartography 2015) yet in this sequence, green is mainly displayed with yellow, or the so-called sodium vapor color which is along with green the dominant color of the film. Red does appear as well in certain shots to complement the green. Also, green is heavily saturated in this sequence. I argue that this device serves an associative purpose. This association consists of two notions. First, the notion of oppression which is represented in the 22  On September 5, 2005, fifty persons died and twenty-three others in a theater hall in Bani Souif, Upper Egypt, during a play by a theater local group. The whole theater was burned after a candle in the backstage fell and spread fire rapidly. The crew and the audience were locked inside after a worker locked the door and left. The Minister of Culture resigned, but Mubarak refused his resignation. A group of intellectuals sued the minister in 2005. In 2010, he was cleared by the court.

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Fig. 4.23  (01:11:32–01:11:56)

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correlation of the security forces and the rhetoric of the Friday sermon. Second, brief moments of peace and even joy. As for the notion of oppression, throughout the film, the spectator always sees the presence of police and security forces; the CSF on the streets, it is a reoccurring theme which also speaks for the period the film takes place in 2010. As for the Friday sermon, the film chooses to play the sermon in the background of which the rhetoric is a Salafist one. The color green in Islam is very placative, in fact, green is found on the two sides of the spectrum: Sofie Islam and Salafi Islam, and in the mainstream as well. In the Quran, people in heaven are dressed in green, in Hadith, Prophet Muhammad used to dress in green (Farid 2011). In Sufism, green is vital too, all the shrines are in green, and the Burda, the mystic book of Thikr, is called the Green Burda (Farid 2011; Schimmel and Soucek 1992; Kirchner 2015). Saudi Arabia’s flag, being the representative of Wahhabi Islam, is green, the Muslim Brothers’ flag is green, and Egypt’s flag under the Monarchy was green as well. Thus, while the green cars of the security forces clearly stand for oppression, the green associated with the sermon is ambiguous, but also leans toward the notion of oppression. On the one hand, the Friday sermon and prayer in Egypt and many other Muslim countries are a communal gathering. Mosques extend their space to the streets and people gather and meet for a religious and spiritual activity. On the other hand, since the 1970s, Muslim fundamentalists use Mosques and especially the Friday sermon to spread their version of Islam. Within the sociopolitical context of 2010, and like Microphone, this association between religious fundamentalism and the police state reveals that these two main forces divided the public sphere between them. In Microphone, the musicians fail to have their concert against the refusal of both police and Salafists. Visually, the musicians are caught in the middle between these two forces. Here, in this film, the camera captures this reality in real locations and in real time. The occupation of the public sphere is mainly of the police and the security forces, and they are the only force which could allow any exception. The exception was given to, but in a controlled manner, to the so called “scientific Salafists” who in contrast to Jihadists used to claim to observe strict obedience to Muslim rulers and silence on political matters. It rejects engaging in politics or forming political parties. The main focus of this strain of Salafism is the strict literalism of the Quran and Hadith (Olidort 2015). However, this rapidly changed after the Egyptian uprising in 2011 as Salafists engaged heavily in politics and even

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formed their own political party. These Salafists were allowed under Mubarak several platforms such as, Mosques and satellite Television channels. Between these two forces associated with green, the spectator sees glimpses of other “green,” which leads to the second purpose of the ­coloring device. This collage of shots of Downtown Cairo during a Friday prayer contains a number of shots which show another side. A lady looking out of her balcony whose wooden doors are green, another balcony in green with laundry hanging, a man walking in a green shirt along a street filled with police cars and finally a man crossing the street, right after another police car passes, holding red balloons while a green handkerchief is hanging out of his back pocket. The balconies represent ordinary Egyptian households, the man with the green shirt is an anonymous regular citizen and so is the man with the red balloons. However, the latter appearing in the shot right after the passing of the police represents humble joy and even hope. These are the people who are caught between the two forms of oppression. Visually, the film enhances the above-discussed notions through the use of color as an important device in cinematic storytelling. The choice of employing color in this sequence deepens the associative process of meaning making along with the editing of this sequence. In fact, the editing is associative as well. Associative editing is the “juxtaposition of two, or [more images] which can be interpreted as having an analogous thematic meaning” (Chandler and Munday 2011). Rebellion Similar to the other three films that I discussed earlier, In the Last Days of the City contains the notion of rebellion in terms of form and production mode. However, it surpasses the other films in that. The image is the main force more so than the other three films. The content in the case of this film cannot survive without the formal and visual mode. The film rebels on various levels. First, it is by no means shy of its maker’s subjectivity. Second, it consists of entangled genres erasing any boundaries among them: documentary and fiction. Third, on the level of production, it is entirely shot in real-life locations. It was not without trouble to shoot exteriorly in the streets of Downtown Cairo mostly without security permission (Taha 2019). Fourth, the film is a witness to the return of censorship under Al Sisi regime. The film was banned from entering the

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competition of the Cairo International Film Festival and also banned from theatrical release in Egyptian cinemas. Close to Coming Forth by Day, more so than to Microphone and Rags and Tatters, the notion of rebellion in this film lies in the production mode. In fact, hadn’t the film taken seven years of production, mainly postproduction, In the Last Days of the City would have been the starting point of this new wave of Egyptian cinema. It is worthy to mention that most of this generation of filmmakers such as, Ahmed Abdallah, Hala Lotfy, Ahmed El Ghoneimy, Omar Elhamy, and Nadine Salib worked and helped the making of this film (Taha 2019). Furthermore, the mode of production is not the only component of rebellion in El Said’s film. Like Microphone, In the Last Days of the City was shot pre-2011, and captures the atmosphere of discontent of 2010, being the last year of Mubarak’s rule. El Said’s camera recorded some of these signs of rebellion which were taking place during the time. Unlike Microphone though, the footage of the protests is an organic part of the film. This footage had been shot during the making and as a part of the overall narrative: yet another fragment. In my personal communication with Tamer El Said, he revealed that many moments in the film were shot spontaneously, or more accurately as an on-the-spot decision. The scene that I discussed previously in which Khalid watches the burning building is one example of this method. The same happened with one of the sequences which captures a real demonstration in Downtown Cairo. Apart from the close reading of the examples related to the notion of rebellion, it is important to mention that the film had been banned from screening in Egypt. Upon its release in 2016, censorship returned in Egypt under Al Sisi regime. After its international release, Cairo International Film Festival refused the entry of In the Last Days of the City days after its acceptance into the festival. The festival announced that the reason behind its decision is due to the fact that the film participated in a number of international film festivals. This is, however, not included in the festival’s criteria. The only case that a film is denied entry is if a film participated in the official contest of the list of international festivals. This has been not the case for In the last Days of the City (Khozam 2016). The film did not enter the contest of any of these international festivals; it did not even enter any regional festival: Middle East and North Africa. Tamer El Said’s priority was to participate in the Cairo International Festival first (Taha 2019). In addition, the film was also scheduled to be screened in Egyptian cinemas in 2016/2017 which also did not happen. Zawya, the film’s

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distributor in Egypt did not receive any official decision from the censor; neither approval nor ban. The film is not officially banned in Egypt but also, not officially approved. Thus, the film was not allowed to be screened in Egypt until this moment. Tarek El Shennawy (2018), the Egyptian film critic, comments on this, until now and even for a long time, the case of In the Last Days of the City will remain the biggest riddle in our cinematic scenery. It is not officially banned but it is also not allowed to be screened. Someone or some authority wants this matter to remain hazy. The same authority let’s call it, X that had interfered to ban the film from the Cairo International Festival. (2018)

El Shennawy argues that this obscure authority goes beyond the censor with which Tamer El Said had communicated and followed its guidelines. The censor, according to El Shennawy, demanded that the chant, “down with the military regime” be cut out of all versions of the film for approval, which El Said did (2018). Despite El Said compliance, the film remains factually banned in Egypt. As mentioned before, the film captures real protests which took place in 2010. The slogan, “down with the military regime” had been one of the main slogans of the opposition during the last five years of the Mubarak’s rule. This very slogan was held high during the 2011 uprising and until now. After the 2013 coup de tat and the ousting of Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brothers adopted this slogan too. Al Sisi regime considers the notion of military rule a taboo. Those who say or hold this slogan or define his rule as a military dictatorship are threatened arrest and imprisonment.23 However, this does not seem to be the real reason behind the ban. Rather, it is the fact that the film capture and even documents the state of discontent in Egypt in 2010. The spectator is brought back to this crucial time which is emotionally not very much different from Egypt 2016. El Shennawy also, puts his hand on this notion, El Said monitored the state of rebellion against Mubarak, for he himself participated in the uprising. But he did not choose to put the revolution and the toppling of Mubarak as the main focus. However, the state of corruption the film depicts has not disappeared; it is still deeply rooted and protected by the all-time ‘gatekeepers.’ This corruption is now mixed with badness and cheapness, and those gatekeepers are sponsored by the state. (2018)  This is discussed in detail in the reading of Mohammed Diab’s Clash.

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Nevertheless, I shall not include these scenes which depict the anti-­ Mubarak protests in my close reading of the film’s notion of rebellion. Rather, what I argue to be more effective if not more important and distinguishes this film from all the other four films in this book is the “trans-­ Arabic” dimension. The film goes beyond Egypt’s Cairo to include fragmented stories from Baghdad and Beirut; two cities plagued by ­violence and war. These fragments come from two of Khalid’s friends: Bassem from Beirut and Hassan from Baghdad. These two cities also witnessed, against all odds, recent uprisings, but above all they are part of a regional reality which must be perceived in relation to one another. Of Life, Death, and War Khalid’s friends and fellow filmmakers from Iraq and Lebanon come to Cairo for a filmmaker’s workshop. Bassem is a Lebanese filmmaker living in Beirut (he is Bassem Fayad, the actual director of photography of the film). Tarek (played by Basim Hajar) is Iraqi who lives in Germany as a refugee and Hassan (played by Hayder Helo, one of the assistant directors of the film) is also Iraqi but lives in Baghdad. The encounter and meetings of the four friends are the only intimate moments in the film. Even more so than Khalid’s interaction with his dying mother. Khalid among his three friends is as vivid as he could be yet still quite and depressed. The introduction to Bassem, Tarek, and Hassan takes place in a panel discussion. The film does not reveal the nature of the event. The scene (00:18:46) begins with Bassem answering a question: Bassem: Let me first say that I find it strange. This is a panel about cinema but, so far we are only talking about politics. Still, it is a fair question. My view is clear in the film. Ask anyone from my generation if they prefer Beirut today or during the war. They will say it was better during the war, because we loved Beirut more. Baghdad has known war as Beirut has, and I know what a city at war means. Life suddenly has a deeper meaning. I mean … I can’t say I wish you war … but … Hassan: Like Bassem said, real life, I am not sure how, flourish during war. You find real value in say, going to the barber. You find real value in buying toothpaste. Here is a true story: My sister was making lunch for us and friends, so she sent her 4 years old daughter to buy bread and said to her: “just don’t step on the dead body on the way.” I asked: “what dead body?” She said: “There’s one at the

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end of the street.” It seemed; my niece stepped on a corpse before. My sister warned her like you’d say: “careful crossing the street. Look left and right.” Tarek: It is hard for me … as a human to encounter a corpse in the morning. Very hard. For me, Baghdad is a city I can carry with me. I can plant it elsewhere, like a tree or a flower and it will blossom. Hassan: Thanks to Cairo that brought us all together. A great city that always creates such moments. (00:18:46–00:21:16)

This panel discussion connects various lines of the concept of rebellion in relation to cinema in the Arab world. Three filmmakers come to Cairo, two Iraqis and one Lebanese. Bassem is from Beirut, a city which was plagued by long and brutal civil war, and still lives in a constant state of turmoil. Hassan lives in Baghdad where bombings, killings, sectarian violence and occupation is an everyday reality. Tarek is also from Baghdad, but, as we know later in the film, sought asylum in Berlin, Germany. The three come to Cairo, a city on the verge of an uprising. The discussion shows the complicated relationship between art and politics in the Arab World. While politics as well as the social, the economic, and the cultural along with the artistic are entangled and cannot be separated, the reading of art in the Arab World for the most part is defined by the political dimension. Furthermore, the fact that the three filmmakers stem from these two cities: Beirut and Baghdad lead their work to be read and discussed as political statements where the artistic dimension becomes completely absent. Lebanon and Iraq are synonyms for war, and war in the collective imagination is void of life, and if life is considered during the times of war, it is perceived as an epical and a romantic concept. Bassem shows his agitation that the discussion is only about politics while dismissing cinema, yet he answers the question. Art seems to be destined to be eclipsed by politics. Hassan’s elaboration on Bassem point draws a picture of the Iraqi reality in particular and of the Arab reality in general. When corpses on the streets are a normality, an everyday-life banality with which a four-year-old child must deal with, the otherwise banalities such as going to the barber in normal circumstances are an achievement with a deeper meaning: a sign of living. After the panel, the four friends head to a local café where they talk and catch up. Tarek talks about his asylum status in Germany. He possesses a travel document; a refugee card which allows him to travel almost anywhere except to Iraq, if he did, the asylum status would be void. Bassem picks up his camera and films Tarek, he asks him if he misses Baghdad.

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Tarek tries to avoid answering and jokes around, but he answers finally, “Baghdad is not a city. It is a friend” (00:23:05). Khaled intervenes and tells Tarek that he would definitely go back to Iraq to which Tarek protests. Bassem also tells him, he would go back maximum in four years. Tarek responds, “you all have romantic ideas about your cities. Your cities change too much, but you all see them the same. For you, it remains an idea, but I see my city changing before my eyes” (00:23:39). The last meeting of the four friends witnesses a heated debate between Tarek and Hassan. Tarek tries to convince Hassan to join him in Berlin for a safer life and a better future (Fig. 4.24): Tarek: Don’t pay the price of war. Don’t pay the price for the tyrant. Don’t pay for Baghdad. Hassan! […] Hassan: Why so angry? Tarek: This is not anger. […] Hassan: Drop it! Tarek: Then come with me to Berlin. Hassan: To do what? Tarek: To try. To experiment. Hassan: Am I a lab rat? Tarek: No, just try to change your life. Hassan: As if my life is a bag I can drag around. Tarek: Try it. If you don’t like it, go back. […] Hassan: So, I become like you? Shamed with a refugee card? Tarek: Here comes the old poem again: Baghdad, Tigris and the poets. I know all that, but your future is in danger there. […] Hassan: You remember the suicide you saw in the Metro? How long it depressed you? Dead in Berlin or in Baghdad. What is the difference? Tarek: It is different. He chose to die. He chose how he died, he jumped in front of the Metro. In Baghdad, you don’t choose. No one chooses! Hassan: And? Tarek: A stray bullet in the head! They die the way they don’t want. Hassan: So? What’s new about that? Tarek: So? Protect your future! Your life! It is in danger there! Khalid: But he chooses to live in Baghdad! Tarek: No, it is not a choice. He didn’t choose occupation, the liberation, the wars.

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Fig. 4.24  Upper left, the four friends during the debate between Hassan and Tarek: Khalid is visually separated from his three friends. Upper right, Hassan and Tarek in a heated debate (00:34:51–00:40:00). Middle and bottom, riding through a momentary beauty of Cairo and Khalid’s brief moment of reconciliation with the city (00:43:11–00:44:49)

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[…] Hassan: Tarek my dear, Baghdad isn’t a street, a song, an ally, my family or my mother. Baghdad is a moment. You feel it once then it goes. I can’t live outside of it. If I could, I would have come with you. I always ask myself, how you can? Khalid: Why did you leave Baghdad? Tarek: One day I left my house. As I was crossing the street, a pick-up drove by, and in the back of the truck there was a corpse, an uncovered corpse. Following the truck, there were drops of blood dropping all down the road. That moment, I decided to leave. I could have been that corpse; that blood my own, or Hassan’s. Hassan: So, instead of washing the line of blood, you fled. Tarek: Wash the line of blood? When did the war begin in Baghdad? Hassan: 1979. Tarek: And in Beirut? Bassem: 1840. Tarek: So, I have to wash the line of blood from 1840 till forever? (El Said 00:34:51–00:40:00)

This dialogue presents an intensified statement of the Arab reality at the time which also extends until this very day. Tarek chooses exile to survive war in Iraq, yet this exile strips him from visiting his homeland. In Iraq he is not safe and might die an absurd death by a flying bullet. In Germany, he is a refugee, a second-class citizen. Tarek projects his conflicted status on Hassan, his friend who refuses to leave Iraq. Hassan poetically describes Baghdad as a moment that one feels it once. He refuses to be a person in a foreign land with a refugee card. He tells Tarek about the man who committed suicide in Berlin, claiming that it is all the same: dying with a bullet or jumping in front of a train. Tarek’s argument portrays once again a very bitter reality: death by choice versus random killing. For the two Iraqis, life is reduced to the manner of death. Death is an everyday reality and an everyday banality. Tarek decided to leave Baghdad after he witnessed this banality: a corpse in a trunk dropping blood. Hassan poeticizes the image again, “instead of washing the line of blood, you fled.” Tarek lets history responds, the Arab history as told and lived by its people. War started in Iraq in 1979; the very first Gulf War with Iran. Bassem responds to Tarek’s question: Lebanon is in war since 1840. Real history tells that this region is in constant war since one and a half century and war never stopped. Common or mainstream history deals with war in the region in plural; as separate wars while in reality Iraq had been in a state of war for decades. First in 1979 against Iran followed by the war against Kuwait in 1990 and the following war against U.S. and the international coalition. The war entered yet another phase with the U.S

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occupation in 2003 which resulted in the ongoing sectarian violence, the emergence of ISIL, and right in this moment an uprising against the regime and its foreign masters. War had never seized to exist in Iraq in which the different phases are connected on a plane of continuity. The same goes with Lebanon or the Levant as it all started with the break from the Ottoman Empire in 1831, war against the Ottomans and the British in 1840, the civil war of 1841, the second civil war and the Napoleonic invasion in 1860, French Occupation in 1920, independence war in 1943, the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, the third civil war in 1975, Sabra and Shatila massacre and the Israeli invasion in 1982, the July war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, the Syrian civil war in 2011, and the political crisis up until this very moment out of which the civil uprising of 2019 erupted. This continuum can be very much applied to all Arab countries at least since Sykes-Picot in 1916 and the colonial partition of the Ottoman Empire which created new states and countries with imposed artificial borders. Tarek’s response to Hassan’s question about washing the line of blood is rhetorical yet very real that it ends the discussion, “so, I have to wash the line of blood from 1840 till forever?” Who could and how? The answer to this question might be, no one and never. However, perceiving the region in 2020, we witness two continuums: war and liberation struggle. The Arab uprisings did not end in 2011, 2012 or 2013. Rather its waves are continuing to hit. In Lebanon, a country plagued by sectarianism and a political deadlock, people rose against this wretched structure. This uprising once more, like Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria, nobody could have predicted, specifically in the West. In Iraq which is an even more extreme example of the impossibility of a popular uprising, the people rose up against sectarianism, foreign interference, and corruption. The film further engages in its process of historiography, this time it widens its perspective to the Arab World. The film connects the lives and destinies of Khalid, Bassem, Tarek, and Hassan; four filmmaker friends from the Arab region. During the encounters of the four friends, Khalid is mostly silent, and his existential crisis moves to the background and even fades. Egypt is not separate from its surroundings, and by no means exceptional. Even though, Tarek doesn’t ask Khalid about Egypt’s war, from Hassan’s and Bassem’s answers, one could think also about Egypt. At the latest, Egypt had been in war since the 1800s with Muhammad Ali’s expansion agenda and his war against the Ottomans and the British, throughout the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, the two world wars, the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, 1956, 1976, and 1973 up till the peace agreement in 1977 which isolated Egypt from its Arab surroundings. The

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writing of history by those who lived and still live it is another history than what is being presented. The film opens a window to the fact, apart from any ideology, such as Pan Arabism, or Arab Nationalism, that people of this region with all their diversity, share a common history which is in itself inseparable and cannot be divorced from the current realities all across the region. This scene ends with a “change of subject.” Hassan asks Khalid about his film, and we are back again to Khalid’s aimlessness and loss. He tells his friends, he went to interview Abla Fadila, one of Egypt’s radio icons who used to know Khalid’s father. Khalid complains that she did not remember his father or him or anything. He further confesses that there is something he cannot capture in “all of this. The people, the crowd, the noise. However, I do not know if I hate it or love it. All I know is that I want to film, but I do not know how it will end” (00:40:31). Hassan asks about Lila, Khalid’s ex-girlfriend who is leaving the country. Tarek comments: We have a failed love story in Cairo, one guy unable to film in Beirut and a guy who doesn’t want to leave Baghdad. It’s ridiculous! To Bassem: Why don’t you film in Beirut? Bassem: See this disaster called Cairo? It’s a disaster, but it doesn’t lie. It says, “this is me. Take me as I am or go to Berlin.” Beirut has a lie. Tarek: But at least film it! Through your eyes! Bassem: How do you film ugliness? Hassan: That is my specialty, ugliness. Tarek: Doesn’t Khalid see ugliness in Cairo? Bassem: A whore. Beirut is a whore. An old lady with a facelift. Pretty on the outside, but it’s rotten. Tarek: You can’t film it? Bassem: If I do, I might end up without a city. Then what? Join you in Berlin? Hassan: Why don’t we each film our cities and send it to Khalid for his film. Tarek: what will you film? Funeral banners? Hassan: What should I film? Flowers? I live in a city of death … My city is full of life and death. I will film and send him stuff starting next week. Bassem: Yes, to tease him, I will send him stuff too. (00:40:10–00:43:10)

The film cuts to a ride of the four friends in downtown Cairo at dawn (00:43:11–00:45:18). They ride in the back of a truck filming, talking, and joking around. Here, in the early hours of the day as the streets are empty, Cairo reveals its potential beauty. In the company of his friends, warmth, tranquility and intimacy are manifested in the city. Following the

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heated discussion about Baghdad and Beirut; death, war and ugliness, Cairo gives a moment of joy. Yet, this is Cairo now from Khalid’s perspective. Falling back to the dialogue in which Khalid reveals his dilemma about what he cannot capture in his film and whether he loves it and hates it. This moment might be very well what he is missing, or at least a moment, not necessarily of love, but, of reconciliation with his city. The camera shows this moment of joy and tranquility of the four friends, but among the series of shots, it captures Khalid again and again filming, observing, and seeing as if he rediscovers the city. This time with a relaxed and joyful expression. A Tale of Three Cities Following the friends’ agreement, the first footage Khalid receives and is shown is from Baghdad. Hassan sent Khalid his footage as agreed. Hassan’s footage begins with shots of ruin: a small fire is burning, an abandoned house and a bombarded building with Hassan’s voiceover. The voiceover talks about the “other” Baghdad which is not in the news, the Baghdad of war, explosion, and death. Hassan’s Baghdad is of life despite war and of poetry despite death. Hassan presents his friends to Iraq’s renowned calligrapher: Al Haj Mahdi, “the city’s monk and the last guardian of the river. When I asked him where is poetry in this city? […] He said, ‘poetry is everywhere waiting to be written.’ Peace upon Baghdad” (01:05:00–01:06:47). The footage also shows a group of children walking on the street followed by Al Haj Mahdi working on his desk. The footage ends with shots of the Euphrates at dusk in which one of them Hassan is to be seen (Fig. 4.25). Hassan’s Baghdad is now revealed in images and his poeticism unfolds in the relation between his voiceover and his footage of Baghdad. During Hassan’s argument with Tarek in Cairo, Hassan’s character has been portrayed as an idealist, a romantic and even an optimist. However, his footage shows that he recognizes not one reality of his hometown, or better said of life itself, rather he does the different realities which are entangled in one another. As he and Bassem mentioned earlier in the panel discussion, life happens in times of war and what seems to be insignificant becomes a meaningful event. A group of school children walking hand in hand on a street in Baghdad is as real as a burning building hit by a bomb. Further, this simple act becomes more meaningful and vivid than it would be in times of peace. The calligrapher, a dying profession, might seem at

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Fig. 4.25  Hassan’s first footage from Baghdad: “Poetry is everywhere (01:05:00–01:06:47) and Bassem’s first footage from Beirut: “I hate unfinished films. I hate you” (01:15:4)

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first glance that he exists out of time or as a transcendent of a forgotten past. Hassan calls him, “the monk of the city and the last guardian of the river,” but he is also as real as the schoolchildren and as war. This mythological figure who states that poetry is everywhere, waiting to be written is seen in the flesh drawing letters despite war, danger and death. The images of the river in which Hassan is seen crown this notion of Baghdad’s different realities. This very moment of tranquility and beauty as the sun is setting in the Euphrates is the same moment in which an imminent death could happen some feet away. The one is not exclusive of the other. This is poetry waiting to be written. Hassan’s footage ends and is linked to the following shot of Cairo’s sky in dusk (or dawn as the film clearly moves in time and space) with a match-­ cut. The match-cut here is both visual and sonic. The visual aspect is the sky at dusk/dawn with the same colors in the previous sequence, while the sonic is the sound of a prayer calling which runs through the last two shots of Hassan’s footage into the following which shows Khalid climbing a ladder on the top of a building to shoot a scene. The prayer calling is continuous throughout the two sequences: Baghdad and Cairo. The calling is also of the same voice. This connects the two sequences which take place in different locations and in different times. The film employs this device in order to create an emotional connection between the two characters as well as in terms of narrative continuity. The prayer calling in Hassan’s footage is intradiegetic (in the film’s real time), that is taking place inside the world of the image: Baghdad at dusk. However, having been running into Khalid’s Cairo, while it is technically intradiegetic, the prayer calling is in fact extradiegetic. It is clear here that the film is revealing itself through an act of spatial and temporal manipulation to create this link between the two characters as well as between the two sequences. In addition, the image creates a notion of mirroring between Hassan and Khalid, as later (01:06:50), the camera shows Khalid in the same position as Hassan’s in the previous sequence. The second and third footage were sent to Khalid from Beirut by Bassem. The first Beirut footage (01:14:36) is brief and short. Bassem records the Mediterranean boardwalk in Beirut, then appears briefly in the frame. Bassem too speaks in voiceover. Like Hassan’s, Bassem’s voiceover adds to his conflicted relationship with his hometown Beirut. In a wide shot, the camera shows the boardwalk with the sea in the background. Bassem says, “I took the camera and fled. I don’t know what from. Maybe from our time in Cairo, from filming, maybe from this city behind me. I

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can’t see it. She can’t see me. I hate fear. I hate loneliness. I hate narrow alleys. I hate unfinished films. I hate you” (01:14:36–01:15:44). While Hassan finds beauty and poetry in Baghdad, Bassem’s Beirut is cruel and alienating. The image reveals this idea in relation to the voiceover. Bassem’s camera is static, as it is just a recording device. When Bassem appears in the frame, he is seen walking toward the fence with his back to the camera. He stands also with his back facing the camera. The wide shot in this sequence is in tune with Bassem’s sense of loneliness and alienation. The shot shows a great amount of negative space: the sky, the sea and the boardwalk with Bassem in it: a small figure almost engulfed by this negative space. While the Euphrates in Hassan’s footage both visually and in terms of content represents a moment of peace, harmony and oneness, the sea in Bassem’s footage is far, unreachable and detaches from Bassem. Bassem comes to the sea to flee from the city “behind me,” but he cannot. Visually, Bassem stands between the city and the sea, yet a fence separates him from the sea and keeps him in the city he is fleeing from. The second Beirut footage sent by Bassem (01:37:00–01:40:23) is visually different than the above-discussed footage. Bassem says in this footage, that it is both a reminder to Khalid and Tarek of Hassan’s birthday, as well as a birthday gift to Hassan. Here Bassem shoots a number of locations, elements and puts himself in the frame differently. The voiceover addresses Hassan except at the end when Bassem curses Khalid. The footage starts with shots of a street from inside a car. It is raining, then a shot of the sea, “Hassan, this is your birthday gift from under the rain” (01:37:20). The following shots are mostly of natural elements: a seagull flying over the water, a high tide splashing on the boardwalk, a lone person fishing and a man walking in the rain. Bassem addresses Hassan in his voiceover, like you Hassan, I was born in winter. There was a storm, cold weather, a civil war and massacres. The ay I was born in 1975, my father his in an alley and saw people being killed. They were thrown off a bridge and shot at like birds. My father never told the story. But my mother did for 33 years. Then one day, she said, ‘look after your father,’ and never spoke again. Why? I don’t know. But I know, I miss my mother, and love her like winter. I still fear alleys, even in Cairo. Until today and forever. (01:38:06–01:38:54)

For the first and last time, Bassem is talking about himself and exposing his emotions. In Cairo, he was almost cynical and impersonal. In his first

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footage, the spectator witnessed some of his personal feelings, but still, and at least in terms of visual presentation, he was detached. Now, he uncovers a glimpse of personal history, his trauma and anxiety. Bassem is a child of the Lebanese civil which started in 1975, the same year he was born. He inherited his father’s trauma. Even though, the footage is sent to Khalid, it is Hassan whom he addresses and tells his story to. Not only because Hassan as Iraqi can relate to Bassem’s civil war trauma, for Tarek can also relate. Rather, Hassan is the emotional and intimate link that connects the three friends. He is also the one whom Bassem in this case can entrust with his thoughts, feelings, and emotions. While Bassem voiceover mentions his fear of alleys, the film cuts to a static shot of a narrow alley. Bassem moves toward the camera, picks it, and walks into the alley. The camera is shaky and takes Bassem’s point of view. The camera enters the alley, then Bassem flips the camera to a low angle shot that depicts his face from below, he breathes heavily, and his face shows clear signs of anxiety, he rotates and the camera with him, visually creating the sense of claustrophobia. The footage ends with Bassem speaking on camera, this time addressing Khalid, “Khalid, you exhausted me. God curse you” (01:40:19). Here, we see Bassem’s conflicted feelings in general and concerning the idea of sending footage to Khalid in particular. The idea of doing the footage for Bassem makes him uneasy from the very first beginning. He agreed with his friends to send footage from and about Beirut, or rather of himself in Beirut; not in the physical sense, but mentally and emotionally. Bassem’s approach to this agreement mirrors his conflicted relationship to his hometown. On the one hand, he claims to hate the city, but he is also emotionally invested and attached to Beirut, on the other. The negative part is directed at Khalid: “I hate narrow alleys; I hate unfinished films and I hate you” and “I curse you.” While he opens up emotionally in addressing Hassan about his inherited trauma in the second footage, when he enters the alley, he speaks for the first time on camera cursing Khalid. In some way, Khalid’s situation: the unfinishedness (his film, his flat and his dying mother) mirrors Bassem’s conflicted relationship with himself, with the city and even with life. He too is caught in a limbo; in a state of unresolvedness. Yet, in addressing Hassan, the detached and alienating sea in the first footage is now different. There exists some beauty and poeticism in the shots in which the sea is shown. The portrayal is more intimate, and also more dynamic with the voiceover (Fig. 4.26).

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Fig. 4.26  Bassem’s second footage from Beirut. Unlike the first footage (Fig. 4.25), this footage is more intimate and personal (01:37:00–01:40:23)

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Finally, I will close this section by discussing the last footage of the two friends which is Hassan’s final footage from Baghdad. The film shows this footage after Khalid sees the news of a suicide bombing in Baghdad. He keeps calling Hassan without an answer. Hassan was killed in this bombing, and Khalid plays this footage after the fact. Khalid gets the news of his friend’s death from Tarek. He receives a call from him, and the radio speaks the news of a series of car bombings that hit Baghdad and Mosul and killed fifty-one Iraqis (01:45:40–01:46:08). The film cuts for the first time to Tarek in Berlin riding the subway (01:46:36), and back again to Khalid standing devastated on the street (01:47:00). Back home, Khalid opens his windows and stands on a table as if he is about to commit suicide, but he soon sits down, and the film cuts to Khalid’s mother in the hospital (01:47:40–01:48:26). The visual characteristics of the scene in the hospital in which Khalid visits his mother hint at her departure. The scene starts at the night hours, and spans until the early morning hours in which the dominant color is white, and the lighting is extremely bright. This is the first time the hospital room is shown with these characteristics. Up until this scene, the hospital room is shot whether during dusk, dawn, or afternoon in which the dominant tone is the same as the entire film’s: the highly saturated sodium carbon color (see the reading of the opening scene). This also comes right after the news of Hassan’s death. Khalid lost his friend, him standing on the window refers to a brief suicidal thought and devastation, and now he is with his dying mother. The scene starts with Khalid putting his palm on his sleeping mother’s forehead. The dominant sound is the mother’s slow breathing. Khalid sits down near his mother’s bed and looks out of the window at the city lights. The camera captures the reflection of Khalid’s mother in the window in which the city “slices” through her (01:49:03) as if floating above the city. The film cuts to a glass vase with white sugar cubes streaming down in the water and a green stem is placed in the vase. It is morning now. The vase is occupying the right part of the frame in full focus, while the mother is in the left part and out of focus. Khalid sits by his mother’s bed. The frame is occupied by the mother’s and Khalid’s faces against a white background (Fig. 4.27). The visual composition of these shots, and in terms of filmic devices, plays with the theme of death. The optical representation of the mother in this sequence reminds of this of the father’s in Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day. The mother lies still all in white almost as a mummy in a shroud. The ascending sugar particles symbolize a soul ascending. The green stem

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Fig. 4.27  Khalid’s mother in her hospital bed. Up, her reflection of in the window in which the city “slices” through her. Bottom, the fading of the mother (01:49:03–01:49:20)

represents life as a contrast to the mother’s fading body. Later in the scene, we see that the green stem is of a white flower, white: a color of death. The film ends with Khalid playing Hassan’s footage on his laptop (01:51:20). The camera pans into the laptop screen and the footage becomes intradiegetic. The footage seems to be the last part of the last one that Khalid played. It starts with a shot of the Euphrates from a boat. Hassan’s voice-over is heard, The figure of the cyclist reminds me of you- Our vanished childhood dreams that did not come true. Khalid, my friend. Let’s rearrange the story. Skip the begin-

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ning. Start in the middle. Open your soul’s gates to the wind, and live. Haj Mahdi made you a gift. I hope you like it. Salam. (01:51:20–01:52:00)

From the boat, Hassan films the river at dusk. People light a candle and let it travel on the river on paper boats in memoriam of those who departed. Haj Mahdi drawing in his workshop. Back to the river: the water, the sound of the boat sailing, a helicopter chopping the air in the sky, and Hassan’s skewed reflection on the water. Finally, Hassan looks at the camera and a smile is drawn on his face. The screen fades to black, and the spectator sees Haj Mahdi’s gift; the title of the film: In the Last Days of the City, calligraphed by Haj Mahdi Gaboury, Baghdad 2010. Hassan’s voiceover is an overt commentary on the film’s narration and overall mood. The cyclist Hassan mentions who reminds him of Khalid is somehow a Don Quixotesque figure: cycling and moving with no destination or aim like Khalid. Khalid’s life is contingent and aimless: an unfinished film which has no coherence or even sense, a lost lover, an unfound new home and a dying mother. Hassan tells Khalid to rearrange the story, skip the beginning and start in the middle. Only, this story is not a story in the classical sense, for it has no beginning or an end; it is a fragmented present; a perpetual one which is itself a middle; an in-between. Actually, this is also valid of the film, In the Last Days of the City. Khalid’s sought film mirrors the film at hand. The only coherence the spectator might get is the film’s admission of its incoherence. Everything is this film is intersected: Tamer El Said and Khalid, Khalid’s film and El Said’s Film, reality/ actuality and fiction, crew and characters. Hassan is the virtual creator of this perpetual present (the story). He is a potential beginning and he is an end which is open to both past and future. Hassan is also the chooser of the title of Khalid’s film, being the same as El Said’s, and the filmic device who connects the actual with the virtual. The actual is Haj Mahdi Gaboury, the real calligrapher who draws the title of the virtual: the film, In the Last Days of the City (Fig. 4.28). This interplay between the actual and the virtual along with how the film presents its temporality are a further element of rebellion. In this world of in-betweenness, Hassan’s death is as present as his not-yet-death. The discussion between Tarek and Hassan very much reveals the fate of Hassan, even determines it. Now that the film ends with his news of death, the moment of his death can be situated at any point after his departure to Iraq. Was Hassan’s first footage played after the fact? Did it play in the fabula’s chronological line in its entirety, but shown into two parts in the

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Fig. 4.28  Hassan’s last footage from Baghdad (01:51:20–01:53:53)

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syuzhet? Or were these two footages? Whatever the answers to these questions might be, the film deals with death, decay, and loss as ever present and ever reoccurring themes which are strikingly banal. Like Coming Forth by Day, this film breaks the taboo of death. However, while Lotfy’s film hints at death and loss as a potential of living, In the Last Days of the City attempts to resist the notion of death as an object of natural forgetfulness. It is true that death, loss, war and misery are portrayed as banalities through the narrative line of the four friends, but the footages from Baghdad and Beirut serve as tools of remembrance. Nevertheless, these remembrances exist only in the personal worlds of the characters as a sentimental notion. In general, Hassan’s death as a casuality of a car bomb is a normalcy as much as the corpse, he told his friends about whose blood drew a line on the road, and as much as the corpse his nephew had to be careful not to step on when buying bread. I chose to discuss the concept of rebellion in this film through the narrational line of the four friends because today in the year 2020, the notions of rebellion, uprisings and resistance across the Arab World are still very topical. What took place in 2010  in Tunisia, followed by the Egyptian, Syrian and Yemeni uprisings had not been a momentarily or a time-bound phenomenon. The uprisings in Sudan, Iraq, Algeria, and Lebanon in 2019 and up until this very moment are part of this movement which started almost a decade ago. The western reading of the so-called “Arab Spring,” even though it seems to address the Arab World as collective, it actually does not. The term, “Arab Spring” has a deep-rooted colonial view. On the one hand, it deals with the “Arab” as one thing; a whole; an empty space, as in the case of “Africa.” On the other hand, and ironically, the western perception of these uprisings failed to recognize the lines and connections among these uprisings, as well as the differences and the commonalities. Thus, the whole idea of this “Spring” was over by the year of 2012 in Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, while in Egypt, it was over in 2013. The civil war in Syria is indeed not a “spring,” so was the case in Libya. Yemen was indeed forgotten until recently when the Saudis started their war against the country. Tunisia’s story had a happy ending, and Egypt’s story ended in 2013 with the coup d’état. The narrative had changed: the “western-oriented” youth failed, instead ISIL erupted, and military dictatorship returned, and the “Arab Spring” is once more “The Middle East.” It had been a moment in time divorced from any historical, cultural and social reality. These narrow readings failed to understand the nature of the struggle across the region, and once more was surprised to

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witness a second wave in these countries. Furthermore, these medias never predicted and even dismissed any possibility of uprisings in countries like Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Take the latter as an example, Iraq: a country plagued by war, sectarianism and foreign rule; a country in which ISIL were born. In 2019, Iraqi citizens rose against the puppet regime, the sectarian rule and the American influence. In Algeria, a country still under the shadow of 1990 civil war, and the fear of the re-rise of the Islamic radicals and new violence, citizens rose against the corrupt status-­ quo with no mass violence. The Sudanese changed their regime and still struggling for a new political system. The Lebanese rose up against a failed state ruled by sectarianism and corruption also against the odds and against the conviction that a new civil war would erupt again. In the Last Days of the City makes this connection among the peoples of this region way before the first wave of the uprisings even took place. It captures all the conflicted sentiments the peoples of this region have: despair, anger, hope, exile, permanent struggle, and the multitude of histories. It rebels against conventional narration in film: chronologicity, causality, sensory motor narration, and even coherence in favor of extreme nonlinearity, horizontality, time in itself, and incoherence of action. It rebels against history in favor of historiography.

Mohammed Diab’s Clash (2016) Background By the year 2016, five years after the 2011 uprising, the political landscape had changed massively. This is almost two years into Al Sisi’s presidency. The events of the film take place in 2013, right after the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi and the crackdown on the Muslim Brothers. Thus, it is important to give a brief background concerning this time period. The events of the film take place in the period between July 4 and August 14, 2013, that is the dispersion of the Raba’a sit-in (the pro-Morsi protesters who occupied Raba’a square in protest of the ousting of Morsi by the military). This film is far from being not controversial for various reasons which I am going to discuss later on. But for now, I will shortly provide some background information concerning the Raba’a incident.24 24  Having been an eyewitness of these events, the author is the primary source of this information. For a detailed documentation of these events, see Abdallah Khalil’s The Map of Transitional Justice in Egypt since the 25 January Revolution (2015).

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This book would not be able to discuss the phase between 2012 up to the 2013 coup in depth as other historical and social works had done (Selim 2015). It is, however, important to mention that the conflict between the secular revolutionary camp and the Muslim Brothers started as soon as Mubarak stepped down, and the Supreme Council for Armed Forces, SCAF, took over and became the de facto ruler of Egypt starting February 11, 2011, until June 30, 2012. During this period, SCAF committed many atrocities against the revolutionary camp which constantly protested for further steps toward dismantling the Mubarak regime. The revolutionary camp demanded the trials of all the symbols of Mubarak’s regime, including Mubarak himself for his responsibility for the killings of the protesters, corruption, and abuse of power. They also demanded the trying of Habib Al Adly, Mubarak’s Minister of Interior, the head of the National Security, all the officers who were involved in the killings and torture of the protesters and the radical restructuring of the Ministry of Interior. As soon as February 2011, protesters were arrested, tortured, and tried in military tribunals. The Muslim Brothers and most of the Salafists did not participate in the anti-SCAF protests and sit-ins. In fact, a huge number of Islamists organized a series of demonstration in support of SCAF (Selim 2015). In the course of these events, the SCAF struck a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood who shared the SCAF’s desire to limit the growth of leftist or liberal forces. In “Egypt Under SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood: The Triangle of Counter-Revolution,” Gamal M. Selim (2015) argues that the Muslim Brothers “sided with the military junta as part of a power-sharing arrangement, according to which the revolutionary forces would be marginalized and power would be divided between the military and Brotherhood.” Selim basically argues, with which I fully agree, that the Muslim Brothers, SCAF and the Mubarak’s deep state form a counterrevolutionary triangle. This triangle had been intact until the beginning of the Morsi presidency. After which, the allies turned again into natural enemies (Selim 2015). The opposition to the Muslim Brothers by the revolutionary camp did not wane after Morsi took office. The largest demonstrations and clashes between the revolutionary camps took place in November 2012. On November 22, 2012, among political and social unrest which was partly initiated by the remainder of Mubarak’s deep state, Morsi announced a constitutional declaration which mainly gave Morsi as the head of the

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executive total power and complete immunity against any juridical action.25 Right after the declaration, protests erupted all across Egypt. The Muslim Brothers and their Islamist allies mobilized their members and supporters to demonstrate in support of Morsi’s actions. The revolutionary camp along with other secular groups as well as pro-Mubarak/pro-military went on large protests against Morsi’s declaration. The opponents announced a sit-in in front of Al Itehadeya presidential palace in Heliopolis, Cairo. In response, Morsi supporters were mobilized toward the palace to disperse the sit-in. The two groups clashed, and the police were deployed to disperse the opponents. Thus, the Muslim Brothers and their allies attacked the opponents side by side with the police. Individuals from both sides fell victim to these clashes which resulted in 6 deaths and over 664 injured (Al-Arabeya 2012). Following the clashes, a number of Muslim Brothers offices in Cairo were attacked (Al-Arabeya 2012). From this moment on, the violent confrontations between these two political groups did not stop. On June 30, 2013, large protests stormed the country against Morsi and the Muslim Brothers. These protests had been in preparation for months prior. Unlike the 2011 uprising, the 2013 protests were ironically state sponsored. Morsi’s era was defined by deep divisions and unrest in the Egyptian society. There had been mainly two camps during that time: the first consisted of all Islamist groups who supported the Muslim Brothers, and the second consisted of most of the 2011 revolutionary camp and the supporters of the deep state (pro-­ Mubarak and pro-military). Within the second camp, there also existed an animosity. The 2011 revolutionaries and the seep state supporters were enemies. These enemies found themselves forcibly on one side, and there had been no real alliance, at least on the level of the base. The media was also in war. The Muslim Brothers and their Islamist allies owned a number of media outlets which attacked, demonized, and called for violence against all who opposed Morsi and the Muslim Brothers. State television and pro-military private media outlets launched a campaign against the Muslim Brothers and its allies, and gradually, the faces and voices of the Mubarak regime returned to the screen as the vanguard against Morsi and his supporters. During the first few months of the Muslim Brothers rule, the state security faced the anti-Morsi protesters and continued its violent policy. These protests were organized by the 2011 revolutionary camp, 25  For further in-depth details, see Selim (2015) and Azmy Beshara’s Egypt’s Revolution. From Revolution to Coup (2016).

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and the state security was involved in the killings of a number of protesters. By the end of 2012, and the beginning of 2013, a number of violent confrontations took place between the anti- and pro-Morsi camps all across Egypt with a little to no interference from the state security. The military, now under the new leadership of Abdel Fatah Al Sisi, presented itself as neutral in this conflict. However, the military gradually started to send political signals to the conflicted parties, slightly leaning toward the anti-Muslim Brothers camp. By April 2013, the military took the role of the mediator among the opposing groups. During that time, the state security, the bureaucratic apparatus joined the media in its anti-Morsi campaign. An initiative called Tamarrod (Rebellion) had been formed by a number of activists with the objective of filling petitions demanding the suspension the 2012 constitution and the call for new presidential and parliamentary elections. In May 2013, Tamarrod called for mass protests to take place on June 30, 2013, all across Egypt against Morsi with the aforementioned demands. On the opposing side, the Muslim Brothers and their allies answered this initiative and called for a number of sit-ins across the country, starting June 28, 2013. The main sit-in had been announced in the Raba’a Al Adaweya Square in Eastern Cairo. On June 26, 2013, the military was deployed to secure the vital locations in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and all other major cities. The ministries of Defense and Interior declared that both the police and the army would protect the anti-Morsi protesters and would stand neutral. Meanwhile, and since the beginning of 2013, the military under the leadership of Al Sisi called for negotiations among the opposing parties. On June 30, 2013, Egypt witnessed mass demonstrations against Morsi. This time and unlike 2011, the police, the army, and the state security did not engage against the protesters. In fact, and in an absurd scene, the police took part in these demonstrations and provided the protesters protection, and even distributed juice and sweets. The army even provided a chopper to film the demonstration. The state estimation of the number of the protesters was said to be over thirty million. The June 30, 2013, was indeed sponsored by the deep state, or at least encouraged and tolerated. On July 1, 2013, the general leadership of the Egyptian armed forces released a statement which put an ultimatum of forty-eight hours for the all parties to come to a political solution and for the president to fulfill the protesters’ demands. If this ultimatum passed without any political solution, the armed forces would declare a roadmap and would undertake the necessary action to implement this roadmap with the participation and the inclusion of all

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political streams. The following day, July 2, 2013, pro-Morsi groups protested against the statement and the ultimatum. Morsi aired a long speech on state television clearly rejecting the armed forces’ statement, and the notion of new presidential election. Morsi promised to assign a new government, a committee to revise the constitution and a high committee for national reconciliation. In this over-fifty-minute speech, Morsi insisted that the deep state of Mubarak was behind all the crisis Egypt was facing during his year of presidency. The price for maintaining the democratic legitimacy, Morsi said, was his own life. Earlier that day and after Morsi’s speech, clashes between the two camps took place all over Egypt with a number of casualties, and at least fifty persons were killed as a result of these clashes between the pro- and anti-Morsi protesters (Khalil 2015). On July 3, Abdel Fatah Al Sisi, the minister of Defense declared the ousting of Mohamed Morsi, the suspension of the 2012 constitution, assigning the head of the Egyptian Supreme Court as an interim president until holding new elections, assigning a government of national coalition, forming a committee to revise and amend the 2012 constitution, forming a high committee for national reconciliation, preparing the election law by the Supreme Court for a new parliamentary election, and drafting a charter concerning media and press. During this statement, Al Sisi was surrounded by Ahmed Al Tayeb, Al Azhar Grand Imam, Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, Mohammad Al Bardei, the former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and one of the most prominent oppositional figures, a representative of the Salafi party, Al Nur, and two members of Tamarrod. During the airing and after the statement, a series of arrests took place among various ranks of the Muslim Brothers. Morsi himself was arrested by the national guard, as he claimed on July 2 (Al Shalchi 2014). The army shut down all pro-Morsi television stations along with arresting a number of Islamist figures (Spencer 2013). Between July 4 and August 14, 2013, violent clashes initiated by pro-Morsi groups took place all across Egypt. The two main pro-Morsi sit-ins remained (Raba’a Al Adaweya Square and An-Nahda Square) until the security forces dispersed them with sheer force on August 14. This tragic event marks an important transition in the Egyptian society and also marks the beginning of the brutal dictatorship of Abdel Fatah Al Sisi. Even though, I am by no means a sympathizer of the Muslim Brothers, nor I rid them from their role in Egypt’s relapse into the current despotic rule of Al Sisi and the military, the dispersion of Raba’a sit-in was yet another terrible crime committed by the military and the police. This atrocity too cannot

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be perceived in a vacuum. As mentioned above, the military regime started its oppression and violence during the first eighteen days of the uprising: January 28–February 11, 2011, and after the toppling of Mubarak. To name the most tragic incident among many, the Mohammed Mahmoud Street massacre: November 19–November 25, 2011.26 More than 40 ­people have been killed and up to 3000 have been injured. Three protesters were shot in the eyes; one of them, Ahmed Harara, lost his other eye, after he had lost the first on January 28, 2011. It was later revealed that the CSF targeted the faces and the eyes of the protesters (BBC 2012). The Muslim Brothers took a “neutral” stance at best, and even claimed that this incident was fueled by the deep state in order to spoil the first democratic measure: the parliamentary election which was planned to be held the following week. This is just one incident and one example among many others of how the counterrevolution led by the military suppressed the revolutionary stream. Egypt witnessed a period of polarization which already started in 2011 and was almost on the brink of civil strife during the one year of the Muslim Brothers rule up until 2014. The polarization and the fissure in the Egyptian social body are evident until this very moment. A potential scenario of a democratic life in Egypt was destroyed as a result of the alliance of the two largest conservative and totalitarian bodies in Egypt: the military and the Muslim Brothers. The very ideological nature of the Muslim Brothers and their Islamist allies along with the systematic suppression of the revolutionary stream and the re-emergence of the deep state structures, along with the ever-worsening economic life are what led to the coup de tat of 2013 (Abdelrahman 2014; Selim 2015). The popularity of the Muslim Brothers witnessed an epic and rapid fall, and soon large section of the Egyptian population loathed and even hated them. That is why, for the first time since the establishment of the Muslim Brothers, the regime was able to dismantle and destroy the entire organizational structure of the Muslim Brothers. The series of arrests of the highest ranks of the Muslim Brothers followed the declaration of Morsi’s ousting up until August 2013. The Raba’a massacre took place in the early morning hours of August 14. The CSF, the Military Police, and AntiTerrorism special forces attacked the sit-in broad daylight. The result was according to Amnesty International (2019), at least 900 deaths, more

 See Egypt 2011.

26

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than 1000 injured, 650 arrests, and 75 were sentenced to death (Amnesty International 2019). Thus, started the actual reign of the former Head of Military Intelligence under Mubarak, and the member of SCAF, General Abdel Fatah Al Sisi who at the end of July 2013, went out in a public speech asking Egyptians for a popular mandate to fight potential terrorism. The tragedy of Raba’a dispersal is not only the atrocities which were committed by the security forces, rather, it went further to a social dimension. Anti-Muslim Brothers and pro-military people cheered the dispersal. Support demonstrations for the military took place already in the evening of that day, singing propaganda songs for the military. Al Sisi has now become the new national hero who saved Egypt from terrorism, and one year later he became the president of Egypt. It is not without personal unease that I am telling all these details by which I am re-living a lot of terrible memories myself. Nevertheless, I believe, it is imperative to give the reader some context about this topical and ongoing history. This is to help understanding the reading of these films in relation to the historical moments they were made and perceived in. Narration It is indeed not the first time; an Egyptian film takes place in a spatial unity/single location or in a temporal one which spans for a day or less. In fact, Egyptian cinema has a tradition of films whose events take place in one space which plays a significant role in the story. For example, films such as Taufiq Saleh’s The Rebels (1966), Kamal El Sheikh’s Miramar (1969), and Salah Abu Seif’s The Beginning (1986). Also films such as Khairy Beshara’s Traffic Light (1995), Atef Al Tayeb’s A Hot Night (1996), and, most recently, Ahmad Abdallah’s Ext. Night (2018) play their events in a limited span of time: a day or less. Even films which take place in both a confined space and a limited time are no stranger to Egyptian cinema, and the most famous is Salah Abu Seif’s Between Heaven and Earth (1960) whose events play in an elevator for a time of two hours. Diab’s Clash belongs to these traditions, and like Between Heaven and Earth, this film has a spatial as well as a temporal unity. The events of this film take place in the year 2013 in the wake of the post-coup de tat of July 3, 2013, which ousted Mohammed Morsi. Among the chaos of this period, the police arrests pro and anti-regime protesters and put them all

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in the back of a police truck. This truck in the film is a part of a larger police force which belongs to the CSF. The CSF is the same forces which collapsed in January 2011. In this confined and claustrophobic space, the characters of the film: members of the Muslim Brothers, Journalists, pro-­ military protesters, and people who were simply in the wrong place and the wrong time find themselves all stuck together awaiting their terrible fate. As discussed before in Film and Politics, this filmic device: a single location in which people from various backgrounds whether willingly or unwillingly interact with one another is used as a metaphor for Egypt. Films from the 1960s injected this filmic device with symbolism to avoid the scissor of the censor. These films kept this symbolism on the social level, in order to deliver a political statement. Clash claims to be the opposite. The film attempts to use the police truck; the prison cell-on-wheels not as a metaphor for Egypt. Rather, as a dramatic vehicle which brings the different Egypts together in an attempt to deliver a humanistic note at best, yet in fact, what it creates is an a-political statement which embodies the current atmosphere in Egypt: the death of politics. I shall discuss this notion in more details in the Rebellion section. In terms of narration, Clash presents its events linearly and chronologically in an intensified spatial and temporal structure. The film is shot entirely with a handheld camera and uses a variety of editing devices. The following sheds light on the narrative devices Clash employs to tell its story. It must be mentioned that in the tradition of single location films, it is this one space which becomes a narrative tool to create dramatic and characters dynamics. Thus, analyzing such films is not without difficulty due to the fact that one hardly avoids the retelling of the events. It is also difficult to pick exemplary scenes to discuss, as the progression of the events is tied to one space. For instance, the film spends its first twenty-­ two minutes to present its characters and begins to establish the upcoming conflict and interaction among these characters. Accordingly, my analysis, whether of narration, cinematic language, or rebellion, will be methodically slightly different than the other four films I discussed above. As for this section: Narration, I will concentrate solely on the notion of the single location and how out of which the interaction, conflicts, and dynamics among the characters are portrayed. This is after all is what this film presents as its strongest asset. Thus, in terms of narration, the film consists of three blocks: the first establishes the truck as the single location of the film and shows the first group of characters: two journalists who represent the

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2011 uprising and a group of pro-military demonstrators. This group of arrestees is actually divided among themselves. Then, it brings the other group of characters which consist of Muslim Brothers and pro-Morsi protesters. This group too is divided. The second block establishes the notion of two camps: the pro-military and somehow the two journalists versus the Muslim Brothers and pro-Morsi. Finally, the third block contains the continuation of this struggle and division between the two groups into the phase of the collective’s attempt to survive the situation. The film delivers an open ending which presents the tragic fate of all the arrestees. The First Block (00:01:00–00:22:30) The first shot of the film is of an empty police truck-cell. The film opens with a statement which has two versions: Arabic/Egyptian and English/ international. The Egyptian version which was released in Egyptian cinemas gives the following statement, “in the days that followed the 30 June revolution, bloody clashes initiated by the Muslim Brothers who opposed the peaceful transition of power” (00:01:47). This statement, according to Mohammed Diab, had been imposed by the censor as a condition to approve the film (Gouda and Nour 2016). The international version contains the following statement, In 2011 Egyptians end a 30-years presidency. 2012 the newly elected president is a member of an Islamist party, The Muslim Brotherhood (MB). In 2013 millions revolt against the new president in the biggest protest in Egyptian history. 3 days later, the military removes him. In the next days, Muslim Brotherhood and military supporters clash all over Egypt. This is one such day. (00:01:47)

This narrative device with both its versions sets the overall context of the film. Here the film politically positions itself as anti-Muslim Brothers in telling its story. In the Egyptian version, the anti-Muslim Brothers stance is direct and explicit. Indeed, the transition of power is far from being peaceful, as Morsi was ousted, arrested, and later in 2019 died in prison. It was simply a coup de tat. The international version is more balanced, yet its anti-Muslim Brothers as well as its pro-state stances are implied. This implication is evident through two notions: (1) The June 30, 2013, protests were indeed large, but by no means the largest in Egyptian history. The film here clearly adopts the state narrative

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concerning the June 30 protest and the ousting of Morsi (this will be discussed in detail throughout the reading of the film). (2) The removal of Morsi is nothing but a coup de tat which is a forbidden term in the state narrative of these events. Despite Diab’s insistence that Clash has no political message and does not alleging itself with neither group: Muslim Brothers nor military, the film does from its very first moment position itself politically. The ­written statement in both its version is a narrative device which has its effect on the film and on the spectatorship (Fig. 4.29). The first victims of the draconian police arrests in the film are two journalists working with AP (Associated Press): a reporter and a photographer. The officer orders the soldier to get the camera from the photographer. The officer confiscates the camera and checks the pictures on it, “they pictured us sir” (00:02:47). A soldier grabs the reporters ID and brings to the officer, “he is American sir!” The reporter tells the officer, he is also Egyptian; Egyptian American and a reporter with AP whose name is Adam Ramsy, “you can google me” (00:02:50). The officer orders the soldiers to throw them in the truck. The photographer tries to resist but gets thrown on the floor of the truck. The photographer gets a panic attack,

Fig. 4.29  Opening scene (00:00:55)

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Adam helps him breathe. Adam takes off his wristwatch which has a camera and films himself reporting his arrest. He also films the photographer whose name is Zein. Zein refuses to be filmed, and Adam takes the watch and films the outside of the truck. Zein protests, “what you are doing is stupid” (00:05:03). Adam continues filming as a sound of an explosion appears, followed by chants of a group of pro-military demonstrators, “the people and the army are one hand” (00:05:30). The camera moves in 180 degrees capturing the movement of the running soldiers toward the explosion through the truck’s windows. Everything which happens in as well as outside the truck is shot from inside the truck. The two prisoners call for the demonstrators to help them. A small group of the pro-military demonstrators notice them and come asking them who they are and what is their story. When the group hear they are press, they start to get slightly hostile, until one of them (Salah) sees Adam filming with his wristwatch and calls him out. Zein grabs Adam and curses him, “I told you, what you are doing is stupid. You screwed us” (00:06:40). All of a sudden the group throws stones at the truck, calling the two prisoners, “Muslim Brothers. Traitors” (00:06:44). The police force come back and starts hitting the group. The police catching the group throwing stones at the police truck accuse them of being Muslim Brothers. They arrest an old man (Salah) who pleas with the officer to let him go. He tells the officer that his son went messing for some days and he is out searching for him. The officer throws him in the truck. Two young men (Mans and Fisho) are also thrown in the truck while trying to convince the officer that they are anti-­ Muslim Brothers and are pro-police, they chant “the people and the police are one hand.” These two young men’s appearances show that they belong to the “lower” class. Another man is also pleading with the officer not to arrest him, asserting that he is not Muslim Brothers, and tells the officer, he has a child with him. The officer grabs the child and asks him, if he threw stones to which the boy admits. The officer throws the father (Hossam) and son (Faris) into the truck. A lady who managed to escape the group comes running to the officer, she is the mother of the boy. The father, he husband shouts at her from inside the truck, “Nagwa, go home! Don’t approach! Please go home!” Nagwa asks the officer to let he son and husband go. The officer refuses and tells her to leave. Nagwa insists that she is not leaving without her son. Three times, the officer tells her to leave, and she refuses. At last, she picks up a stone and throws it at the truck, “here, I throw stones too, throw me in with them.” She does that three times, while the officer tells her to leave. She picks up a stone and

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threatens the officer with it. The officer orders the soldiers to throw her in. All these events are shot from inside the truck thought the side and back windows. For over twenty minutes, that is the duration of presenting the first group of people inside the truck: Adam and Zein with the pro-Military demonstrators, the film builds its narrative style as well as its conceptual content. Visually, the camera is placed inside the truck capturing what is inside the truck and what is outside it. As mentioned before, the film is shot with a handheld camera which asserts and enhances the sense of claustrophobia. After Nagwa is reunited with her husband and son, the truck moves. Besides the aforementioned characters, the spectator finds out that there are two other characters in the truck: a middle-class young man (Hussein) and a parking guide (Rabie’e).27 Now all of them verbally and some of them physically attack Adam and Zein. The two are accused of being traitors, spies, and Muslim Brothers. Now the group of people in the truck consists of small groups: Adam and Zein; Fisho and Mans (the two “lower-class” young men); Nagwa, Hossam (the father), and Faris (the boy); Radwan and Salah (two elderly men who work together. The latter went out searching for his missing son), Rabie’e (the parking guide), and Hussein (the middle-class young man). Until this moment in the film, Adam and Zein are antagonized by the rest, but even within this duo, there is a friction. Zein, the photographer, resents Adam, as he considers him the reason behind his trouble. Zein tells Adam, it would be the last time he would work with him. The film tries to establish a number of dramatic devices in its narrative, and also attempts to present subplots which belong to the individual characters. The first dramatic device is Mans’ hidden mobile phone which rings right after the truck moves (00:10:33). Mans’ phone is the only possible hope for everybody in the truck: the only line of communication for help. It also gives him a state of power and privilege in the group. As soon as the phone rings, everyone is begging him to let him make a phone call. Mans refuses that battery life must be preserved. Zein tells everybody that they should call the American embassy. Adam is American and they will see to it that they would be released, but Adam objects to this idea. For the 27  From his appearance and the orange towel he possesses, it is most likely that this man works as a parking guide. This is an informal job through which a group of men control the parking of cars in certain streets. They help people park for money. Socially, these people are categorized in the lowest level of the social ladder.

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embassy will only get him out, not the rest. Hussein claims that his uncle is a high rank police officer, and if he called his family, it would help them to get out. They all agree, and Hussein makes the phone call to his mother asking her to let his uncle interfere. Here, we can see one of the many problems Clash has, whether in terms of narrational logic, or in terms of its social position. First, there is no ­different outcome of Adam calling the American embassy or Hussein involving his uncle. Both the embassy and the high rank officer would not interfere to release all of the arrested. In Egypt, if you are lucky to have a connection in the regime, you might have help that gets you out of trouble, but this connection most logically will not get involved in vouching for companions or strangers. This is clearly a plot hole illogically enforced to position the characters. This leads to the film’s social position or stance. The refusal of Adam to call the embassy can only be perceived as an act of nobility, for the film does not show another motivation for this decision. In fact, Adam’s character is pretty much and naïvely one-dimensional. Right before Mans’ phone rang, Adam addresses Zein: Adam: What is wrong? I thought that you are a revolutionary Zein: Yes, I am, but I would rather die for a cause; not a photo Adam: This photo could be a cause Zein: Yes, it could be. But today, I am out covering the news, not to be the news Adam: This is because you work with me for the first time Zein: And it will be the last, God willing. (00:10:10–00:10:26)

In this dialogue, we witness an air of idealism and also a slight arrogance in Adam’s attitude. At the beginning of the film, Adam asked the officer to Google him as he is probably a renowned journalist. This is confirmed when he tells Zein bloating about Zein working with him for the first time. Adam is also talking from a place of privilege that is presented as a professional and a moral high ground (the photo being a cause). This privilege is simply the fact that he is an American journalist. Zein is aware of this from the first moment. He knows that Adam’s American passport and his status as an AP journalist would get him out of trouble. From a position of privilege, Adam revokes this privilege when he refuses to call the embassy. As the events progress, the cell phone which seemed at first to be an important dramatic device disappear from the picture and are not made use of as a line to the outside world and a potential help. Hussein calls his mother once more asking if she reached the uncle,

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and that was it. The phone appears again only to instigate a conflict between Mans and Fisho, as the latter discovers a romantic communication on the phone between his sister and Mans. Throughout the whole film, Clash fails generally to give depth to the individual characters. Rather, it lies heavily on the collectiveness with individual characters are merely representatives of these collectives. As the events progress, the spectator starts to get to know the characters individually. This starts with an incomplete subplot of Nagwa and her family. Nagwa fights with her husband Hossam briefly after Hussein makes the phone call. They argue about their son, and Nagwa accuses her husband of being irresponsible for taking their son out on a demonstration. Both of them exchange accusations with Hossam blaming her for not going home and calling for help (00:13:57–00:14:16). Nagwa is revealed later on to be a nurse and engages in helping the arrestees and almost takes a leading position. Nagwa and her family are representatives of the lower-­ mid-­class. She is portrayed as the most humane of all the characters; a nurse (an angel of mercy)28 which is such a straightforward symbolism and a direct stereotype. Throughout the film, the spectator does not see any glimpse of this family’s relationship with one another. Rabie’e, the parking guide belongs to the thugs-category,29 a dirty-­ looking man who holds a pocketknife and who later cut a pro-Morsi arrestee. The film chooses to show him for the first time in an individual shot in relation to Hussein (00:13:38–00:13:41). The first shot shows Rabie’e sitting on the floor of the truck polishing his pocketknife, dirty and barefooted, and then it cuts to Hussein looking at him with disgust. Later on, in the film, he confesses to Nagwa that he is not a thug, but he acts like them to protect himself from them, which does nothing but affirms this classist notion. The two friends Mans and Fisho do not escape the stereotypical representation. These two young men, as I mentioned before, belong to the “lower-class,” the very same class which was not counted as the noble youth;30 the educated West-oriented youth of 2011. As pro-military demonstrators, the film indirectly affirms their exclusion from the 2011 uprising according to the above-mentioned notion. They are ignorant and also thuggish, as they attacked Adam and Zein and called them the  This is the Egyptian name for nurses.  See Egypt 2011 and Rags and Tatters. 30  See Egypt 2011 and Rags and Tatters. 28 29

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combination of “Americans, spies, traitors and Muslim Brothers.” In addition, their names are in fact nicknames: Fisho and Mans, a clear reference to their social class. This is also seen through their stylings and their manner of speech. I confess, that these details are hard for Western audience to understand and comprehend, but in Egypt, especially in Cairo, one would immediately associate these two characters with “lower” class youth who would for example engage in acts of violence or harassment. They also represent a set of values who would be considered reactionary from the film’s point of view. The two also generate a weak subplot later in the film, as Fisho discovers text messages on Mans’ phone which reveals a romance between Mans and Fisho’s sister. Fisho hits Mans and threatens to kill him accusing him of betrayal and vows to kill his sister for bringing dishonor to him. Mans swears to him, he wants to marry his sister and that he loves her and nothing dishonorable happened between them. The first block ends as the police truck and the accompanied forces enter a neighborhood to face a violent pro-Morsi protest. From inside the truck, the arrestees watch the clashes between the police and the protesters. Soon enough, the police start to arrest a number of pro-Morsi protesters. The Second Block: Many Clashes and Always Division While the film takes place in a single location: the police truck, this single location moves in a dystopian odyssey through Cairo. The truck is a part of a larger police force which belongs to the CSC (Central Security Forces). The leader of this force; a police general orders the truck to move as he received orders to face a pro-Morsi protest. This is the first stage of the odyssey. The truck arrives in a Cairo neighborhood in which a large violent protest takes place. From inside the truck the arrestees first hear the chants, Islameya, Islameya (Islamic, Islamic). This is a well-known chant of the Islamists in Egypt which calls for an Islamic state: The whole chant is “Islamic, Islamic. Not secular and not militarily.” The arrestees rush to the windows and watch the police clashing with the pro-Morsi protesters, and Salah, the elderly man calls out from behind the window, “kill them all” (00:14:32–00:15:19) (Fig. 4.30). The police throw water on the protesters and the protesters throw stones at the police. Among the clashes, the protesters attack the truck. The clash goes back and forth for a while, and the police start to make arrests. One by one, the police throw eight pro-Morsi protesters in the

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Fig. 4.30  Up, the clashes between the police and the pro-Morsi protesters start. Bottom, Salah shouting, “kill them all” (00:14:32–00:15:19)

truck, all of them resist but Mans and Fisho pull them in the truck, and the two groups attack one another. Rabie’e gets a blade out of his mouth and cuts one of them. Chaos erupts in the truck and the violence is about to escalate rapidly. The door of the truck opens, and the officer shouts at the arrestees. He orders the force to hit the arrestees with a water hose. The truck is flooded with water and the fighting stops. During the second ­narrative block, the film undertakes a process of mirroring that is presenting the pro-Morsi characters and their own internal division. However, the division within these new arrivals is organizational and systematic due to the nature of the Muslim Brother as an organization. After the arrestees

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settle following the water attack, one of the new arrestees calls for organizing the group. He starts to divide the new arrivals into two groups: Muslim Brothers members and nonmembers (lovers and supporters). He gathers the members to the back of the truck and asks the supporters to move to the front. He then calls upon the members to introduce themselves: name, place, family, clan, group, and-or battalion. Here, I shall briefly explain the structure of the organization. The Muslim Brothers has a pyramidal structure. At the bottom of the pyramid are families. Each family consists of four to five people and is headed by a captain. Above the families are clans and above them are groups. Above the groups are the so-called battalions. When a person is first recruited as a potential Brother, he starts out as Muhib (lover). If approved, he moves up to become a Muayyad (supporter), then to Muntasib (affiliated). An affiliated does not have the right to vote in the organization. If an affiliated is approved as trustworthy, he is promoted to Muntazim, (regular or organizer). The final level that is the highest level in the base before advancing to what is called, Ach Amel (working brother), and that is the highest rank in the base of the organization which qualifies this person to be a leader of a group (Trager 2011; Rubin 2012). Back to the film, the members now start to introduce themselves: Tamer from Menia (Upper Egypt), regular member, Ahmed from Marsa Matrouh (Northwest Coast), working brother, Hozaifa from Matareya, Cairo, regular member, Moaz from Imbaba, Cairo, senior member of the executive bureau and Omar from Nasr City, Cairo, junior member of the executive. Omar states that Moaz is the highest rank and is the one in charge. Moaz now addresses all the arrestees, stating that he is the official spokesman of the Muslim Brothers members. Moaz asks the supporters and the Muhibs, if he could represent them as well, to which they agree, except one (Mohammed) who slightly protests, but soon was put in rank by his brother (Ahmed). All pro-Morsi protesters in the truck have yellow badges around their arms. This is a common method for most of the Muslim Brother and pro-Morsi protesters to wear badges in order to distinguish them from anyone else, especially, from undercover police. Moaz asks the supporters to turn the badges to the flip side which is red. As such, the members would be distinguished from the supporter, the formers would wear the badge yellow, and the latter red. The supporters are an elderly man who remains unnamed, his veiled daughter Aisha, Badr, and Mohammed who is Ahmed’s brother from Marsa Matrouh (Northwest Coast). Moaz demands that the truck is divided into two sides: his group and the pro-military’s to avoid any clashes. The two sides get into a heated

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argument, but soon they settle down after one of the police officers threatens to interfere (00:26:09–00:30:30). During this process of division and organization, the animosity between the two main groups is shown, but also the film attempts to build up a humanist interaction which would come later. Rabie’e cut Badr in his ­forehead. Nagwa moves to help Badr, after Faris her son told everybody that she is a nurse. Badr refuses to be touched by her, “no women, no touching” (00:23:40). Nagwa asks Tamer to use one of the badges as a bandage and wrap it around his head to stop the bleeding. Faris and Aisha; the youngest in the truck also get into a childish animosity. When Moaz gets into an argument with the others concerning dividing the truck into two sides, the two sides exchange insults. Faris tells Aisha, “in school we used play Askar (army or soldiers) versus Ikhwan (Muslim brothers),” to which Aisha replies, “yes, we do too:” Faris: In the game, when we catch the Muslim Brothers, we execute them Aisha: And when we catch the army, we slaughter them. (00:28:16–00:28:28)

The film also shows the hierarchal nature of the Muslim Brothers, out of which a friction among this group might take place. According to the Muslim Brothers operative method, someone like Mohammed is in a lower status than his own brother, Ahmed even in this situation where everybody should be in the same boat. Mohammed protests at Moaz. First, when Moaz excludes him from the inner circle and categorizes him as a nonmember. Second, when Mohammed is forced to accept that Moaz is the leader and the official spokesman of the group (00:26:10–00:28:00.). Even though, the film accurately shows the hierarchal structure of the Muslim Brothers, like in the first block, the representation of the proMorsi group is not free of stereotypes, at least when it comes to the dialogue. For instance, Aisha tells the police officer after insulting her father, “mateshtemsh Abi” which means, do not insult my father (00:31:36). The first part of the sentence, mateshtemsh” means, do not insult in Egyptian slang, while Abi is high Arabic for father. It is common that Islamists in Egypt speak in high Arabic, mainly among themselves, but in almost all Egyptian films which have Islamist characters, they all speak in high Arabic all the time in a ridiculous and unrealistic way. As for Aisha, a short while back, she called her father, Baba (Egyptian slang for father) and her dialogues with Faris, with her father and even with Moaz has been entirely in Egyptian slang. Talking to the officer, she divided the sentence into slang

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and high Arabic without any former build up and also in a silly manner. The same goes with Badr, as he refused to be touched by Nagwa. He also told her this in a mix of slang and high Arabic. The high Arabic word has been, Nesa’a which means women. Clash remains for the most part indecisive when it comes to the main force which enforces and drives its narrative. Is it the claustrophobic space which creates and enhances the conflict and the division among the characters? Is it the sociopolitical or ideological animosity? Or is it a combination of both? In my view, none of the above is the case. Rather, it employs bits and pieces from each which makes the whole narrative come undone. The film tries to present its events in waves: conflict, spontaneous unity, political division, calm and conflict again. Clash does not miss a chance to fuel a situation of strife to always keep the notions of friction and division alive. This is to the end of committing naïve plot holes and continuity mistakes. One example is right after the physical division between the two groups took place, and things relatively calmed down. Adam once more took out his wristwatch camera and started to film (00:33:23). Ahmed asked Omar to have a word in private. He asks Omar, if it is really possible that Morsi would return to power. Omar assures him that it would happen despite everything. Adam is filming this conversation, and Ahmed sees him and calls him out on it. Moaz interferes and demands to have the camera, “we will film, not you” (00:34:30). Mans, Fisho and Salah also interfere, they are surprised that Adam has a camera and want to destroy it. The conflict now is triangular: Adam claims that it is important to film, as this is the only evidence of what is happening. The Muslim Brothers leader wants to film the events himself (from the Muslim Brothers point of view). The pro-military want to destroy the camera and challenge Moaz. Hossam calls the officer outside, “sir, the American has a camera” (00:34:00). Earlier in the film, as discussed above, Salah was the one who discovered that Adam has a camera and accused Adam of being a traitor and a Muslim Brother and caused his group to throw stones at the truck, and thus get arrested (00:06:40). Now Salah, the very man who antagonized Adam because of his camera is surprised about it. Not only Salah, but also Mans, Fisho, and Hossam. This narrational mistake does nothing but reaffirming the notion of the triangular conflict: pro-military camp versus Muslim Brothers camp, but most importantly, pro-military and Muslim Brothers versus the “revolutionary” camp. However, and in a tragic note, this camera and its recordings would not survive to tell the story. By the end of the film, the camera is crushed

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among the violence and the chaos. Unlike Rags and Tatters, Adam’s recordings are not an overt narrative sphere, nor it is an internal line of narration. It is a recorder of some “truth,” a lost documentary not to be found, so nobody would know what happened. Adam defends his act of filming, “this camera could save us. These days, what is not filmed did not happen” (00:34:33). Yet, no one is saved at the end and what happened is destined to being unknown. I argue, that the film could have used this component more powerfully and more effectively. Instead, this potential narrative strength came short. However, perceiving this choice from the context of the sought humanist approach of Clash, Adam’s recording is a requiem for the dream of 2011 as the film sees it. In the following, I shall discuss this notion. Third Block: What Did Not Happen The first recording Adam did, took place in the very beginning of the film as discussed above. Adam filmed himself and Zein, reporting their arrest, and then he filmed the pro-military demonstration. The second recording is Omar and Ahmed’s conversation about the return of Morsi to power. The third and final one, Adam filmed a moment of fun which all the arrestees shared together (01:08:20–01:10:50). At this point, the film has already entered and third and final narrative block. This section discusses this third recording but before doing so, I shall briefly show the events prior to this point. Picking up from where the previous section ended, and as the arrestees argue about Adam’s camera, a sound of shooting starts. This time the police face two gunmen who kill a police officer, a soldier and wound others of the police force. As the shooting goes on and bullets hit the truck, the arrestees are able to locate one of the shooters from inside the truck. The pro-military arrestees warn the police and reveal the location of the shooters to them. The pro-Morsi supporters cheer the shooters, and Badr warns them that police located them. Fisho attacks Badr and puts him down to prevent him from helping out the shooter. As the truck is hit by bullets, hysteria erupts in the truck. Nagwa pleads with the soldiers to move the truck. A soldier hops in to drive but gets hit by a bullet and dies. Everybody panics in the truck. The dead soldier’s feet are on the gas pedal and the truck is moving until another soldier evacuates his dead colleague and stops the truck. Finally, the police catch on the shooters and drag him on the street while hitting him to death (00:34:33–00:39:00).

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The truck moves again to another spot, and night has fallen. The arrestees now are in a relative calm. Rabie’e and Hussein are chatting, and then Nagwa joins them. Rabie’e shows Hussein how to hide a blade in the mouth and how to get it out. Rabie’e tells Hussein, why he participated in the demonstration. His dog was killed in a clash between the Muslim Brothers and the pro-military, so he decided to avenge his dog. Here he reveals to Hussein and Nagwa that he is in fact not a thug but just a parking guide, and that he acts this way to protect himself. Hussein sympathizes with Rabie’e and tells him about his own dog and gives Rabie’e his picture with the dog. Meanwhile, Salah and Badr also get in a conversation. Badr asks Salah about his missing son and tells Salah that his son is probably a Muslim Brother to which Salah protests. Salah notices some marks on Badr’s back and asks him if these are torture marks. Tamer answers Salah on behalf of Badr, “yes, they are. He got them in prison” (00:48:46). The camera moves to Aisha and her father. Aisha is crying and her father keeps asking her why. Nagwa interferes and asks Aisha, if she wants to go to the toilet, and Aisha nods, yes. Aisha’s father asks the soldiers outside to help his daughter. One of the soldiers, Oweys (whom later on we know that he is a Copt) refuses to let Aisha out of the truck. Nagwa shouts at him and demands that Aisha gets out of the truck. Oweys refuses again, and all the arrestees challenge him and demand that Aisha gets out. Another soldier, Awad who has been a bit sympathetic toward the arrestees interferes. Awad gets inside the truck and tells everybody, he would let Aisha out and would even let her go home, he would also let Faris go home. Oweys shuts the truck’s door, locking Awad up with the arrestees, and refuses to listen to Awad who pleads with him to open the door and lets him out. Nagwa takes Aisha to the end of the truck and demands that everybody goes to the other end of the truck and turns their backs, so Aisha could relieve herself inside the truck. They all agree, but Aisha could not do it. She keeps crying and Nagwa takes her into her arms. Oweys watches this and finally sympathizes. He opens the door and tells Aisha to come (00:52:00–00:55:22). This is when the truck gets attacked again by a new group of pro-Morsi protesters. The attack comes this time from above a bridge and also from the ground. The police force and the truck are attacked by stones and fireworks. Aisha’s father decides to escape; he takes Aisha, gets out of the truck, gets hit by a rain of stones, and falls down. Awad grabs Aisha, trying to protect her, and gets her back in the truck. Stones now get inside the truck and hit Hossam and Ahmed. Oweys shuts the door again. Aisha watches her father lying motionless on the

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ground. Awad tries to grab the old man away from the thrown stones but gets caught himself in the crossfire. Oweys gets hit and gets into the truck. Oweys has a fractured arm, Hossam has a big cut in the shoulder and Ahmed is injured in the head. Nagwa tries her best to treat the injured; she stitches her husband and helps Oweys to hang his arm the right way. ­Relatively safe now inside the truck, the arrestees start to interact with one another again (00:55:23–01:02:00). Here is when Adam’s third recording comes in. Tamer jokes around about the tear gas which partly got into the truck during the attack. Zein has fainted as a result of breathing the gas. Tamer tells him that this new “brand” of gas gets one high, “you missed an episode of laughter while you were out” (0000). He asks Zein, if he as a photographer pictured celebrity. He tells a story about him wanting to act. He went to a casting from a film by Sherif Arafa, a renowned Egyptian filmmaker. Adam asks Tamer, if he can act. Tamer says, he can and that day at the casting he also sang. Tamer starts to sing a jihadist song among the amusement of everybody. Adam asks Tamer, if he sang this terrible song at the casting. Tamer says, “oh no. I sang a song for Nancy Adjram31” (01:09:00). Tamer claims that the teargas is affecting his voice, that is why he sounds terrible and cannot sing now. Everybody laughs with him. Adam tells Tamer that he recognizes him from somewhere: Omar: Tamer was known as the Gas Singer during the Tahrir sit in Tamer: Shut up. I used to replace Rami Essam, the ‘Square Singer’ by people’s demand. They loved me. Omar: No, they demanded you because you made then laugh Tamer: Shut up Omar! Hossam: So, you are the ‘Gas Singer’ Tamer: You listened to me before? Nagwa: We were once at the square, and it was completely empty. We thought, the revolution is already done. Some people told us, ‘once the Gas Singer leaves, everybody would come back’ Mohammed: These were the days. (01:09:10–01:09:40)

A brief silence reigns the truck which Tamer breaks by singing the Nancy song, and everybody erupts in laughter. Zein gets the wristwatch camera and starts to film Tamer singing and gets everybody’s reaction to the song (01:10:20–01:10:51). This brief moment of joy is quickly  Nancy Adjram is a famous female Lebanese singer.

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interrupted when the truck suddenly moves. Now, it is important to discuss this moment of joy and unity among the arrestees. While the film portrays many of its characters in stereotypes, Tamer’s character is very interesting. Tamer as mentioned before is a working member of the Muslim Brothers. On the one hand, he acts radically in various situations such as, cheering the shooter as he hit one of the police officers and warning him that the police located him. Tamer also starts the chant “revenge by bullets” during the bridge attack (00:57:10). On the other hand, he is the most sociable character of all the arrestees, especially when interacting with the other group. He is also the funniest of the characters. Some critics criticized the portrayal of Tamer in the film. Zeinab Saad, A pro-Morsi writer argues that Tamer’s character is comical and caricaturistic in order to insult anything Islamist and that the fact that Tamer did not succeed in acting or singing, and thus became an Islamist is a stereotypical representation in Egyptian cinema (Saad 2016). No voice from the other camp, the pro-­regime writers or critics, criticized Tamer’s character specifically, but for these individuals, the portrayal of the Muslim Brothers in the film in general is not “bad enough.” Tamer’s character in an attempt to make it more than one-dimensional shows, in my view how the film itself is confused in trying to affirm its a-political nature in favor of a humanist message. Nevertheless, this brief moment of joy is the best moment of the film in terms of dialogue: a narrative device, such a film should have had as its main weight, but largely fails to. Even though, Zein does not record the dialogue prior to Tamer’s singing, the recording when played later by Adam is a reminder of this rare moment of unity (Fig. 4.31). Here the film enters its final phase, as the one who drives the truck is Huzaifa’s brother, Malik, who suddenly appears. This sudden appearance of this character is not explained in the film. In a mere contingency, Malik happened to be in the bridge clashes, and for an unknown reason, he decided to hijack a police truck and drives it on Cairo streets. What seems to have happened is that the bridge clashes ended, and the scene became empty and the police force abandoned the whole scene leaving the truck behind. Then, somehow, an all alone Malik succeeds to hijack the truck. Now, the truck arrives at the outskirt, one of the desert roads out of Cairo. Malik tries to break the truck door open to free the arrestees but fails to. Adam suggests that Malik drives the truck back into a parked loader to break the door. This too fails. Another conflict erupts as the Muslim Brothers argue that it would be better to drive the truck toward a

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Fig. 4.31  Zein filming Tamer singing (01:10:30)

pro-Morsi protest where the “Brothers” would be able to break the door and free everybody. The other group protests to this solution claiming that the Muslim Brothers would betray them. Nagwa signals Rabie’e to attack Huzaifa with his blade to prevent Malik from driving the truck. Huzaifa urges Malik to drive the truck despite the threat to his life. On the road, the truck meets two groups of protesters on the both sides of the road: pro-Morsi and pro-Military throwing stones at each other. From the chants of the two groups mix, “Islameya” and “traitors.” Inside the truck, everybody screams, the Muslim Brothers chant to the outside mass, “Islameya. We are Brothers. We are with you.” The pro-military group chant, “the army and the people are one hand.” Finally, the truck is stopped by the masses outside. Malik is dragged out of the truck and attacked. The truck is attacked by stones and flipped it over on its side. The protesters manage to break a side of the truck and pull one arrestee after the other, “traitors, Muslim Brothers.” From these chants, it seems that the pro-military mass are the ones who could break the car. Hossam is pulled out first, then Zein, then Ahmed, and finally Mans. The camera shows Adam’s wristwatch crushed. The arrestees mange to close the door

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again and gather all together to block the door. The screen fades into black, and the film ends (01:10:52–01:30:17). The film has an open end, as we could only guess the fate of those who were dragged outside and those who remained in the truck. Is there any hope for survival? Probably not. The film chooses not to show the whole brutal tragedy, but at this point, it is clear that the fate of these human beings is horrible. In terms of narration, the film seems to put its weight on this moment: the ending, the open end. In a linear narration in which the claustrophobic back of a police truck is the single location of the film and is also a spatial symbol of Egypt at that moment of history, Clash attempts to shine. Such films, like Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1958) or Salah Abu Seif’s Between Heaven and Earth (1960), rely on the representation of their characters in terms of their dimensionality and complexity. These characteristics appear and unfold through dialogue which highlights the different voices of the characters. Unfortunately, Clash keeps its characters, with the slight exception of Tamer, as shallow and stereotypical representatives of their class and-or ideology. Most of the dialogue is to highlight the split and the division among the characters without any personal dimension or voice as if it was taken from an Egyptian talk show: a confrontation between Islamists and pro-military representatives. The film suffices with the single location as if it alone could carry the narrative and not as a rich soil which brings out the complexity of individual and collective actions and interactive dynamics. The film indeed tries to and even succeeds in certain moments to do so, but the overall result is defined by the lack of it. Clash seems in a hurry to arrive at its end. Within the linear characteristic of the narrative, fatalism is also in play. The arrestees’ fate is also defined by contingency, as they slide from one state to the other and from one place to the other. The pro-military group are arrested in a draconian act of the police. No matter how often the group plea with the officer trying to tell him that they are supporters of the new regime and of the police, the officer arrests them accusing them of being Muslim Brothers. Nagwa is the only characters who acted upon a personal decision. If Nagwa did not antagonize the police officer in order to be with her family, she would not have faced potential death. The fatalism and the notion of contingency are indeed powerful narrational device in the film, for they enhance the sense of tragedy and above all the helplessness of the characters. All what took place seems by the end of the film irreversible. However, contingency as a principle of narration is mixes in Clash with illogical

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chance. I have mentioned Malik’s role as an example of this. Still within contingency, some personal and/or collective acts and events should be logically justified and needless to say should avoid continuity mistakes. In sum, the narration in this film fails in many places, at least in terms of technique to make use of its single location. It succeeds, however, in my view through the ending scene to portray the terrible tragedy in which the terrible fate of its characters is shared regardless of political or religious orientation. The few moments of humane interaction among the characters of Clash, specifically the recorded joy of Tamer’s singing stroke some balance and saved the film from being just a significant visual work. Clash like Microphone, Rags and Tatters and In the Last Days of the City is also preoccupied with the notion of recording reality within the world of the film. This time with a more pessimistic note as what Adam and Zein recorded is indeed no more. Cinematic Language and the Representation of Reality Clash does not have a central character or a main protagonist which carries the narrative. Rather, it is a group of people caught in one confined and claustrophobic space. Despite, the narrational shortcomings I discussed in the previous section, Clash shines the most with its camerawork. The film is entirely shot by Arri’s Alexa Mini “(18.5 cm × 12.5 cm × 14 cm), to be able to move freely, while taking up as little space as possible” (Simanjuntak 2016). The crew also built a replica of a truck cell of eight square meter (Simanjuntak 2016). The visual tone of the film is set immediately from the very start. The opening scene is shot with a handheld camera as the whole film is. The handheld camera is for the most part shaky and unstable; a technique which serves the overall atmosphere and the content of the film: claustrophobia, chaos and strife. The camera is always inside the truck, except for a quick second during the bridge attack. The camera movement varies in the film, it is seldom subtle, rather, it moves frantically, especially in the scenes where both internal violence (characters’ strife) and external violence (attacks on the truck) take place. Thus, the film contains a hybrid of visual styles: documentary, realist and narrative. In terms of camerawork, Clash changes its shot permanently. From wide shots to close-ups and from medium shots to over-the-shoulder shots. I argue that this decision of employing these shot variations is to constantly feed into the intensity, the confusion, and the sense of danger which stretch throughout the film. Also, to enhance the rhythm of the film in relation to the aforementioned notions. Furthermore, I have

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discussed in the previous section of narration, how the film fails to present its characters with more depth. The interchange of shots, in this case, medium and close-ups is used to visually introduce and present the characters’ emotions and gestures. That is also why the film does not often employ both the devices of depth-of-field and depth-of-focus when one or more characters are in dialogue in order to present and sometimes focus on them within the given situation. Many dialogues are shot in a shotreverse-­shot manner as well. The same goes with editing. Clash does not employ one consistent editing style. It varies from long takes to rapid and insert cuts according to the action. As Jonah Simanjuntak rightfully argues, the action scenes are edited heavily (2016). This is to create a sense of disorientation, fear, and danger, while the moments between the violence, both the cinematography and the editing, reside to a more subtle manner: relatively still camera and long takes. To be fair, this changing of styles comes out of production necessity, rather from a pure esthetic choice. Inside the truck, there are all in all nineteen characters. Shooting amidst this number of actors in an eight square meters space is not without difficulties. According to director Mohammed Diab, the cast and crew rehearsed their movement and the blocking of scenes intensively. Diab states, “every time the cameraman is moving, everyone around him has to dance. We had to rehearse it so many times. Everyone had their task of dancing around and then sitting down or standing in their spot again, as if nothing had happened” (in Simanjuntak 2016). Adding to the difficulty of shooting in this limited and confined space is also shooting various scenes during the truck’s movement. In the following, I shall discuss two examples of Clash’s cinematic language in relation to the notions of reality and in relation to its content. The Xs and Os On the walls of the truck cell, the camera captures some writings and drawings. Those were done by former arrestees who were put in this truck. One of the writings is a name and a date, “Ibrahim Fahim 2009.” Another writing is, “God curse you Tyrants.” One of the best visual expressions of the film is an incomplete Xs and Os game on one of the truck’s walls. It is Faris, Nagwa’s son who draws it and puts an X in one of its squares (00:21:23), after which the game appears in three other times throughout the film. The first is when Faris finds out that someone placed an O in the game (00:42:34). The second time, when Faris finds out that it is Aisha

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who placed the O, after he sees her placing another O (01:14:22). The third and final time, is actually the very last shot of the whole film (01:30:16). The game is incomplete and unsolved. The Xs and Os game is the visual equivalent to the political strife in Egypt during that time. Off course, as mentioned before, the film does its best to nullify any political message, thus, from the film’s point of view, the game stands for the humanist and social division in Egypt. By the end of the film, the game remains incomplete and not won. In other words, there are no winners in this game of division. In the larger picture, none of the striving groups won the struggle but Egypt suffered a grave loss of a divided and a polarized society. In the film, all the arrestees ended up on the losing side. They are all equal in misery, and the violence does not pick and choose. The film chose Aisha and Faris to play this game. The two youngest of the arrestees are not excluded from this divide. In fact, Clash shows how the polarization in the Egyptian society became deeply rooted and runs through all the way down to children. Earlier in the film, Aisha and Faris express their enmity toward one another in the language of child play. In school, Faris and his friends replaced the game, Askar w Harameya (police and thieves or fugitive) by Askar w Ikhwan (police/military and Muslim Brothers). The original game is played through which the children divide themselves into two groups of catchers and fugitives. This game became now political and has violent concepts. Faris tells Aisha, that the catchers play the role of the military.32 When the catchers get hold of a Muslim Brother, he would be executed (not literally off course, but they do an act). Aisha’s version of the game is the opposite, the Muslim Brothers are the catchers and the military are the fugitives. When a member of the military is caught, he would be slaughtered (also an act). In the truck, Faris discovers the Xs and Os game, and the child play continues between the two youngsters. However, this time, the enmity between the two is not in black and white. The Xs and Os first become an active game when Aisha draws her O, but by now, it is no longer a game to win.

32  Askar in many Arabic slangs has in large a negative connotation. Askar is derived from Persian and had been used describing the Ottoman occupying troops in Egypt, the French troops who invaded Egypt, and later the British were called Askar too. Thus, Askar stands for brutality, occupation, and corruption. During the 2011 uprising, one of the main slogans was Yasqut Hokm Al Askar (down with military rule). The Egyptian military considers Askar a derogatory word and an insult. After Sisi took over, the main slogan of the Muslim Brothers was the same: down with the Askar rule.

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Starting with the first appearance of the game on the truck’s wall (00:21:23). This scene takes place as the truck moves after the first demonstration, which the truck runs into. This is the demonstration in which the pro-Morsi protesters are arrested and thrown into the truck with the others. A fight erupts between the two groups, and the police officer orders his troops to open a water hose into the truck to stop the fighting. As an example of the interchangeability of visual representations, Clash employs different techniques starting with the fight between the two groups up to the point in which Faris starts the Xs and Os game. The fighting starts right after Aisha and her father enter the truck until the officer opens the door and orders everybody to stop fighting (00:18:03–00:19:03). Adam tries to calm everybody down but in vain. The fighting erupts again, and it is shot in a long take (00:18:23–19:00). The camera moves frantically as the two groups attack one another. The camera is placed at the end of the truck, from the driver side, and the whole action is captured in a wide shot. To show the fighting while avoiding visual confusion, and to also show various details, the camera switches permanently between focus and out of focus. This sequence is an example of the effective blocking and cerography of Clash. The fight erupts and the first visual detail the spectator sees is the close relationship between Salah and Radwan. Salah is on the left side; he is out of breath while being pushed to the wall among the chaos. He starts to cough and gasp for air (00:18:25). The camera puts him in focus and blurs the ongoing fighting, as he stretches his arm to Radwan who is placed on the right side of the truck. Radwan takes Salah’s hand (00:18:28). The two men’s hands are in focus, and then Radwan manages to get hold of Salah and helps him step up on the truck’s bench. This whole action is shot in focus while the surroundings are slightly out of focus. Following this, Rabie’e attacks Badr and slices him in the forehead (00:18:45). Similar to the previous shot, Rabie’e and Badr are in focus while the background is blurred. Narratively, this enmity between the two is not pursued. In fact, they do not clash again. However, Rabie’e’s blade appears later on in the film when he attacks one of the pro-Morsi group. Furthermore, it could be argued that both Rabie’e and Badr are the two characters with the most potential for violence, even though Rabie’e confesses to Nagwa, he is no thug, still he uses his blade. As for Badr, he tells one of his companions toward the end of the film that Egypt is no more the right place for Jihad, rather, it is Syria and he intends to go there to fight (01:18:01).

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The last shot of long take shows Aisha and her father banging on the door calling for help (00:18:57). The two are placed at the far end of the truck in focus while the foreground is blurred. Visually, the film builds up the idea that these two characters are the most vulnerable of all the arrestees. Later in the film, as previously discussed, Aisha is devastated and cry because she needs to go to the toilet but cannot. She gets even more humiliated when she fails to relieve herself in the truck. Aisha’s father is the eldest in the truck, and to help his daughter, he dies during the bridge attack. Aisha loses her father and her fate at the end of the film might be the worst of all. In addition, she is the “counterpart” of Faris in the Xs and Os game, but until the end of the film, she is not as lucky as Faris whose parents are protecting him. The fight stops as the officer employs a water attack on the arrestees. This refers to a true event which took place in August 18, 2013. A police truck similar to this in the film with forty-five arrestees arrived at Abu Zaabal prison and stayed there for over six hours with closed door in the unbearable heat of August. People started to suffocate, and faint and panic broke out. People started to bang on the walls of the truck demanding they would be let out. The prison administration responded by shooting a gas bomb inside the truck, thirty-seven people died (Kingsley 2014). In fact, after the water attack ended, Zein tells Adam about this incident, warning him that it would be too easy to die in this truck, as did the thirty-­ seven people of the Abu Zaabal truck. In addition, the officer himself threatens the arrestees of gassing the truck, if they made any trouble again. The film shoots the water attack in a series of rapid cuts with the camera changing its position now between the back and the front of the truck (00:19:15–00:19:34). The shots vary from wide to medium attempting to capture the individual characters. Unlike the previous sequence, the film chooses to employ fast editing and a variation of shots. In this nine-second sequence, the film cuts nine times. This difference is evident throughout the film by which the violence and strife among the arrestees is shot whether in long takes, or with minimum cuts, while the external attacks are shown through rapid and insert cuts. Such contrast in styles creates two different effects and affects. The first which is related to the internal strife among the characters generates the sense of contained and semi-­ controlled chaos and violence, thus the visual disorientation exists yet is limited. In other words, the struggle among the characters is initiated consciously and willingly by one or more characters, thus, the collective breaks down into seen individuals. The second which relates to the

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external violence, that is the violence between the police and the protesters as well as the attacks on the truck, is imposed on the arrestees. The whole collective is indiscriminately in danger. The rapid cuts and the change of shots resemble the group’s panic and helplessness and enhance the effect of the confined space upon their lives. They are literally caught in crossfire. The camera in this case impersonates the characters’ state of panic. Following the water attack, the truck starts to move. The camera shows two writings on the truck’s wall, and it captures Faris drawing an Xs and Os game (00:21:23). He plays an X into the game. The first writing says, “God curse you Tyrants” (00:21:14). The second, “Ibrahim Fahim. 06/06/2009” (00:21:19). Now Faris puts his mark in this truck. Here, the film gives some kind of a personality to this cell-on-wheels. This space has a history and is a witness of history. It is a history of oppression and misery. Arrestees like this group have left their marks. Time, like water, which is dripping down the wall, did not wash these graffiti. This truck bore witness to years of police practice, and had contained probably hundreds, if not thousands of arrestees and prisoners. The destiny of these individuals is indeed unknown, but they had been there where the characters of the film now are. Faris and later Aisha join this history by leaving their marks on this wall. In retrospect, they would remain anonymous, and who knows, if this truck would be re-employed, and some other arrestee would finish the game. However, this is not the only notion behind Faris’ action. In fact, and in connecting this graffiti to the fight prior to the water attack, the start of the Xs and Os game stand for the pro-military group’s first move in the conflict with the pro-Morsi. The second time, the game appears is when Faris notices that an O had been played in one of the game’s squares (00:42:30). This happens after the conversation between him and Aisha about the school game of Askar and Ikhwan (00:28:16–00:28:28). At this point, Faris does not know, it is Aisha who played the hand. Now, Aisha’s O is the response to Faris’ position as “Askar” but it also stands for the pro-Morsi’s. By the time Faris notices the O, the pro-Morsi had already organized themselves and had a leader: Moaz. In addition, the clash between the police and the two pro-­ Morsi shooters had already taken place in which members of the police force had been killed among the cheering of the pro-Morsi group in the truck. It is to say that now the Muslim Brothers have scored a point. Faris plays another X (00:45:08). This is when the resemblance of winners and losers start to become meaningless. After the shooting and

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the brief strife between the two groups, the collective suffering starts to hit everybody in the truck. The truck stays unmoved for some time, and the arrestees start to suffer from the heat. All of them argue with the soldiers demanding a drink of water, but the soldier Oweys refuses. The situation is about to escalate, but Awad, the sympathetic soldier (who later dies trying to save Aisha and her father) brings the arrestees a small bottle of water. They all share the bottle, and the truck moves again. Faris, exhausted and frustrated by the heat, sits down on the bench and plays his second X. Aisha’s second O is played after the bridge attack and the loss of her father (01:14:22). The camera shows her placing her O from Faris’ point-­of-­view. First, the camera captures Faris looking surprised, then it changes to a POV shot and a reaction shot from Aisha as she notices Faris watching her (01:14:22–01:14:35). At the point in the film, the large group of arrestees have already endured a lot. Both sides had lost, but Aisha’s is the gravest among the characters. This sequence takes place after the bridge attack and the death of Aisha’s father. Also, a fragile bond between Nagwa and Aisha had been established, after Nagwa stood up for her and tried to help her to go to the toilet. This is the last move of the game: Aisha’s second O, and it is no longer a point to score in the conflict. She is not playing against Faris, rather, it is just a coping and a survival mechanism in this highly stressing situation. This is affirmed by the dialogue which takes place while she is drawing in the game. Hossam tells Aisha, that they would like to take her phone number in order to give her, her needles back (after Faris gets his by a stone during the bridge attack, Nagwa closes his wound with needles which Aisha volunteered to giver Nagwa out of her scarf) when they all go home. Hossam tries to comfort Aisha, telling her that her father would be alright, and he would have probably had help by now. Hossam then asks her about her name, but she does not answer him. After a moment of silence, Aisha tells Hossam, that it was her fault, because she insisted on joining the protests, thus, her father went out with her to protect her. Hossam further tries to comfort her, telling her that it was not her fault. Nagwa joins the conversation and asks Aisha about her name, Aisha tells her, and Nagwa asks for her phone number, so Nagwa could check on her after all this was done. The conversation ends abruptly when Oweys discovers that the truck is not on the road to the police headquarter, and the film enters its final tragedy.

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The final time, the camera shows the Xs and Os in its last shot of the whole film. Thus, I shall discuss the last sequence of the film (01:25:55–01:30:17). The frantic camera movement and the rapid editing during the last sequence of the film reach their peak. This is the final moment of a tragedy which has been accumulated throughout the whole film. From the moment the truck stops between two groups of protesters, pro-Morsi and pro-military, the camera does not stop moving until the last shot of the film. The cinematography makes a brilliant choice to use the laser pointers of the protesters outside the truck as the main lighting of the sequence. When the protesters attack the truck, the light inside the truck goes off, and the only source of light is the green lines of the laser pointers from outside. The use of the laser pointers is in fact realistic and does serve the esthetic mood of this terrible and violent event. Green laser points are largely used in Egypt, especially by football fans during the games, and during the 30th of June 2013 antiMorsi protests were also heavily used by the protesters. The same was done during the pro-Morsi Raba’a sit-in. Even Faris has a green laser pointer with him (Fig. 4.32). Furthermore, the streaming of these green lines inside the truck creates the visual effect of a warzone-like setting, for these laser lights are also used by the military snipers. The frantic camera and the rapid cuts along with the entangled green lines cause the whole sequence to appear as some kind of a green inferno. In addition, these lines hit each and every character, as if they were shooting targets; everyone is in danger. At first, each group of the arrestees chant slogans according to their own camp. The pro-Morsi chant, “Iselameya,” and the pro-military, “the people and the army are one hand.” Malik is dragged out of the driver seat and attacked, the truck is flipped over, the door cracks open and people are pulled out and getting assaulted, the remaining inside the truck close the door and gather behind it, Adam’s wristwatch camera is crushed and finally, the incomplete yet even Xs and Os. Nobody wins and everybody loses (Fig. 4.33). To close the film with this shot does not really make the open end totally ambiguous. Theoretically, the fate of the remaining arrestees is open to speculation: will they survive the attack? Will a police force come and disperse the protesters? If so, will they come too late? If anyone survived, who will it be? Thus, this open end is only open in the sense of the manner of life loss and physical damage. Some of the

 

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Fig. 4.32  The writing on the truck’s wall and first appearance of the X and O game with Faris playing his X (00:21:19–00:21:23). Second appearance of the X and O. Faris notices an O played in one of the squares (00:42:30). Faris plays a second X (00:45:08) and finds out that it is Aisha who plays against (01:14:22–01:14:35)

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Fig. 4.33  The end scene. The final attack on the truck: the truck is flipped on the side, the arrestees are in panic, Adam’s wristwatch camera is crushed, and the X and O is unresolved (01:27:00–01:30:17)

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arrestees from both sides are already lost at the point. So, the question is if at all, who will survive? Clash is deliberately a “film with a message,” and the Xs and Os game is the visual representation of that message. Accordingly, the film closes with this image which is along with the preceding shot of Adams’s wristwatch, and unlike all the previous shots of this sequence shown with almost no camera movement and lasts for enough time to be perceived. Rebellion Clash was released in cinemas in 2016, two years into Abdel Fatah Al Sisi presidency which started in 2014. This new era represents the defeat of the first wave of the 2011 uprising, and the return or rather the relapse into a military totalitarian rule. From the point of view of the film, it is the ultimate defeat of the uprising. The film at hand: Clash is defined by the death of politics in Egypt under Al Sisi. Right this moment, Al Sisi’s regime is still suppressing any glimpse of political, social or even artistic movements. The military dictator did not suffice with destroying the organizational body of the Muslim Brothers, he soon turned to all members of opposition to him and his regime. The Muslim Brothers was declared a terrorist organization, and every secular, leftist, or even liberal opponents to his regime were and are still accused of belonging to a terrorist organization. Every individual who did, does, or will voice any critique of the regime is put in jail. According to some estimations by Human Rights Watch (2016) and The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (2016), there are at least sixty thousand political prisoners and one thousand five hundred missing on political basis in Egypt. Up until the moment of writing these words, people are being arrested. Under Al Sisi, nobody is spared: journalists, activists, women, children, LGBTQ, former ambassadors and even the former Military Chief of Staff, Sami Annan had been arrested in 2018 after he announced his intention to run for the presidential election. As for the media, it became under the direct control of Amn Al Dawla and the Military Intelligence. Television production as well must be approved by the censor and the Intelligence. Censorship on film, press and print had been also reinstated. Certain websites had been blocked in Egypt, and Social Media is now heavily monitored. The current one charge against

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any critic is, “joining a terrorist organization and using Social Media to spread rumors and false news.” Under some of these conditions, Clash was released in 2016. The Death of Politics and the Return of Censorship I have discussed in the Narration section the role of the censor in imposing the opening statement of the film. I also mentioned the two versions of the statement: the Egyptian and the international. While Microphone (2010), Rags and Tatters (2012) and Coming Forth by Day (2012) were made and released at the time of whether a flexible censorship (Microphone), or its absence as a result of the 2011 uprising as in the other two films, this was not the case for In the Last Days of the City and Clash which were both released in 2016. Tamer El Said’s film was banned from screening in Egypt and from entering the International Cairo Film Festival at any capacity. No official statement from the censor, or from any governmental institution had been released as to why the film was banned. However, it is common knowledge among filmmakers and activists that the reason behind the ban. The film depicts the atmosphere of discontent of the last year of Mubarak’s rule, and documents the Kefaya protests with their famous chants against Mubarak and the military dictatorship. In fact, within the overall oppressive atmosphere and structure under Al Sisi regime, any discussion about censorship cannot be supported by data. This is due to the complete lack of any degree of transparency and-or information. Measures concerning censorship and banning films and books and even the arrest of writers, artist and filmmakers are defined by what the regime perceives as oppositional or critical. The whole process of oppression is draconian, arbitrary and often illogical. Al Sisi regime undertakes a process of Gleichsaltung of all aspects of life in Egypt with a great focus on media and culture. As for Clash, I argue that this film would have not been approved, had it been made these days (2019–2020), even though, the film strikes a balance when presenting the Egyptian police in a most unrealistic and positive light in relation to the film’s event. It remains a matter of opinion and even speculation as to why and how the censor approved Clash. However, there exist some signs that could explain this matter. First, we know that

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the censor interfered and imposed the Egyptian version of the statement, “in the days that followed the 30 June revolution, bloody clashes initiated by the Muslim Brothers who opposed the peaceful transition of power” (00:01:47) as a condition in order to approve the film. Second, before its local release, Clash was officially selected by the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and was the opening film of the Festival’s Un Certain Regard. Although, not nominated, it was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards. Cinema for Peace also ­nominated the film as one of the most valuable films of the year 2017. Tom Hanks positively commented on the film and endorsed it. Hanks tweeted, “If there’s any way you can see Clash by Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, you must. You simply must. The film will break your heart, but enlighten all” (Goodfellow 2016a). Hanks even sent Diab a letter praising his film, “Your film Clash will go to great lengths to enlighten many. Audiences will see that humanity is a fragile community, but we are all in ‘this’ together” (Goodfellow 2016a). Among all this resonance and international recognition of the film with a renowned American movie star like Tom Hanks, banning the film would not have been a smart move on the part of regime. In addition, in 2016, Al Sisi regime was still trying to absorb and reverse the international negative stance toward the coup de tat, the Raba’a massacre and the oppressive measure of his regime. Apart from that, the regime might have considered the film itself a positive propaganda, as it does not directly condemn the police and it is implicitly anti-Muslim Brothers. Even in the English version of the opening statement, the film adapts the state narrative which considers the June 30, 2013, “the biggest protest in Egyptian history,” and that “millions” revolted against Morsi. The state narrative established and still does that the June 30 is a separate revolution from 2011. Moreover, it is a real revolution against the chaos and destruction of the 2011 uprising which led to the Muslim Brothers rule. The Arabic version of the opening statement mentions exactly that, “the days following the 30 June revolution” and unlike the English version, does not mention the 2011 uprising/revolution at all. Most importantly, the term coup de tat is a forbidden term by the regime. The state narrative insists that what took place on July 3, 2013, is the legitimate child of the June 30 “revolution.” The army reacted to the

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will of the people, and the army is part of the people. The film follows that narrative, there is no mention of a coup de tat, neither explicitly nor implicitly. Throughout the whole film, the military does not appear at all. Even the pro-Morsi arrestees do not utter the word coup once. Tarek Khamis (2017) comments on this, watching this film, the simple and the most important question arises: Is what taking place outside the truck a coup or not? The film does not want to involve itself in such a question, as if not to answer it is not in itself a clear answer. For, when you decide to ignore such a crucial question, many of the vital political actors in this conflict would naturally disappear and be nonexistent, such as the military is nonexistent in the film. (2017)

The third reason behind the censor’s approval of Clash is the fact that one of the funders of the film is Moez Masoud, a pro-regime “moderate” conservative Islamic preacher. Masoud had a state sponsored television program called, The Steps of the Devil in which he analyzed and attacked Islamist groups including the Muslim Brothers. The fourth and final reason behind the approval of the film is Diab’s own position and statements. Under such oppressive circumstances, committing intentional fallacy is unfortunately nonavoidable in reading Clash. In fact, discussing Diab’s position in this case remains truthful to the notion of analyzing the two modes of film: the mode of production and the mode of perception. To be fair to Diab and Mohammed Hefzy, the owner of Film Clinic, the main production company of the film (also the company which produced Ahmad Abdallah’s two films), both had to fight and find compromises in order to release the film in Egypt. While Diab revealed the censor’s interference in the film after its release, Hefzy insisted that the censor did not impose anything on the film, rather, both he and the censor engaged in productive discussions concerning the Egyptian open statement (Gouda and Nour 2016). This shows how it was not without difficulties, Clash was made possible to screen in Egypt. Back to Diab’s position, in “Mohamed Diab, dazed and bruised in Cairo,” Goodfellow quotes Diab in saying that his aim had been to explore Egypt’s divided post-revolution society in a nonjudgmental, humanizing way (2016a). In many of the interviews Diab had about the film, one notion was repeated over and over again, as in his interview with CNN Arabic,

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the film does not have any political messages. Only a very humanistic one […] The film shows Egypt away from any political ideologies or affiliations […] Those who really understand the film will see that I don’t talk politics. Rather about humanity and social division […] I chose to postpone the film for one and a half year [after the events] in order to place it away from the political scene. (2016)

These words show a central idea which is important to understand the paradox Clash is. On the one hand, the film is a-political in its sought message, yet it is political in that it represents the death of politics in Egypt. It is also political in terms of perception which was defined by the very ­division the film depicts. Furthermore, the film depicts a huge political event and attempts to depoliticize it in favor of the notion of humanism. In this sense, Clash differs from the other four films which are discussed in this book. Clash is mainly as a living witness of a process of reterritorialization. Clash is indeed a part of the cinematic assemblage which formed as a result of the 2011 uprising, mainly in terms of mode of production and cinematic language. However, it belongs to the vertical structure; the root-­tree system within this assemblage. It is countercultural in terms of technicality, but it rebels against the notion of counterculture as a horizontal assemblage of the war-machine kind. In my attempt to define counterculture, I discussed the very notion of culture as a plane on which the social, the political, the artistic and the economic are not separable, but entangled and interacting lines, ass opposed the humanist notion of culture. Clash follows this humanist notion in which the social and the human is separated from the political. Moreover, the aforementioned approval of the film by the censor, along with tolerating the film as a possible polishing of the regime’s reputation is an act of reterritorialization by the state. The dynamics among the characters in the truck indeed do have a political background, but the main aim of the film is to show that this background is external. The same goes with the different social backgrounds, these too are external, and the characters are merely reflections of their social status and class. Consequently, as I mentioned before, most of the characters are one dimensional with no individual voices. Thus, the notion of humanism is paradoxically presented in this film through groups of collectives: reflections of class, ideologies and nonideology as well, not

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through individuals. Even Tamer, the tear-gas singer who has an air of richness in his personality, is just a stereotype of a failed actor turned into a radical Islamist. What matters in Clash is basically its ending: a human tragedy where people regardless of political ideology, religion, sex, profession or age face the same terrible fate. The message, and I am not using this word lightly, is that we are all humans, that politics caused a division in our society, and that we will all lose. The film is not only the child of the death of politics in Egypt, but it also declares the death of the 2011 uprising. Who is the reflection of the 2011 uprising? Adam and Zein. Adam is the Egyptian American journalist who off course wants to document the “truth.” Adam is also antagonized by the pro-military and the Muslim Brothers for being an American and for having a wristwatch camera. It is he who tries to moderate between the two striving groups as well and ends up handcuffed to a truck window by a police officer after demanding the release of the two children. Zein is Adam’s photographer who participated in the uprising and who is critical of Adam’s arrogant “bravery.” Zein is the reflection of the “noble youth.” Yet another stereotype: long-haired with a man-bun and a beard. The two are alone, an own group: The Western-oriented youth of the “Facebook Revolution.” They are the victims of the military and the Muslim Brothers, and the humane truth (Tamer’s singing and the joy of the arrestees) is lost in Adam’s crushed camera. Adam and Zein are trapped between the two sides of the coin: the military rule and the Islamist rule, but it is Adam who represents this idea of entrapment visually, as he is physically handcuffed to the truck. The idea of the failed revolution is once again evident in one of Diab’s interviews, I felt the idea captured the complexity of the situation in Egypt. We re-­ wrote the film 13 times, until we felt it was right. Three years later, the script still represents what Egypt is like today. It’s very ironic that what initially started as a film about the rise of the revolution ended up being a film about its fall. (Pavard 2016)

Here, like many other Egyptians who participated in the 2011 uprising, Diab deals with the uprising as a moment in time divorced from any sociopolitical, geopolitical and historical context. This approach deals with what took place in 2011 as a stand-alone event. At best, it is

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seen in light of the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century revolutions as a grand narrative. Revolutions which replaced a regime by another. Yet, even this approach is poor, for none of these revolutions succeeded, failed or even crystalized in a matter of five years. What took place is also not an Arabic or Egyptian equivalent of the counterculture as per Roszak: a geo­historical event of the mid-class rebelling youth which is exactly what Clash presents. It should not be treated as such, at least in an intellectual discourse. As I argued all across this book, what started in 2010 in Tunisia is ongoing until the moment of writing these words. The countercultural machines are in permeant movement: forming, captured and reforming. Moreover, the approach to the Egyptian 2011 uprising as embedded in Clash reproduces the same state narrative which was also adopted by a part of the revolutionary camp, and by the western media. It was the revolution of the educated mid-class youth. It was a peaceful revolution. It was the “Facebook Revolution.” This approach in its core reads the uprising nonpolitically, and if, it does so from a humanist liberal viewpoint. Once more, Tarek Khamis sheds light on the liberal humanist approach in Clash. He states that even though it might be plausible to argue that the individual cannot be seen through the collective, it does not mean that the collective cannot be seen in the individual or what is of this individual cannot be seen in the collective. Thus, according to the liberal humanist understanding, it is impossible for the humane in the individual to arise without the dissolve of the political (2017). That is why the only possible hero/-in in Clash is Nagwa in her capacity as a mother who sacrificed her freedom in order to be with her son, and in her capacity as a nurse whose political stance is dissolved in treating Badr’s wound and in standing for Aisha. Furthermore, Clash affirms the liberal categorization of its characters. The “lower-class” Fisho and Mans cannot belong to the 2011 revolutionary camp, rather they must be pro-military, pro-dictatorship. Both are reflections of the reactionary value system of their class, hence the friction between them when Fisho discovers that Mans is communicating with his sister. The “lower-midclass” Nagwa and her family used to be present in Tahrir, but now shifted to be also pro-military. Hussein, the upper-mid-­class young man who was disgusted by Rabie’e appearance does now have pity on him after he recognized that Rabie’e

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Fig. 4.34  As the truck is heading toward the final tragedy, Adam plays Tamer’s video (01:25:38)

shares Hussein’s love for dogs (00:51:27). Rabie’e is actually a homeless parking guide, and not a thug, yet he acts like one to protect himself from real thugs. On the other side, the Muslim Brothers are, except of Tamer, just one blank collective with only geographical reflections and organizational ranks. Badr decides while in the truck that he would be joining the jihad in Syria: a Muslim Brother supporter who turns ISIS. Tahrir itself is only mentioned in nostalgia and in the context of Tamer’s bad singing: Tahrir is a carnival place and not the place in which people died, got injured, attacked by Camels or defeated the CSF. Before the final tragedy, Adam tells Zein to take the camera and save himself, as Adam is handcuffed to the truck and believes he wouldn’t make it alive. He also tells Zein that the video he just filmed of Tamer singing could “change everything, if people saw it” (01:19:00). Right after, Adam picks up the wristwatch and plays Tamer’s video (Fig. 4.34).

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The requiem for Tahrir when all the arrestees were sharing a peaceful and joyful moment affirms the notion of the a-political of the film’s “message.” If all people held the Tahrir spirit of unity and humanity, none of this division would have happened. The footage that could change “everything” is not the clashes Adam filmed, it is Tamer’s video. This is how Clash sees the notion of society, or how a society should be: a group of human beings whose political difference must be melted and fused into an imaginary humanist ark with each class containing its striated space. The Police Clash realistically depicts the arbitrary oppression of the police when it comes to the arrest of the pro-military group. Pro-military demonstrators following the July 3, 2013, coup were protected by the security forces; both military and police. In fact, during the clashes between the security forces and the Muslim Brothers and their allies, pro-military groups were physically on the side of the CSF and the military police clashing with the other side. This happened also during the first eighteen days of the uprising (the attack on Tahrir by pro-Mubarak mob) and after the toppling of Mubarak in the period SCAF ruled Egypt. However, as shown in the film, “wrong” arrests of the police and military supporters have happened and could easily happen among the chaos and the violence. What is by no means realistic is how the police and the officers are overall depicted in the film. First of all, Clash depicts the police as an equal part of the equation of violence, and not at least as the state apparatus with the monopoly of violence in armament and numbers. Let alone that it is the main institution Egyptians revolted against in 2011, and which had not seen the slightest reform since then. All throughout its events, the film is very careful to strike a balance when it comes to the police. The first arrest of Adam and Zein is realistic and even refers to real events which are the arrest and the imprisonment of Mahmoud Shawkan, a freelance photographer who covered the Raba’a massacre for Demotix, a British website and photo agency. He was arrested with two foreign journalists, one from France and one from the United States, on August 14, 2013. The two foreigners were quickly released, but Shawkan was charged with weapons possession,

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illegal assembly, murder and attempted murder. Shawkan was imprisoned for five years without trial and had been released in 2019 with time served (Goldman and Yussef 2016). The scenario of Shawkan’s arrest is similar to Adam’s and Zein’s. In his testimony to Amnesty International (2016), Shawkan describes his arrest as follows: I was taking pictures of people protesting on the streets of Cairo when police came and locked down the streets. Thousands of people were immediately arrested—not only Morsi supporters, but also dozens of people caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was like a Hollywood movie. It felt like we were in the middle of a war. There were bullets, tear gas, fire, police, soldiers and tanks everywhere. I saw how armed police took over the Square. After identifying myself to the police as a photojournalist, I was arrested. (Mock 2016)

The number of journalists arrested under Al Sisi regime is alarming. During the period following the ousting of Morsi, press coverage rather than by the state media of Raba’a and the pro-Morsi protests which extended until 2014 was not tolerated by the regime. Thus, the arrest of Adam and Zein for covering the ongoing protest is not only realistic but is driven from the incident of Shawkan. In fact, Zein, the photojournalist resembles Shawkan. Adam is the foreign journalist, only in the film, the truck does not reach the police headquarter to see if Adam would be released. The officer decides to put them in the truck, after confiscating the camera and seeing that, “they photographed us” (00:02:40). Following the arrest of the two journalists, the pro-military group is also arrested after attacking the truck. Hossam and Faris are arrested, and Nagwa pleads with the officer to let her husband and son go. Here, the way the officer deals with Nagwa is completely fictitious. First, the officer almost begs Nagwa to go home. Second, when the officer refuses to let Hossam and Faris go, Nagwa picks a stone and threatens the police with it in order to be locked up with him. The officer briefly tolerates her action and still pleads with her to go home. Third, Nagwa escalates her threat and almost attacks the officer, and he still acts civilly and feels forced to put her in the truck without any act of physical violence. The officer even calls her, madam. Any Egyptian knows that the officer’s behavior toward

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Nagwa is not only fictitious, but ridiculous. Police violence and torture do not except anybody: children, elderly, women or men on the streets, in private property or in police stations. Let alone, if a citizen threatens to attack a police officer with a stone. According to the Egyptian Observatory for Rights and Freedoms (EORF), “since 3 July 2013, it has been quite clear that [security forces] also target children, women, young girls and older people of both sexes. And that the security forces do not miss an opportunity to arrest and terrorise all sections of the population” (FIDH 2014). The most normal reaction of this police officer to Nagwa’s behavior is to verbally and physically assault her. Again, it is the same police that tortured and killed Khaled Said and Sayed Belal in 2010. The same police that killed over eight hundred protesters on January 28, 2011. The same police that killed Shaymaa Al Sabagh, a poet and a leftist activist, on January 25, 2015, with a direct cartridge shot in the face (Wahdan 2017). Even children are no exception to police brutality and military trials. Recently Human Rights Watch and Belady: An Island for Humanity (2020) released a report which documented human rights abuses against twenty child detainees, “who were all arrested or prosecuted for allegedly participating in protests or politically-motivated violence” (Human Rights Watch 2020). The beating, the verbal and physical degradation of women, including sexual violence are common practice by the police, especially against women caught in protests or demonstration. These practices became more and more intensified after the 2013 coup (FIDH 2014). This depiction of police as respectful and largely nonviolent toward what the police consider political arrestees, even if motivated by the fear of the censor’s ban, weaken the film’s attempt at creating a realist image of the events. What it mainly does is imposing yet again a humanist dimension to the oppressive. This is once more affirmed, when the same officer promises that he would let Nagwa, Hossam, Faris, Aisha, and her father go when “things settle” (00:22:00). Only by looking to the above-mentioned reports and testimonies, one can see how absurd this is. Arbitrary arrests affected thousands of people in Egypt during this time period and until now and all resulted in arbitrary verdicts. This idealistic image of a CSF officer is sadly false and far away from the tragic reality of the police oppression in Egypt. Even in the film, this promise is not narratively motivated by any specific event that might have caused the officer to decide to release these people from the truck.

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Another important notion in the film concerning the police is the violence. Clash shows that the senseless violence mainly takes place between the pro-Morsi and the pro-military groups, inside as well as outside the truck. The police violence, however, is only reactive. In the first seen confrontation between the police and the pro-Morsi protesters, the violent clashes are balanced. The truck runs into this protest in which the pro-­ Morsi protesters throw stones and attack police trucks to which the police reacts by shooting tear-gas and opens high pressure water to disperse the protest. Furthermore, the camera depicts injuries only among the soldiers, and then the arresting of the pro-Morsi group begins. While arresting Tamer, Moaz, Aisha, Aisha’s father, Huzaifa, Omar, and Badr, the soldiers beat them as they resist arrest, but none of them is injured. The real violence against them occurs in the truck by the pro-military group, and later it is none but Rabie’e who cuts Badr in the forehead. The only time the film shows an act of brutality by the police is in the scene where the police are attacked by the two Muslim Brothers gunmen (00:34:00–00:39:10). The gunmen killed the police General; the leader of the police force, a soldier and injured two other soldiers. When the force managed to catch one of the shooters, they put him down, brutally hitting him until he dies. This act of violence is reactive and is even justified dramatically. The force has lost its leader along with two other members. After the General is killed, and while the shooting is going on, the officer (the same officer who promised to let some of the arrestees free) immediately takes the General’s cell phone out of his pocket, and calls the General wife reporting her husband’s death while crying (00:38:40). It is needless to say that I am not cheering the death of this police officer in the film, or otherwise in life. What is problematic in Clash is how desperate it tries to impose its humanist message superficially to the extent, that it even does so at the expense of its own narrative logic and representation. I argue that this scene in which the officer is affected by the death of his General and does the emotionally difficult task of calling the wife should have been shown and executed differently. Namely, and in terms of editing, as an after mass of the shooting. It should have been also given more time to show the emotional state of the officer, and the overall impact on all the characters including the members of the police force. In addition, the film adds the police represented by the soldiers Awad and Oweys to the list of victims. It is the human in Awad who led to his death while protecting

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Aisha and her father during the bridge attack. The same goes with Oweys whose sympathy with Aisha led him to share the fate of the other arrestees after being locked up with them in the truck. Here, the film once again shows the police soldiers stereotypically, but this detail of adding Oweys to the group of the oppressed in the truck is in the context of the film the least problematic.33 Oweys’ character remains hostile against the arrestees throughout the film refusing to bring them water and locks up Awad in the truck, after the latter decides to let Aisha, her Father and Nagwa’s family free. However, when he sees Aisha’s humiliation through the back window of the truck, Oweys himself rebels against the orders, and even against his status as a CSF soldier and opens the truck and let Aisha and her father out. The bridge attack happens, and he gets injured. Awad helps him into the truck and closes the door to protect the people in the truck from the raining stones. Awad’s actions follow the unrealistic representation of the police in Clash, as he is depicted as the humane and compassionate police member all the way. Oweys’ character, however, is more credible as the dramatic shift in his actions is logically and emotionally well presented. Indeed, inserting him with the arrestees falls into the notion of representing members of all walks of life in Egypt, yet there is no denying that a CSF soldier belongs to the most oppressed in Egypt. Oweys’ act of rebellion is the most powerful in the film, both contextually and in terms of acting as well. Actor Mohammed El Souisy does a good job catching the two spectrums of the character and portrays the shift from the strict soldier to being compassionated and sympathetic to Aisha’s humiliation. Qweys is actually doubly oppressed, for he is also a representative of the Copts in Egypt; the social group which were the most terrified of the Muslim Brothers rule. Nevertheless, in the spirit of Clash’s humanism, Oweys sympathizes with Aisha and her father: two Islamist pro-Morsi individuals. In the truck, as Nagwa helps Oweys with his dislocated shoulder, she sees his crucifix tattoo on his wrist, and covers it for his own protection from the Muslim Brothers and their supporters in the truck (Fig. 4.35). Finally, in presenting its idea of societal division, the film puts the weight of violence upon the shoulders of civilians through the events and  See Egypt 2011 for the structure and the conditions of the CSF.

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Fig. 4.35  Nagwa helps Oweys discovering his crucifix tattoo. She covers it to protect him from the Muslim Brothers (00:58-34–00:58-36)

the internal details. It is to say that the whole tragedy is mainly caused by the societal division which in turn caused the event of the arrest of these characters. The ending of the film confirms this idea. The most horrific act of violence against the characters is done by the two warring civilian groups: the pro-Morsi and the pro-military. Thus, the film closes on the same note it began with as revealed in the two versions of the statement: (1) The bloody clashes were initiated by the Muslim Brothers who opposed the peaceful transition of power. (2) The Muslim Brothers and military supporters clash all over Egypt. Accordingly, by the end of the film, not only the military is nonexistent in the scenery, the police too are no longer

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in the picture. It is the “political beings” who are responsible for the tragic fate of the arrestees in the truck by practicing this horrific act of violence in the film, and for the violence which spread all across Egypt in reality. In sum, and despite all the criticism I undertook about Clash, making such a film in 2016 at the height of Al Sisi’s despotic rule can be seen as an act of rebellion in itself. As I mentioned before, local media in Egypt attacked the film and its director. Furthermore, Al Masa, the company responsible for distributing the film, pulled out two days before the scheduled release, but Mad Solutions took over the distribution at the last minute (CNN 2016). On the level of perception, the film was positively received; it was first screened in forty-five cinemas in Egypt with two more cinemas after three days of its screening to the total of forty-seven cinemas (Al Mougy 2017). The film, according to Melanie Goodfellow’s “Diab’s Clast Storms Egyptian Box office,” grossed two-million pounds after its first week, which could be considered a record for an independent production (Goodfellow 2016b). One of the reasons behind this success is the “clash” this film caused in the public discourse between bad and good publicities. After all, despite Diab’s desperate attempts to strip his film from any political dimension, the film was perceived politically; how else could it not. Egyptian local media accused the film of being pro-Muslim Brothers and pro-Muslim Brothers media outlets outside Egypt like Al Jazeera accused Clash to be pro-regime. Other voices (Mada Masr 2016) criticized the film for its shallowness and its indecisiveness toward the regime in particular and to the notion of authority in general. Diab himself started a Facebook campaign on his personal page asking his audience to support the film after the state television’s attack on the film, turning his humanist film into a political cause. Diab marketed his film as “revolutionary” in a clear contradiction to his insistence on its a-political nature. Andeel wrote in Mada Masr (2016), “There’s nothing wrong with pursuing commercial success but the sensitivity of Clash’s topic created contradictions between what it is and what it wants the viewer to say about it” (2016). In addition, Diab’s campaign opened a discussion about the 2011 uprising itself along with Diab’s own stance to the 2011 as a liberal activist. Andeel comments on this notion: The exaggeration used to market Clash as “revolutionary” infuriated many people already fed up by the flattening and populism of revolutionary discourse between Mubarak’s ousting and June 30. It possibly

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also reminded many of the revolutionaries’ repeated failure to form any political bodies or figures that represent them. Commentators mocked the way the movie was being treated like a protest or march, and debates started around the paradox of a “revolutionary” movie produced by moderately conservative Islamic preacher Moez Masoud. Then Diab’s personality itself and the strength of his relationship with revolution as a progressive liberated idea came under the microscope. There was a chance for an important discussion—in my opinion—about the various meanings and interpretations of the words “revolution” and “revolutionary,” which have lost meaning through factions using it to alternately describe themselves or their opponents depending on the benefits of the context, a dynamic that seemed to be of interest to Clash itself, yet was lost amid the noise. (2016)

All these contradictions that I discussed in and surrounding the film speaks to the miserable conditions in which art in its broad sense suffers under the current regime. Politics are dead in Egypt, but not the political which is only expressed individually and could be physically captured at any time. The death of politics is defined by the establishment of the one totalitarian voice and its narrative which is since Al Sisi came to power constantly growing into a giant silencing any other voice. Any margin of compromises and negotiations which might have existed in prior years is now extinct under Al Sisi’s medial machine. Clash benefited from this margin along with the other circumstances which surrounded its production and its release. In this context, Clash remains an act of rebellion on the level of its content. Cinematically, the film also joins the other four discussed films regarding the notion of rebellion. The visuality of the film is its strength, especially in terms of camera work which employs a variation of techniques. The film also follows the tradition of single location films which are no stranger to Egyptian cinema, and cleverly adds to this tradition. Clash belongs along with the other four films to the New Egyptian Cinema. New Egyptian Cinema Perceiving the cinema landscape in Egypt between late 2010 and now, we can speak of what I call, New Egyptian Cinema. I would also argue that cinema is the artistic field which benefited the most from the 2011

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uprising. In fact, one can speak of a cinematic line of flight. This new style of cinema is marked by a new language and an independent mode of production. Here, I do not merely refer to the established notion of “Independent Cinema,” which is mainly about the financial dimension. What is meant by “independent” in the context of New Egyptian Cinema is related to the choice of the subject matter as well as to questions of form and style. These productions do find their audience, if only on a limited scale. However, this is not due to the uneasy relationship between mass audiences and arthouse cinema as we know it. Rather, within the Egyptian film industry, in which distribution and theaters (cinema houses) belong mostly to four companies, it is still hard to have a long theatrical run in the cinemas. An example I mentioned earlier is the screening of Rags and Tatters which was planned to screen in international festivals and to be sold to Arabic and European television networks with only one week of cinema screenings in Egypt. However, the screening was extended two more weeks upon viewers’ demand. Another example is the release date of Microphone: January 25, 2011. The film could not become a box office success even if only because it was released on the very day of the uprising. It has however been shown on television many times and still gets very good viewer ratings. Also, the special screenings of Microphone in small cinema houses, cultural centers and independent arthouses were attended by huge and diverse audiences. Microphone marks the beginning of an Egyptian cinematic war machine by establishing a new catalyst in the socio-political and artistic landscape, and thus new possibilities at the time. This puts film in a strong connection with the 2011 uprising on the socio-­ political level. It also develops a new esthetics within the Egyptian context, especially, on the level of narration. The production of Microphone offers a new and an alternative way for young and independent artists. Originally planned as a documentary about the underground music scene in Alexandria, the idea of including a fictional plot strand was developed on the spot and the whole narrative content was improvised. The entire film was shot without a script. Instead, the story line and the dialogue were developed spontaneously. The writing was in fact a cooperative process among all crew members. Such a process of filmmaking had not been employed before in Egyptian cinema. Moreover, the film features real-life characters who play themselves and events which actually happened to them. Consequently, Microphone is a mix of documentary and fiction in

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which the two genres are intertwined, blurred and dissolved. In terms of narration, Microphone is an initiator of nonlinear and multilayered narratives in Egyptian cinema. While this mode could already be found in Yussef Chahin’s autobiographical films, which still had a very exclusive mode of reception, Microphone makes this style of narration more accessible for the audience through its choice of subject matter and its cinematic language. The intertwining and the dynamic connection of the various narrative strands create an open landscape in which thoughts, individuals, situations and styles connect and interact with one another. The nonlinearity of the narration with its movements in both time and space along with the stylistic fusions create the possibility that the film functions horizontally. The protagonist in Microphone is not the center of narration, he rather functions as a line which moves and connects to other lines out of which new lines come into being. The film shows various stories and situations, which are brief and fractured. In terms of form and structure, these are portrayed as lines which interact, sometimes in terms of narration, but mostly in terms of expression. Music, lyrics and graffiti are all involved in telling the film’s stories; they also function as both an overt commentary within the filmic world, and as socio-political commentary. Another innovative aspect of Microphone is that it examines film as medium. One level of narration is the making of a documentary about the Alexandrian art scene, and this foregrounds notions of self-referentiality and self-reflexivity. Thus, Microphone creates a mode of perception that is not concerned with concealing its nature as a film; it does not conceal its own production. All these narrative characteristics urge the spectator to engage actively in what he perceives by constantly re-arranging and reconstructing the fabula as it is not in tune with the syuzhet in a film which deals with time as an open text. Time in Microphone is not motivated by movement and thus more open to interpretation. Thus, together with the socio-political content, Microphone is countercultural in the sense that it is rhizomatic: a-centric, nonlinear and nonvertical, a creative line of flight in the context of Egyptian cinema. Ahmad Abdallah’s second feature film Rags and Tatters is connected to the 2011 uprising through its subject matter and by its clear political position. It presents stylistic characteristics that run counter to the conventions of Egyptian narrative cinema. It is historiographical in that it creates an alternative narrative of what took place during the first eighteen days of

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the uprising by showing the odyssey of an unnamed convict who is a victim of the prison openings in dystopian Cairo. Like Microphone, the film examines the medium of film itself, but it focuses on the medium “film” as a recorder of reality and as a potential medium of historiography, as a historiography machine. It focuses on the nature of film as medium and its role in capturing, rearranging and (re)writing both reality and history. While the film does not argue for a universal unified truth, it sheds light on forgotten, unseen and repressed truth(s) on the one hand, and on the idea of dominant and selective narratives as commonly accepted truth on the other. The film depicts two of the most tragic and repressed events of the uprising: the prison openings by the state and the sectarian violence against Copts by Salafists under the protection of the army, and it rearranges them temporally in its world. Rags and Tatters uses real amateur footage of the events just as it employs the very characteristic features of such amateur/documentary/citizen journalism in its original scenes. In terms of style, the film displays a combination of neorealist cinema and art cinema techniques. The documentary characteristics (represented by cell phone footage both authentic and specifically made) and the interruption of the narrative by real-life characters who speak to the camera in an interview-­like fashion reveal this combination. Thus, the film tries to create a sense of realism mixed with an attitude toward the spectator that demands an active engagement. Moreover, the film borrows its visual aspect from the uprising’s archive, or its visual memory, and employs it as a narrational component. In terms of narration, the concepts of contingency and character causality are favored over the causality of action distinctive for narrative cinema. Rags and Tatters presents its content in the form of episodes or segments. It is true that the events of the film take place chronologically, meaning that the syuzhet is in tune with the fabula. However, the absence of dialogue demands from the spectator not only to actively construct the fabula by filling the verbal gaps, but also that these gaps are filled by decoding the image and the characters’ facial expressions and gestures. These absences also urge or even force the spectator to intensively engage with the main character’s feelings and thoughts and they encourage a sense of identification with him. The deliberate silencing of the protagonist in particular, and the lack of dialogue in general, not only empowers the image as the main force of narration, it also creates a cinematic representation of the anonymity and voicelessness of the

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protagonist as well as the repression of the tragedy of the willful prison openings. The spatial and the temporal choices of the narrative, as well as the notion of silence and voicelessness demonstrate the possibilities opened up by the medium film as an observation machine. In the Egyptian context, this film as an observation machine opens the door for a revolutionary counter-counternarrative by depicting two of many tragic yet forgotten and repressed events during the Egyptian revolution. Rags and Tatters offers an alternative history, written in the historiographic mode which is not concerned with the hegemonic chronology of events, but with the actuality of these events and their effect on the socio-political reality in general and on other specific events within the revolution in particular, and thus a countercultural film. Here, the observation machine turns into a filmic war machine by selecting and rearranging history. History in its hegemonic form is replaced by nomadism. The historiography in Rags and Tatters tries to destabilize the concept of history as a molar line of rigid segmentarity with its linear movement and clear-cut arrangement which belongs to the world of first-order observation. Alternatively, when it comes to actual events, the narrative in Rags and Tatters is defined by elusive, horizontal, and thus nomadic movement devoid of segmentarity. In other words, the observation machine here is a line of flight which causes a system break down (history) and transforms into a countercultural narrative (alternative history). The process of observation in this case transforms into a direct collision against fixed and dominant narratives and creates a space of possibilities. Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day departs completely from the 2011 uprising in terms of content yet presents a new line in Egyptian cinema that was made possible by the eruption of the uprising, creating new spaces and possibilities, whether for the mode of production, or for the mode of perception. Like Abdallah’s films, Coming Forth by Day was not funded by a major production company. The main production company of the film is Hassala, an independent cooperative production founded by a group of young artists including Lotfy in June 2010. In 2013, Hassala released its first feature film: Coming Forth by Day. The makers of Coming Forth by Day managed to enjoy full artistic freedom in the making of this film, which runs counter to the mainstream mode of production in the Egyptian context. In terms of narration, the film focuses on the details of everyday life much more than it is interested in

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producing a proper narrative. On one level, the relationship between the protagonist and her mother is stressed while on another, there is the notion of the absence of life and livelihood, replaced by the omnipresence of the anticipated death of the disabled father. The film is marked by a minimum of dialogue; the image is also, the main force through which the closed world of the film and its characters are shown. Even more than Rags and Tatters and Microphone, Lotfy’s film establishes a new kind of cinema within the Egyptian context and beyond. In relation to the Egyptian cinema, Coming Forth by Day creates a new nonnarrative cinematic language on every level. While Rags and Tatters shows the odyssey of a character through a dystopian Cairo and is thus, among other things, about space, Coming Forth by Day is all about time. The film’s style is marked by its slow-paced rhythm, long takes, minimal camera movement, simple and direct cuts, realistic and diegetic lighting and sound design. Narrative causality is entirely missing in the film, even character causality, one of the central characteristics of art cinema, does not exist. In fact, none of the three characters is derived from or defined by the past, nor are they motivated by or moving toward the future. Among the five films discussed in this book, Coming Forth by Day along with In the Last Days of the City are the most time-imagebased. If movement in Microphone is motivated by time, Lotfy’s film presents almost no movement and if at all only minimally. Movement in Coming Forth by Day is defined by time as it is conveyed in purely optical and sonic situations: extended long takes in which no dialogues or action take place, the active role of the setting and mise-en-scene and employing only diegetic sounds. The film moves in the realm of neorealist cinema whether on the level of content, or on the level of form and style; it portrays the characters’ existential crises and their suffering as a banality of everyday life. If Rags and Tatters is about another story of the uprising: the forgotten and the nameless within the Tahrir narrative, Coming Forth by Day is about the very life of those left behind, the everyday nameless faces living unnoticed and forgotten regardless of times, events or even history. At first glance, and especially in relation to the 2011 Egyptian uprising, it seems that Coming Forth by Day is void of any social commentary and defined by a remoteness from public or political social affairs. Yet this assumption is false: the film contains strong social commentary. It implicitly negotiates the status of women in Egypt, sectarianism, religious

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oppression, and what is more, it breaks the religious and social taboo of death, especially where it concerns a family member with a fatal illness. Yet it is the visual style that contains the social commentary. It is all about the image; the visual representation is the driving force of any possible meaning in the film. The film’s realism and its depiction of reality are defined by the rhythm, silence, lightings, camera, settings and bodies. Coming Forth by Day is a countercultural film in the sense that the cinematic language itself is the rebel: it stages time, not action and it is concerned with what is, not with what is to come or what was. In fact, it takes the notion of counterculture in the Egyptian context to the next level where it is no longer about the historical event as such but rather about the possibilities and the space such an event creates: a new and different way of cinematic expression, production, and esthetics. Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City seems to be placed, in matter of comparison with Microphone, as both films were produced before the 2011 uprising. Furthermore, like Microphone, El Said’s film captures the last year of the Mubarak era with all its discontent and psychological heaviness. In terms of narration, In the Last Days of the City is also similar to Microphone in its nonlinearity and fragmentation. However, In the Last Days of the City is the most extreme of all five discussed films in terms of unconventional narration. Moreover, one characteristic shared by most films of New Egyptian Cinema is the preoccupation with the nature of film as medium. In the Last Days of the City maximizes this characteristic to the point that it surpasses it. The acts of recording, rewinding and editing in filmmaking is presented in El Said’s film to the extent that it becomes an organic part of the narration. In the Last Days of the City, I argue, is no longer concerned with examining the nature of film as medium, it rather integrates its process of production in its entity. The process of creating a construct is very much evident throughout the whole film. Both self-­reflexivity and dramatic incoherence are a matter of fact. Time is yet another component of New Egyptian Cinema. In this film, time flows horizontally, and for the most part, there is no fabula (the chronological order of events) to be constructed by the spectator. The flow of time is also a matter of fact, rather than a question of representation or style. There are multiple lines of narration with multiple nonlinear times all flow in one another. Thus, and in terms of narration, and like Microphone, Rags and Tatters, and Coming Forth by Day, the notion of

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causality of action is not present in El Said’s film. What might exist is the concept of character causality: Khalid’s psychology as the driving force of action. However, even this character causality seems to be of little importance in The Last Days of the City, yet it sets the atmosphere of the whole film. Khalid’s situation is defined by depression, loss and disorientation. The same can be said about the film itself: the narration is lacking an overall coherence, and the story has no conclusion. The narrational style of the film reflects these notions. In the Last Days of the City is a sum of its parts: a body of fragmentation which includes non concluded segments with no clear links among one another. The film connects Egypt to and puts it in a bigger context: the Arabic World. Through the fragments from Beirut and Baghdad, Cairo is a line in a larger assemblage. Having been in production since 2009, released five years after the Egyptian uprising in 2016 and is available to watch now in 2020, In the Last Days of the City stands distinctive. This film offers a process of cinematic historiography on both levels: production and perception. Not only we watch Egypt on the brink of a groundbreaking event which would shake the Egyptian society and change it radically, we also see how, in retro prospect, the 2011 uprising is linked and a part of a larger movement in the region. As one line of the events in the film takes place in 2010, it is a few months away from the Tunisian uprising, followed by the Egyptian one. When the protagonist’s friends share their view and feelings about their cities and countries, Lebanon and Iraq, it is nine years that both countries would witness an uprising. People from this region briefly yet sufficiently speak of their histories: a place of an ongoing war. We listen to one of the friends, Tarek: an Iraqi refugee in Germany who fled his country away from “the line of blood.” This line of blood would run into Syria, and millions from both countries would flee and become refugees. A crisis would rise: the so-called, refugee crisis in Europe including Germany; Tarek’s chosen exile. Like Coming Forth by Day, In the Last Days of the City deals with death. The protagonist lives the process of his mother’s death who lies in a hospital bed throughout the whole film. But, unlike Lotfy’s film, the death of the mother in El Said’s film does not have the potentiality of a liberated life. It is only a banality of everyday life; yet another loss in the life of the protagonist. Moreover, the film breaks the taboo of death when it comes to war and violence. The protagonist’s friends tell their stories of

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encountering death especially in Baghdad as ordinary events. Meaningful lives in a civil war, children stepping on corpses and dead bodies drawing a line of blood on the road. Later, one of the friends, Hassan dies as a result of a car bomb. Here, the film tries to rebel against this death as banality and as an object of natural forgetfulness, even if it is only through a personal film footage sent by a friend. Accordingly, all these aspects: narrative style, cinematic language, content, and subject matter all give In the Last Days of the City a countercultural nature. However, in terms of perception in Egypt, In the Last Days of the City was not as lucky as Microphone and Rags and Tatters and even not as Coming Forth by Day which did not enjoy a wide theater release in Egypt. However, these three films escaped the fate of In the Last Days of the City when it comes to censorship. After the defeat of the first wave of the 2011 uprising, Al Sisi came to power and resurrected every possible tool of oppression, among them, the censorship. Speaking of which, the fifth and last film I discussed in this book: Mohammed Diab’s Clash had also faced the censor’s hand. Nevertheless, the film screened in Egypt, and it is in fact, commercially, the most successful of all five films. Clash speaks to the end of a brief era in Egyptian cinema in which the censor’s scissor had been one less problem among the challenges of independent film production in Egypt. Clash’s mode of production (partially funded by Moez Massoud the pro-Sisi Islamic preacher) and its positive reception in Cannes Festival helped the screening of the film in Egypt, and also paid tribute to the overall approval of the film by the censor. The marketing campaign also played a major role in the commercial success of the film. In terms of content, the film stands in contrast to a film like, Rags and Tatters. Ragas and Tatters’ story is a counter-­ counternarrative to both the state narrative of the 2011 events as well as to the mainstream narrative adopted by a part of the revolutionary camp. Clash reproduces these two narratives in a liberal humanist context. This is what makes this film a bundle of confusions and contradictions. I argued that Diab’s film comes as a symptom of the death of politics in Egypt under Al Sisi rule. Even though, the film cannot be perceived but as political due to its subject matter and all its surrounding circumstances, it stands at the end as a-political in its desperate attempt to be neutral. In other words, the film pleas for the erasure of the political in favor of the humanist. The confusion and the contradiction go on, for in its effort to do so, the individual is mostly absent. The individual characters in Clash are not

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even singularities who are part of the collective. They are only reflections of the different collectives in terms of ideological organizations: the Muslim Brothers (not ideology itself), class, profession, and religion. For that, Clash did not need the censor. In tune, with the state narrative and with the liberal notion of some of those who were a part of the revolutionary camp, the film declares the ultimate defeat of the 2011 uprising. Clash plays a requiem to what it considers the core of the revolution: the “blank unity” of Egyptians during the first eighteen days of the uprising; the carnival atmosphere of Tahrir. In this understanding of the uprising, there are no real differences or diversities; only reflections. There is also no struggle, no violence, no prison openings and no deaths. Accordingly, the police, the army and all other security forces are not oppressive state apparatus, rather a collective of individuals who are forced to exercise oppression due to their poverty and lack of education. The “revolution” in Clash is Tahrir square, and it lasted eighteen days. It failed, because Egyptians forgot the humanist spirit and simply became political. This humanist spirit is what is worth recording/remembering in the film, which was done by one of the characters: the reflection/representative of the revolution, but the camera is crushed, and the memory is lost. It was the censor’s touch which added to Clash yet another political dimension which deepened the film’s reproduction of the state narrative. Thus, Clash is an observation machine of the first order kind. A cinematic line which, on the one hand, conformed to-, and undergone a process of r­eterritorialization by the state, on the other. Nevertheless, the screening of such a film in its timing is indeed an act of rebellion, at least on the level of perception. Also, the tragic fate of twenty characters imprisoned in a police truck speaks to a reality which existed in the post-2013 coup Egypt. A filmic experience which I personally believe, it would be impossible to create at the current moment in Egypt. Clash shares with the other four films the innovation of visual style and technique. The cinematography as well as the editing is impressive. Clash’s cinematic language succeeded in expressing the senses of claustrophobia, disorientation, violence and fear. It also revived a cinematic tradition in Egypt: single location films, which serve as a metaphor of Egypt and the Egyptian society. In terms of production, Clash took this tradition one step further by building an eight-meter cell in which the entire film was shot. All five films analyzed in this book are examples of enabling film, to different degrees as an observation machine of its own active forces: innovation, creativity, mutation and change. Moreover, film, with the one exception of Clash is activating these forces in a process of collision with

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the dominant social, political and economic norms which control artistic expression. Thus, these five films are also paradigmatic of what I call New Egyptian Cinema. In Egypt’s cinematic landscape since 2010, and even before, a number of films have been released which adopt the same direction as the five films I discussed here, above all in terms of cinematic language. Indeed, one can track the first sparks of this new cinema to the few years before the eruption of the 2011 uprising, but to speak of a movement, it is accurate to say that this movement took solid shape post-2011. The pioneer of independent-funded cinema is Ibrahim Al Batout (Ithaky 2005; Ein Shams 2009; Hawy 2010; Last Winter 2013) with whom Tamer El Said (assistant director and co. writer), Ahmad Abdallah (editing) and Ahmad El Ghoneimy (assistant director) worked and trained. In 2005, Al Batout directed Ithaky, his debut feature with a budget of 40,000 Egyptian Pounds. The film had been shot by a digital camera and is said to be the first in Egypt to do so. In 2009, his second feature Ein Shams shot in both Iraq and Egypt was banned by the censor, as the script had not been presented to and permitted by the censor. This mode of funding and production was new to Egyptian cinema. Filmmakers such as Tamer El Said and Ahmad Abdallah worked in Al Batout’s films and learned a good deal from him, especially when it comes to independent and low-budget filmmaking as well as digital filmmaking. Parallelly, in 2005, writer and producer Mohammed Hefzy established his production and distribution company for independent filmmaking, Film Clinic which up to this date produced thirty-four films and four television series. The company presented a number of young writers, directors and actors in the last fifteen years. In fact, three of the five films I discussed in this book are produced by film clinic: Microphone, Rags and Tatters and Clash. Filmmakers such as, Ahmad Abdallah (Microphone 2010, Rags and Tatters 2013), Amr Salama (Like Today 2008, Asmaa 2011, Skeikh Jackson 2017) Hisham Sakr (Certified Mail 2019) Abu Bakr Shawky (Youmeddine 2018), the Sudanese director Amjad Abu Al Ela (You Will Die At 20 2019) and Ayten Amin (Villa 69 2013, Soad 2020) found a home in Film Clinic. This company played a crucial role in producing and distributing films which do not follow the commercial formula of Egyptian cinema and whose contents as well as esthetics are new and innovative. In fairness, Film Clinic enabled this New Egyptian Cinema to exist on a wider scale and paved the way for this generation of filmmakers to have their mark on the cinema landscape.

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In addition, in 2010, writer and director Mohammed Diab, the director of Clash (2016) released his debut film, 678. It tells the story of three women of different social backgrounds who are victims of public sexual harassment. The film shows how these women deal with their trauma and try to seek justice, and it also shows how the state and the society fail them completely. The film, like its successor provoked extensive controversy. A lawsuit was filed to ban the film, as it was accused of distorting Egypt’s image in the world (El Hennawy 2010). Alongside the choice of the subject matter, sexual harassment, the film offers a multistrand narrative. The visual style leans toward realist representation. This New Egyptian Cinema is also defined by the support as well as the collaborations of a generation of filmmakers. For instance, Diab wrote the script of Ahmad Abdallah’s fourth film, Décor (2015). This time Abdallah’s film was produced by New Century, one of the major production companies in Egypt. Décor examines once more the nature of film. It is about a production designer who is working on a film with her husband. Her psyche moves between two worlds: the set of the film, and the world of the film she is working on. Abdallah’s fourth film reflects in a powerful homage on the diversity of Egyptian film history (Lodge 2014). It also portrays a topical picture of Egyptian female identity in a self-referential and self-reflexive film, presenting a genre that is new to Egyptian cinema. The film is a meta-­narrative with the end of the film a film within a film within a film. The protagonist’s story ends on a screen of a cinema where the lights go on, and the film’s cast stand up to leave. Décor, which starts as a black and white film, ends with two spectators leaving the cinema; when they enter the street, the film shifts to color and ends with a second set of end credits. As it was produced by one of the major production companies, Décor signals a shift in the cinematic culture in Egypt. Without the success of Abdallah’s Microphone and Rags and Tatters in terms of gaining a new spectatorship, New Century Production would have never agreed to produce a film with such subject matter, complex narration and cinematic style. This film marks also the collaboration of two artists: Abdallah and Diab. They are from the same generation of filmmakers and both were active during the 2011 protests and beyond. And both are trailblazers whose filmmaking is clearly marked by development of new cinematic languages. Abdallah’s latest film, Ext. Night has Hala Lotfy as its producer, and Hassala as its production company. Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City, produced in a span of seven years contains a large number of filmmakers who worked in the film. Ahmed El Ghoneimy (Bahary (2011), The Cave (2013), and Tripoli Tide (2018)), an award-wining short-films director,

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worked as second-unit director in the film. Nadine Salib (Mother of the Unborn (2014)), writer and director, also worked as second-unit director. Bassem Fayad (Diaries of a Flying Dog (2014)) who played himself in the film is the director of photography. Omar El Zoheiry (The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375 (2014)) who also worked in Rags and Tatters was a second-unit director as well. Another film this new cinematic space made possible is Karim Hanafy’s The Gate of Departure (2014). Written, directed and produced by Hanafy, the film won the Silver Pyramid for Best Artistic Contribution in the 2014 Cairo International Film Festival. One of the many remarkable achievements of this film is its minimal budget of “$84,000 USD (600,000 EGP)—almost half of that stemming from Hanafy’s own money” (Pritchard 2014). Tiffany Pritchard of Screen Daily states that “rather than opting for a standard narrative, Hanafy aims to create a more nuanced construction of one boy’s entrapment to his mother’s sadness, something he himself experienced growing up” (Pritchard 2014). The Gate of Departure is hard to summarize in words as it is purely visual, has no dialogue and defies the notions of linearity and coherent space to an extreme extent. Pritchard further argues that Hanafy’s debut film “creates each scene as if it were a film unto its own. From the specific arrangement of background objects to the constant slow movement of the camera, a reflection of art and mise-en-scène is transparent” (2014). In other words, like Coming Forth by Day, the film favors image over dialogue, unity of space, chronological time, causality and in this sense, even over narrative. Though the film is considered art house, low-budget and notoriously spectator unfriendly, the fact that it was made and selected in the Cairo International Film Festival is yet another sign of the changing cinematic landscape in Egypt. Latest but not least is Abu Bakr Shawky’s Youmeddine (Day of Judgement) (2018). Shawky’s feature debut is a unique film about a Coptic man a leprosy patient who leaves the Leprosy Colony for the first time after being cured and embarks on a journey in search for his father in Upper Egypt who promised to take him in after he is cured. The man travels on an Ass-Cart accompanied by an orphan child; the only person who accepts him despite his stigma as leprosy-ill. The film’s protagonist is a real-life character, Rady Gamal who had leprosy, and the rest of the cast vary between nonprofessional actors and relatively unknown actors. Alone, the subject matter of the films speaks volumes to the uniqueness of the film: leper patients and the leprosy colony in Egypt. The film was selected to compete for the Palm d’Or entered in the Cannes Festival, and won the François Chalais Prize. The film was released in four theaters in Egypt and

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stayed in release (not continuously) between May and September 2019 (IMDB 2019). It is a road-film whose focus is the main two characters: two downtrodden and outcasts who embark on a journey to find life. Variety’s review of Yomeddin captures the strength of the film in relation to its main protagonist’s choice of the actor as fortuitous, as the new actor holds the screen in a performance characterized by wounded dignity that’s never mawkish. While the ravages of leprosy are inescapable, his shallow eye sockets and tangle of wrinkles have a certain expressive harmony which becomes ever more evident as the film goes on and Shawky allows the contours of Gamal’s face to be bathed in light. It’s a bold decision that fits perfectly with the director’s desire to make the viewer not simply look past the deformity, but see it as just one of an infinite variety of human appearances. The film’s visuals are always attractive without engaging in poverty porn […]. (2018)

The so-called arthouse films are not the only examples or indications of this new cinematic landscape. Films which leans more toward commercial cinema are also evident. Amr Salama’s Sheikh Jackson (2017) is a light comedy, drama film about an Islamic cleric who has a crisis of faith after he hears the news of the death of his childhood idol, Michael Jackson. Salam (Tahrir 2011, Asmaa 2011, and Excuse Me 2014) faced accusations of blasphemy, and many conservative voices asked Al Azhar to interfere to ban the film. Away from this controversy, the film was positively received by critics and did well in cinemas. Sheikh Jackson travels into his ­protagonist’s head, blurring phantasy with reality in relation to the inner struggle of the cleric, creating many funny moments. This comedy is not short of touching upon the taboo of religion. Salama belongs to the same generation of filmmakers who found a creative space made possible in 2011. He too, like Abdallah, Lotfy, El Said, and Diab, participated in the 2011 uprising. In 2011, Salama wrote directed Asmaa (2011), a film about a young lady who has AIDS. The lady tires to survive her fatal disease while keeping it secret due to moral, social and religious prejudice and stigma. She decides to appear in a television show and exposes her secret. As for commercial cinema, one can also notice a boost in the technical and visual side in the making of such films. There exists a new wave of action films which revives the 1950s–1970s tradition of the local hero. This tradition has the Egyptian alley as its setting. Marawan Hamed (Yacoubian Building 2006, Ibrahim Al Albyad 2009, and The Blue Elephant 2014) rebooted this genre in 2009 in his film, Ibrahim Al

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Abyad. Al Soubky Production is the champion of this genre; always criticized as commercial, cheap and immoral, this production company has been and still is to a certain degree responsible for keeping the film industry in Egypt alive by producing films which attract audience to go to cinemas and buy tickets. Al Soubky introduced actor Mohammed Ramadan as the ultimate local action hero. Ramadan films are the highest in the box office. These films benefited from the new technical boost in Egyptian cinema, and actually benefited other genres as well in which it helped reviving cinema as cultural practice by attracting audiences to go to film theaters. Alongside long feature films, short films also benefited from the newly creative space which came into being in 2011. Short films mainly go under the radar, not only in Egypt but worldwide. Short films which are produced between 2011 and 2020 make a large list. Many young filmmakers who are not able to find an opportunity of making feature films due to the limited funding possibilities in Egypt, channel their talent and abilities in the making of short films. In many of these films, the characteristics of New Egyptian Cinema are evident whether in terms of ideas, subject matter and cinematic language. The screenings of these films are as hard as making these films. However, this community of young filmmakers collaborate among themselves and often manage to find independent outlets to screen their work. They also rely on the possibility for their films to participate and be screened in both national and international film festivals. Documentary cinema and film activism do have their share as well in this New Egyptian Cinema. In 2011, collectives such as MOSIREEN (determined) were formed. It is a “media activist collective that came together to document and transmit images of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011” (Mosireen). “The collective shot, produced and collected over two hundred and fifty videos between 2011 and 2014 documenting street politics, state violence and labour rights. On the collective’s website, he collective states, after the military coup of 2013 our work as a collective has been narrowed to the organisation and publication of a large collection of video material from the revolution, fully under Creative Commons. 858: An Archive of Resistance was published in January 2018” (Mosireen).34 Between 2011 and 2013, the collective organized a large number of street screenings, educational workshops on amateur filming/citizen journalism, production facilities, and campaign support. In late 2011 and 2012, MOSIREEN launched a public 34  Mosireen Website: https://www.mosireen.com/?fbclid=IwAR2kEh7-F7vQPAre5gmDFuKKJMVWmkwjJeS1XC5N102p4eO9KNBak1q7-U.

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campaign called Askr Katheboon (military liars), in which the collective organized street screenings of the military’s atrocities against the revolutionaries.35 Individual members of MOSIREEN produced their own films as well. Jasmian Metwaly and Philip Rizk made their significant documentary, Out on the Street (2015). It is a film about a group of workers from one of Egypt’s working-­class neighborhoods, Helwan. In the film, ten working-class men participate in an acting workshop. Through the rehearsals, stories emerge of factory injustice, police brutality, courts that fabricate criminal charges, and countless tales of corruption and exploitation. On a rooftop studio overlooking the heart of Cairo—presented as a space between fact and fiction—the participants move in and out of character as they shape the performance that engages their daily realities. The film interweaves scenes from the workshop, fictional performances, and real-life mobile phone footage shot by a worker. This hybrid approach aims to engage a collective imaginary, situating the participants and spectators within a broader social struggle (Berlinale 2015). In “Teaching Egypt Cinematically” (2020), Terri Ginsberg comments on this hybridity by arguing that the most compelling aspect of Out on the Street’s political aesthetic in this regard is its implicit critique of Noël Carroll’s filmphilosophical claim (Theorizing) that cinema is not a performative occasion […] Out on the Street is essentially a theatricalized film for which the ideal spectator is cinematic […] It is this epistemological core of Out on the Street’s diegesis—the fact that its performativity is the provenance of spectators, including but not limited to the workers, whereupon a key element of the film’s significance is extra-diegetic—which becomes a locus of “spontaneity” […] that the spectatorial encounter is crucial to meaning-making […]

Another example of documentary production is Bassam Mortada’s Athwara Khabar (Revolution … Reporting) 2012 and Fi Entezar Alaaed Men Algabal (Waiting for his Descent from the Mountain) 2014. The former follows six Egyptian journalists during the first eighteen days of the Egyptian uprising 2011, focusing on their stories and their inner conflicts as they are torn between sympathizing with the rebellion and doing their duty as neutral reporters for an independent newspaper. The latter is shot in El Minia, Upper Egypt. Quarrying is the main economic activity for the 35  This is an example of the campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rovjIEe5Z-8 (Al Masry Al Youm 2012).

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east bank inhabitants of El Minia governorate with nearly 15,000 men and children engaged in this informal economic activity. Working conditions are brutal and hazardous. The film accompanies a family whose elder son lost his arm while the younger son still works in the mountain. In 2011 and 2012, Quarry workers had a long struggle with the governorate and the government to improve their working conditions and provide health coverage and social insurance. The film depicts the establishment of an independent syndicate by the workers, their general strike, and their clashes with the police. Mortada was also a member of MOSIREEN, a photojournalist and a leftist activist. This film, like Out on the Streets, engages with the life of working-class Egyptians and their forgotten struggle during 2011 until 2014 to establish independent syndicates which were brutally crushed under Al Sisi. These filmmakers do not only produce documentaries of “politically aware subjects,” they also employ esthetics and techniques which correspond with these subject matters. In sum, the five films I discussed in this book with their subject matters, cinematic language, production, and execution are part of a cinematic movement which was made possible by what has happened in Egypt since 2010. This movement expanded and took shape especially in the post-2011 era. As I tried to show, the contents of these films vary between depicting events related to the 2011 uprising and its aftermath and others do not, and all these films share a desire to create a space for new cinematic expressions, nonconventional styles, and alternative modes of production. Thus, this new movement in Egyptian cinema makes for the most part a line of flight that did and still try to escape the process of reterritorialization by the state. The task, now in 2020, is much harder for this cinematic movement. Filmmakers do not only face the obstacle of censorship, an aspect which first appears after production. It would be a mistake off course to downplay the role of censorship in the cinematic landscape in Egypt. As I discussed in Film and Politics, the censorship in Egypt does not only operate in relation to the political content a film could show, rather it goes beyond politics to religion, morality, and even social taste. Rather, it is getting harder and harder to find funds to produce films. I have shown as in the case of Microphone, Rags and Tatters, and Clash that it is not true that such films are destined to fail in the box office. However, the overall belief from the part of production and distributing companies that these kinds of films have limited audience and would not make financial profits is what adds to the challenge of producing and making such films. Moreover, some filmmakers are willing to enter the market and make

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“commercial” films with the purpose of (1) simply making films and (2) being able to make the films they want to make in the future. Few filmmakers from this generation had the fortune to do so, such as Amr Salama and Ahmed Abdallah, while directors like Hala Lotfy, Tamer El Said, and Abu Bakr Shawky have to wait for years to be able to make a film. The alternative is applying for international funds, which is, according to Hala Lotfy, a painstaking, and sometimes even humiliating, process (Taha 2019). This method is defined by the thematic agendas of the funders. For instance, as Lotfy explains in my latest interview with her, you have an idea to make a film and you write the script. First you try to find an Egyptian production company for a film like Coming Forth by Day. Nobody in the market wanted to fund a film like that. We then decided to establish our own production company, Hassala, mainly from personal and financial effort. We made the film. For my planed second feature which I wrote in 2015, I am still trying to find funds. You start to search for international funders, and you apply for grants. For each funder, you have to find a way to fit your film into their agenda. Themes such as, “oppression of women in the Middle East,” “female identity,” or “minorities voices” are what is always attractive. You always have to sell your project according to these notions. If you succeed in receiving a grant to your film, it does not end there as all these grants are limited. You have to go on applying for additional grants for production and postproduction. Now, it is 2019, and my last film was released in 2012/2013, and it seems, we are destined to be making a film each six years. (Taha 2019)

Perceiving the current Egyptian artistic landscape in general, and the cinematic in particular, and that in relation to the overall sociopolitical and economic situation, the picture is indeed grim. However, the cinematic line of flight which set out in 2010/2011 is still exploring and producing new creative space. New Egyptian cinema is indeed facing huge difficulties and obstacles, now that the regime also entered the arena of cinema and television production. But it is not yet captured and reterritorialized. And while in terms of the social, the economic, and the political aspects, the uprising seems to have been failed and defeated, at least in the short term, and this New Egyptian Cinema is a line of absolute deterritorialization, a line of artistic creativity, mutation, and change. How long it will endure is not the question. Rather, could a line escape and form yet another new creative space?

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References Ahmed Abdallah’s Microphone (2010) Abdallah, Ahmad, dir. Microphone. 2010; Egypt: Film Clinic. DVD. Abdelrahman, Maha. 2014. Egypt’s Long Revolution. London: Routledge. Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press. Bordwell, David. 1985. Narration in Fiction Film. London: Routledge. Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kirsten. 2008. Film Art, An Introduction. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Deleuze, Gilles. 1994. What is Philosophy? Translated by Hugh Tomlison and Graham Burchill, New York: Columbia. Herzog, Amy. 2000. “Images of Thought and Acts of Creation: Deleuze, Bergson, and the Question of Cinema.” Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture, vol. 3, 2000. www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/issue3/ herzog.htm. Accessed 04 September 2016. Hickethier, Knut. 2001. Film- und Fernsehanalyse. Stuttgart, Weimar: J.B. Metzler. Mamber, Stephen. 1976. Cinema Verite in America. Cambridge: MIT P. Olkowski, Dorothea. 1999. Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: U of California Press. Oxford. 2010. Oxford Dictionary. Patterson, John. 2009. “Number One with a Bullet.” The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/26/interview-­michael-­mann-­public-­enemies. Accessed 31.07.2019. Pentland, A.P. 1987. “A New Sense for Depth of Field.” IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 9 (4):523–31. Pramaggiore, Maria and Wallis, Tom. 2005. Film: A Critical Introduction. London: Laurence King. Rodwick, D.N. 1997. Gilles Deleuze’s Time Machine. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1997. Smith, Nigel M. 2014. “Quentin Tarantino Blasts Digital Projection at Cannes: ‘It’s the death of cinema’.” Indiewire. https://www.indiewire.com/2014/05/ quentin-­t arantino-­b lasts-­d igital-­p rojection-­a t-­c annes-­i ts-­t he-­d eath-­o f-­ cinema-­26176/ Accessed 31.07.2019. Taha, Amir. 2013. “Interview with Ahmad Abdallah.” 2013. UNFPA Egypt. 2013. “Study on Ways and Methods to Eliminate Sexual Harassment in Egypt.” UNFPA Egypt. www.dgvn.de/fileadmin/user_upload/ DOKUMENTE/English_Documents/Sexual-­H arassment-­S tudy-­E gypt-­ Final-­EN.pdf. Accessed 31.07.2019.

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Ahmad Abdallah’s Rags and Tatters (2013) Abdallah, Ahmad, dir. Rags and Tatters. 2013; Egypt: Film Clinic. DVD. Al Marsy Al Youm 2011. “City of Garbage Clashes.” Al Masry Al Youm. https:// today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=290157. Accessed 15.07.2019. Bordwell, David. 1985. Narration in Fiction Film. London: Routledge. Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kirstin. 2008. Film Art, An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill. Bradshaw, Peter. 2013. “Rags and Tatters – London Film Festival Review.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/17/rags-­and-­ tatters-­london-­film-­festival-­2013-­review. Accessed 15.07.2019. Doane, Marry Ann. 1980. “The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space”. Yale French Studies, vol. 60, pp. 33–50. Ryan, Michael and Lenos, Melissa. 2012. An Introduction to Film Analysis: Technique and Meaning in Narrative Film. USA: Bloomsbury Publishing. Smethurst, P. 2001. The Postmodern Chronotope. Reading Space and Time in Contemporary Fiction. Netherland: Brill | Rodopi. Taha, Amir. 2013. “Interview with Ahmad Abdallah.” 2013. Weissberg, Jay. 2013. “Toronto Film Review: ‘Rags & Tatters.” Variety. https:// variety.com/2013/film/global/rags-­a nd-­t atters-­r eview-­t or onto-­ 1200608563/. Accessed 15.07.2019.

Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day (2012) Ahmed, Laila. 2011. A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ayalon, Ami. 1999. “Egypt’s Coptic Pandora’s Box.” In Minorities and the State in the Arab World, edited by Ofra Bengio & Gabriel Ben-Dor. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Deleuze, Gilles. 1985. Cinema 2 The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1986. Cinema 1 The Movement-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. El Khouly, Lotfy. 1986. Sadat’s Political School of Thought and the Egyptian Left. Cairo: Al Ahaly. Fahmi, Georges. 2014. “The Coptic Church and Politics in Egypt.” Carnegie Middle East Center. http://carnegieec.org/2014/12/18/coptic-­church-­ and-­politics-­in-­egypt-­pub-­57563. Accessed 30.07.2019. Farid, Samir. 2011. “Introduction to Egyptian Cinema.” Festival de Cannes. www. festival-­cannes.fr/en/article/57981.html. Accessed 30.07.2019. Lotfy, Hala, dir. Coming Forth by Day. 2012; Egypt: Hassala. DVD.

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Mernissi, Fatima. 1987. Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Mustafa, Hala. 1992. The Political Islam in Egypt. From Reform Movement to Violence. Center of Political and Strategic Research. Cairo. Osman, Tarek. 2011. Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak. New Haven and London: Yale UP. Radwan, Zeinab. 1982. The Religious Dimension of Hidjab among Students. Cairo: The National Center of Research. Rustomji, Nerina. 2009. The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture. New York: Columbia UP. Taha, A. 2014. “Interview with Essam Zakareyya.” 2015. Taha, A. 2015. “Interview with Hala Lotfy.” 2014. Talaat, Norhan. 2013. “Hala Lotfy’s Coming Forth by Day in the List of the 100 Most Important Arabic Films.” Al Watan. https://www.elwatannews.com/ news/details/354058. Accessed 30.07.2019. The World Bank. 2018. “Women Economic Empowerment Study.” The World Bank. Available: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/8614915511 13547855/pdf/134846-­WP-­PUBLIC-­march-­2-­WB-­Women-­Study-­EN.pdf. Accessed 20.07.2019. Zeghal, Malika. 1999. “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of Al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952–94).” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 31(3): 371–399.

Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City (2016) Chandler, Daniel, and Munday, Rod. 2011. A Dictionary of Media and Communication. Oxford: OUP. El Shennawy, Tarek. 2018. “In the Last Days of the City. Out of the List.” Al Masry Al Youm. https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/1242987/. Accessed 11.06.2020. El Said, Tamer, dir. In the Last Days of the City. 2016; Egypt: Zero Production. DVD. Khozam, Nahed. 2016. “In the Last Days of the City Causes a Crisis in The Cairo International Film Festival.” Al Araby. https://bit.ly/3eW4xhG. Accessed 11.06.2020. Kirchner, Eric. 2015. “Color Theory and Color Order in Medieval Islam: A Review.” Color Research and Application 40 (1): 5–16. Olidort, J., 2015. “The Politics of “Quietist” Salafism.” The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World 18: 1–25. Samir, Mahmoud. 2011. “Color and The Mystics: Light, Beauty, and the Spiritual Quest.” In And Diverse Are Their Hues: Color in Islamic Art and Culture, edited by Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila S. Blair. London: Yale UP.

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Schimmel, Annemarie and Priscilla P.  Soucek. 1992. “Color (pers. Rang.)” Encyclopedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/color-­pers-­rang. Accessed 20.06.2020. The Cinema Cartography. 2015. “Colour In Storytelling.” YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXgFcNUWqX0. Accessed 22.06.2020. Weissberg, Jay. 2016. “Berlin Film Review: ‘In the Last Days of the City’.” Variety. https://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/in-­the-­last-­days-­of-­the-­city-­review-­ berlin-­film-­festival-­1201705591/. Accessed 10.06.2020. Taha, Amir. 2019. “Interview with Tamer El Said.” 2019.

Mohammed Diab’s Clash (2016) Al-Arabeya. 2012. “Five Deaths is the Result of Al Itehadeya Clashes”. Al-Arabeya. https://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/05/253472.html. Accessed 04.06.2020. Al Mougy, Mona. 2017. “Clash Grosses Over One Million Pounds.” Masrawy. https://bit.ly/2zgMljS. Accessed 07.06.2020. Al Shalchi, Hadeel. 2014. “Morsi Claims He Was Kidnapped Before Being Removed by Army.” The Huffington Post. https://bit.ly/2zc9ofx. Accessed 30.05.2020. Amnesty International. 2019. “Five ways the legacy of the Rabaa dispersal still haunts Egyptians today.” Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/ en/latest/news/2019/08/five-­ways-­the-­legacy-­of-­the-­Rabaa-­dispersal-­still-­ haunts-­Egyptians-­today/. Accessed 04.06.2020. Andeel. 2016. “Clash: An awkward movie that suits an awkward situation.” Mada Masr. https://madamasr.com/en/2016/08/11/feature/culture/clash-­an-­ awkward-­movie-­that-­suits-­an-­awkward-­situation/. Accessed 07.06.2020. BBC. 2012. “Egypt: The legacy of Mohammed Mahmoud Street.” https://www. bbc.com/news/world-­middle-­east-­20395260. Accessed 04.06.2020. CNN Arabic. 2016. “The Director of Clash: The film does not have any political messages and Tom Hanks saved the film Twice.” CNN Arabic. https://arabic. cnn.com/entertainment/2016/08/18/mohammed-­diab. Accessed 06.06.2020. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). 2014. Exposing state hypocrisy: sexual violence by security forces in Egypt. FIDH. https://www.fidh.org/ IMG/pdf/egypt_report.pdf. Accessed 06.06.2020. Goldman, Russel and Yussef, Nour. 2016. “Jailed by Egypt, Honored for His Photojournalism.” The New  York Times. www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/ world/middleeast/jailed-­by-­egypt-­honored-­for-­his-­photojournalism.html. Accessed 06.06.2020. Goodfellow, Melanie. 2016a. “Mohamed Diab, dazed and bruised in Cairo.” Screen Daily. https://www.screendaily.com/festivals/cannes/mohamed-­diab-­ dazed-­and-­bruised-­in-­cairo/5103725.article?adredir=1. Accessed 06.06.2020.

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Goodfellow, Melanie. 2016b. “Diab’s ‘Clash’ storms Egyptian box office.” Screen Daily. https://www.screendaily.com/news/diabs-­clash-­storms-­egyptian-­box-­ office/5107277.article. Accessed 06.06.2020. Gouda, Riham and Nour, Hala. 2016. “Clash’s director accuses the censor of imposing a statement attacking the Muslim Brothers and the producer denies it.” Al Masry Al Youm. https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/ 985281. Accessed 06.06.2020. Human Rights Watch. 2016. Report: ““We Are in Tombs” Abuses in Egypt’s Scorpion Prison.” United States of America: Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch. 2020. Report: ““No One Cared He Was A Child.” Egyptian Security Forces’ Abuse of Children in Detention.” https://www.hrw. org/report/2020/03/23/no-­o ne-­cared-­h e-­w as-­c hild/egyptian-­security-­ forces-­abuse-­children-­detention. Accessed 06.06.2020. Khalil, Abdallah. 2015. The Map of Transitional Justice in Egypt since the 25 January Revolution. Cairo: Abdallah khalil. Khamis, Tarek. 2017. “Clash in a Police Truck.” Arab 48. https://www.arab48. com/‫­ترحيالت‬-‫­عربة‬-‫­يف‬-‫­املرصية‬-‫­الثورة‬-‫­اشتباك‬-‫فيمل‬/2017/08/09/‫شاشة‬/‫برص‬/‫فسحة‬-­ Accessed 06.06.2020. Kingsley, Patrick. 2014. “How Did 37 Prisoners Come To Die At Cairo Prison Abu Zaabal?.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ feb/22/cairo-­prison-­abu-­zabaal-­deaths-­37-­prisoners. Accessed 04.06.2020. Mock, Jeffery. 2016. “Imprisoned for Photography: Shawkan, 2016 Write for Rights Case. [Online] Amnesty International. https://blog.amnestyusa.org/ middle-­east/imprisoned-­for-­photography-­shawkan-­2016-­write-­for-­rights-­ case/. Accessed 06.06.2020. Pavard, Charlotte. 2016. “Eshtebak (Clash), Interview with Mohamed Diab Festival de Cannes.” [Online] Festival de Cannes. https://www.festival-­cannes. com/en/72-­editions/retrospective/2016/actualites/articles/eshtebak-­clash-­ interview-­with-­mohamed-­diab. Accessed 05.06.2020. Rubin, Barry. 2012. “Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood.” Foreign Policy Research Institute. http://www.fpri.org/articles/2012/07/understanding-­ muslim-­brotherhood. Accessed 4 June 2020. Saad, Zeinab. 2016. “Clash and Absent Facts.” Noon Post. Available: https:// www.noonpost.com/content/13215. Selim, Gamal M. 2015. “Egypt Under SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood: The Triangle of Counter-Revolution.” Arab Studies Quarterly 37 (2): 177–99. Accessed 25 June 2020. Simanjuntak, Jonah. 2016. “Trapped in a Truck: Spatial Restrictions in Mohamed Diab’s Clash.” CINEA. https://cinea.be/trapped-­in-­a-­truck-­spatial-­ restrictions-­in-­mohamed-­diabs-­clash/. Accessed 04.06.2020. Spencer, Richard. 2013. “Egypt’s army drives Mohammed Morsi from presidency and power in dramatic coup.” The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/10158775/Egypts-­a rmy-­ drives-­Mohammed-­Morsi-­from-­presidency-­and-­power-­in-­dramatic-­coup.html. Accessed 01.06.2020. The Arabic Network for Human Rights. 2016. “There is Room for Everyone… Egypt’s Prisons Before & After January 25 Revolution.” The Arabic Network for Human Rights. http://anhri.net/?p=173532&lang=en. Accessed 04.06.2020. Trager, Eric. 2011. “The Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood: Grim Prospects for a Liberal Egypt.” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. https://www. washingtoninstitute.org/policy-­a nalysis/view/the-­u nbreakable-­m uslim-­ brotherhood-­grim-­prospects-­for-­a-­liberal-­egypt. Accessed 30.05.2020. Wahdan, Heba. 2017. “The Story of Shaimaa Al Sabagh.” Al Watan. https:// www.elwatannews.com/news/details/2226086. Accessed 05.06.2020.

New Egyptian Cinema Al Masry Al Youm. 2012. “Askar Katheboon.” https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rovjIEe5Z-­8. Accessed 24.06.2020. Berlinale. Forum Expanded. 2015. “Barra Fel Share’ Out on the Street.” https:// www.berlinale.de/en/archive/jahresarchive/2015/02_programm_2015/02_ filmdatenblatt_2015_201505989.html#tab=filmStills. Accessed 25.06.2020. El Hennawy, Noha. 2010. “678: Sexual Harassment in a Movie.” Egypt Independent. www.egyptindependent.com/news/678-­sexual-­harassment-­movie. Accessed 10.06.2020. Ginsberg, Terri. 2020. “Teaching Egypt Cinematically.” In Cinema of the Arab World Contemporary Directions in Theory and Practice, edited by Terri Ginsberg and Chris Lippard, 355–386. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Springer International Publishing. IMDB. 2019. “Yomeddine.” https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/ rl3121120769/weekend/. Accessed 10.06.2020. Lodge, Guy. 2014. “Film Review: ‘Decor.’” https://variety.com/2014/film/festivals/film-­reviewdecor-­1201343283/. Accessed 11.06.2020. MOSIREEN. https://www.mosireen.com/?fbclid=IwAR2kEh7-­F7vQPAre5gm-­ DFuKKJMVWmkwjJeS1XC5N102p4eO9KNBak1q7-­U. Accessed 23.06.2020. Pritchard, Tiffany. 2014. “Karim Hanafy Pushes Boundaries with Departure.” Screen Daily. www.screendaily.com/home/blogs/karim-­hanafy-­pushes-­ boundaries-­withdeparture/5080271.article. Accessed 11.06.2020. Variety. 2018. “Film Review: ‘Yomeddine.’” https://variety.com/2018/film/ reviews/yomeddine-­review-­1202805143/. Accessed 11.06.2020. Taha, Amir. 2019. “Interview with Hala Lotfy.” 2019.

CHAPTER 5

Conclusion

In this book, I tried to open a discussion which could liberate the term counterculture from the rigid geohistorical notion as well as from its narrow sociological conceptualization. In the definition of counterculture this book offers, culture is not separated from the economic, the political, and the social. What seems to be a quality of culture as an external force which observes society from the outside is itself a structure of society with an oppositional characteristic. As one entangled rhizome on a horizontal plane of imminence, culture operates in terms of relative deterritorialization: a molar line. The state as a social machine of control and striated spaces launches a process of over-coding of culture. The state allows culture to maintain its oppositional characteristic toward the other structures of society. In Egypt, under Mubarak, as I showed in Egypt 2011 and in Film and Politics, the state allowed a controlled space for this oppositional operation. This was evident in the private media, artistic production, and even in terms of limited political opposition. However, the state never allows culture to be an exterior to the state. I showed how the state under Mubarak suppressed any major oppositional movements which it considered to be an other of itself or perceived as imminent danger. Culture as an ever forming a reforming rhizome was met by constant process of re-­ appropriation and reterritorialization by the state. Parallelly, a line of flight of and within culture as rhizome was forming and trying to escape the state’s process of capture. What Maha Abdelrahman called a network of networks and what I call an assemblage had been taking shape since the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1_5

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early 2000s. The second Intifada supportive protests and the anti-Iraq war along with workers’ protests and strikes, and later the forming of Kefaya gave birth to new decade of political dissent with new strategies and tactics which was defined by a constant process of horizontal connection and entanglement of small assemblages. These assemblages were the lines of flight of culture, and their movements reached the point of absolute deterritorialization in January 2011. This I define as counterculture, a process which did not erupt in a vacuum; rather, it had been a decade in the making and also had its roots in a long history of struggle, that is, what Khaled Fahmy and Maha Abdelrahman call The Long Revolution. Out of the rhizome that is culture, a line succeeded to escape the state’s capture and to explode. The small assemblages connected with one another and were joined by newly formed assemblages which in turn formed and entered a larger assemblage: the war-machine assemblage. I discussed the acute reasons which led to the uprising which were defined by the notion of nonlinear causality (De Landa 1999). There was a combination of small causes, large causes, and catalysts and triggers. As this larger assemblage became an exterior of the state, an other of the state, it had to encounter war. In this sense, counterculture is the “other” of the state, the creator of smooth spaces, an assemblage of the war-machine kind, and a socialmachine of creativity, change, and mutation. Counterculture belongs to the virtual as opposed to the actual. Counterculture is the assemblage in which culture is no longer separated from its active forces and through which the excluded possibilities are empowered and enforced. In the Egyptian case, the war-machine of 2011 had been defeated and captured by the state in terms of regime change. However, change in Egyptian happened, still is happening, and will continue to happen. Lines of creativity, mutation, and change had succeeded to escape the state’s capture and are still struggling to create their smooth spaces. One of these lines is cinema which is the focus of this book. As my book treats culture and counterculture as an interbeing that is a model which provides lines and connections among various lines, cinema is an artistic line within the rhizome that is culture and could join the war-­ machine assemblage that is counterculture. I showed the long history of Egyptian cinema itself and in relation to politics. If we talk of the 2011 Egyptian uprising as part and an extension of a long revolution which goes back two centuries (Fahmy 2015), cinema had been ever present in the twentieth century and until now. I argued in this book of a New Egyptian Cinema as a line of creativity within the 2011 assemblage, and which is

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still resisting a process of capture by the state. Similar to the long process which led to the countercultural explosion in 2011, New Egyptian Cinema did not happen in a vacuum. I showed the long struggle against the state’s operation of capture and reterritorialization throughout the history of Egyptian cinema. I traced the evolution of censorship and state interference since the monarchy up until Mubarak’s era in order to show how cinema in Egypt developed certain esthetics and languages in relation to sociopolitical subject matters. The birth of national cinema in Egypt had been also the birth of Egyptian realism in the 1930s with the example of Kamal Selim’s Al Azeema (1939) which preceded Italian neorealism. In Film and Politics, we were able to see how two films, Fritz Kramp’s Lasheen (1938) and Yussif Chahine’s Chaos (2007), both visually and in terms of content “predicted” a revolutionary end of two different eras: the monarchy and Mubarak’s rule. The former was banned by the censor and disappeared, while the latter was forced to endure the censor’s interference. In between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, a new cinematic movement came into being: Egyptian Neorealism as a result and an answer of/to Sadat’s open-door policy, the rise of political Islam, and the rapid magnification of the police-state. These films, which played a requiem for the middle class, depicted the social shift in Egypt, and/or engaged directly in political criticism, all shared a certain approach to cinema. The Egyptian neorealist cinema during the late 1970s and the late 1990s chose to go out of the studios to the streets and real-life locations with little heed to visual esthetic style in favor for more direct depiction of reality in relation to their sociopolitical subject matter. This movement too had its share of the censor’s scissor. Censorship, as a result of the 2011 uprising, went into the shadow in the period between 2011 and 2014, yet after the 2013 coup and the beginning of the Al Sisi rule, censorship returned. I have shown how films such as In the Last Days of the City, Clash, and others came under the censor’s heavy hand. In my analysis of the five selected film in this book, I tried to present a methodology of close reading which Egyptian cinema in academia lacks. While the historical and sociopolitical readings of Egyptian films as discussed by a number of respected scholars are very important and had enriched the academic and intellectual knowledge production, studies in relation to Egyptian cinema remain insufficient, and specifically in terms of visual representations and filmic language using the tools of film analysis and film theory. I attempted to show how the New Egyptian Cinema which took solid shape in the years 2010 and 2011 deals with certain

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subject matters and employs certain cinematic devices to express these subject matters visually. In the selected films, I discussed in this book as well as those I mentioned in the previous chapter, there is a sphere of commonalities these films share. With the forming of alternative modes of practicing politics and oppositions which started in the turn of this century in Egypt, came also new questions of the social, the political, and the artistic. Subject matters such as alternative modes of artistic expressions entangled with the notion of resisting the control of public spaces by the state (Microphone), citizen journalism/amateur footage and recording in general as a device of historiography and as a space of multiple realities and alternative truths (Rags and Tatters, In the Last Days of the City, and Clash), the breaking of socio-religious taboos (Coming Forth by Day, In the Last Days of the City, Sheikh Jackson, and Yoummedine) are all present in this New Egyptian Cinema. Furthermore, philosophical filmic notions are also a shared characteristic. Unconventional modes of narration, nonlinear and fragmented narratives, along with the blurring of visual and narrative styles (Microphone, Rags and Tatters, In the Last Days of the City, and Out on the Street) are evident in these cinematic productions. In relation to narration, the question of time and space, especially the representation of time, whether as segmentary blocks (Rags and Tatters), undefined by space and action (Microphone, Coming Forth by Day, and In the Last Days of the City, Décor), or even as an intensified block, a real time is tied to a confined space (Clash). All these ideas and notions are expressed in the films of this movement visually. The image in the New Egyptian Cinema is mostly the main force: Composition, blocking, camera work, lighting, and editing are the devices which tell the story and above all express the ideas in these films more so than the dialogues or the classic narrative interaction among the characters. This dedication to the image, whether in terms of quality or in terms of expression, cannot be separated from the visual overflow the world has witnessed since the rise of digital cameras, smartphones, and social media which people all over the globe have access to and which enabled a huge number of people to record, share, and publish their own images easily. In the case of Egypt, the act of recording and documenting images has been a political and an oppositional practice since the beginning of the 2000s, and the eruption of the 2011 uprising with all its dynamics and components has in its assemblage and has been accompanied by film as a medium. Amateur footage, citizen journalism, professional and semi-­ professional filmmaking are no more separate, the same goes with the idea

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of spectatorship. These boundaries among production and perception, active and passive spectatorship too became fluid and blurred. In Egypt and all around the world, a spectator is always an observer and can be an active observer, and thus a filmmaker in the broader sense. A participant in an uprising or a demonstration can record the moment he/she is in. A nonactive bystander can document what he/she sees or observes. These activities are not only raw footage to be published or used as news or an act of reporting. The access to filming and recording is not the only thing which is now easy to do, but also creating a narrative is as possible and as easy. On our computers or even on our smartphones, we can select, edit, and rearrange any footage. We can also add our commentary, voice-over, or musical soundtrack. Individuals are able now to create their own narratives of what they live and observe. Film as an observation machine has become an organic component of people’s lives. It creates endless possibilities of observation: passive, active, objective, subjective, intersubjective, oppositional, conforming, and self-referential/-reflexive. Speaking of self-referentially and self-reflexivity, counterculture and the Egyptian uprising as a countercultural assemblage possessed this notion. I have argued that counterculture is the intensification of culture as second-­ order observation which includes a self-referential and self-reflexive quality. The medium film as a smaller assemblage within the larger assemblage, that is, the uprising, has been and still is an active act of self-reflexivity. It is one of the lines of anti-memory which is not subjected to a law of contiguity or immediacy to its object; it can act at a distance and come or return a long time after, but always under conditions of discontinuity, rupture, and multiplicity (Deleuze and Guattari 2005). In other words, the medium film in relation to the Egyptian uprising goes beyond the notion of the archive which documented events and bared witness to history. Film engaged in the writing of history: historiography. Film material, whether amateur footage, news footage, professional documentary, or feature films which stand in any relation to the uprising, are a multiplicity which produces multiplicities. This production of multiplicities can only destabilize any notion of fixed, singular, dominant, or linear narrative. Four of the five films, I discussed in this book: Microphone, Rags and Tatters, In the Last Days of the City and even Clash as they all correspond with real-life events, we cannot help but observing the notions of discontinuity, rupture and multiplicity, both internally, that is in how these films present their narratives, and in terms of depicting and revisiting these events. Self-­reflexivity is also evident in these four films in which film and

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the act of filming are ever present and organic in the bodies of these films. Coming Forth by Day is also discontinuous and rapturous in relation to the “big” happening, the uprising, yet it is a part of the filmic multiplicity which was enabled by the uprising. The New Egyptian Cinema’s tendency as nonnarrative cinema is clearly a natural outcome of the counterculture’s animosity against the notion of hierarchy and linearity of narrative in the broader sense, and in terms of film narration in particular. This countercultural animosity is an active collision of the virtual against the actual which both belong to the real. Thus, films which belong to the new wave in Egypt tend for the most part to embrace the virtual and to adopt one of the characteristics of Deleuze’s time-image: the problematization of truth which sets free the virtual productive forces that emerge from such a problematization (1985). Of these forces are the notions of historiography and historicity which undermine the linear chronology of past, present, and future in favor of the concept of an open-ended future (Deamer 2009; De Landa 1999). An open-ended future is where the past and the present are pregnant not only with possibilities which become real, but also with virtualities which become actual (De Landa 1999). While film as an artistic assemblage can intensify the problematization of truth and history, the Arab uprisings which are the larger assemblage are in themselves a still-living process of dismantling the notion of a one dominant grand narrative. In fact, it is a process of dismantling history as the time-keeping and self-fulfilling prophecy of the state, the constructed sequence of significant events that obliterates geography, the earth, and the nonhistoric, presignifying, and countersignifying regimes (Protevi 2009). These uprisings abandon truth and history in favor of multiplicities of nonlinear causalities and of virtualities. It is true that only a few of these virtualities became actual, and it is also true that most of those who believed in these uprisings all across the Arab World feel defeated. However, and despite of the dim present moment in the region, it is imperative not to treat these uprisings as single and separated events or as moments in time at least in the intellectual discourse.

References Deamer, David. 2009. “Cinema, Chronos/Cronos. Becoming an Accomplice to the Impasse of History.” In Deleuze and History, edited by Jeffrey A. Bell and Claire Colebrook, 161–187. Edinburgh University Press.

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De Landa, Manuel. 1999. “Deleuze and the Open Ended Becoming of the World.” Manuel De Landa Annotated Bibliography. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/ delanda/pages/becoming.htm. Accessed 05.07.2010. Deleuze, Gilles. 1985. Cinema 2 The Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlison and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. 2005. A Thousand Plateaus Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis London: University of Minnesota Press. Fahmy, Kahled. 2015. “The Long Revolution.” Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/howthe-egyptian-revolution-began-and-where-it-might-end. Accessed 18.06.2020. Protevi, John. 2009. “Geohistory and Hydro-Bio-Politics.” In Deleuze and History, edited by Bell Jeffrey A. Bell and Claire Colebrook, 92–102. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Appendix A

Filmography (The 2011 Uprising) Chaos 2007. Director: Youssif Chahine. Feature. Microphone 2010. Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. 18 Days 2011. Directors: Ahmad Abdalla, Mariam Abou Ouf, Kamla Abu Zikri, Ahmed Alaa, Mohamed Ali, Sherif Arafa, Sherif El Bendary, Marwan Hamed, Khaled Marei and Yousry Nasrallah. Feature. Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad, and the Politician 2011. Directors: Amr Salama, Tamer Ezzat and Ayten Amin. Documentary. Ant Scream 2011. Director: Sameh Abelaziz. Feature. My Name is Tahrir 2011. Director: Ali Al Jeheny. Documentary. https:// www.dailymotion.com/video/xnx1co The Camel Battle 2011. Director: Ahmed Abdelhafez. Documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuzFjFTKlLc Reporting … A Revolution 2012. Director: Bassam Mortada. Documentary. After the Battle 2012. Director: Yousry Nasrallah. Feature. Winter of Discontent 2012. Director: Ibrahim El Battout. Feature. Good Luck 2012. Director: Tarek Abdelmoty. Feature. And After the Flood 2012. Hatem Metwaly. Feature. Rags and Tatters 2013. Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. Black February 2013. Director: Mohammed Amin. Feature. The Square 2013. Director: Jehane Noujaim. Documentary.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1

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Waiting for the Return from the Mountain 2014. Director: Bassam Mortada. Documentary. Nawwara 2015. Director: Hala Khalil. Feature. Out on the Street 2015. Directors: Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk. Documentary. Clash 2016. Director: Mohammed Diab. Feature. In the Last Days of the City 2016. Director: Tamer El Said. Feature. Gunshot 2018. Director: Karim Al Shennawy. Feature.

Appendix B

Filmography (New Egyptian Cinema) Ain Shams (2007). Director: Ibrahim El Battout. Feature. Heliopolis (2009). Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. Microphone (2010). Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. 18 Days (2011). Directors: Ahmad Abdalla, Mariam Abou Ouf, Kamla Abu Zikri, Ahmed Alaa, Mohamed Ali, Sherif Arafa, Sherif El Bendary, Marwan Hamed, Khaled Marei and Yousry Nasrallah. Feature. Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad, and the Politician (2011). Directors: Amr Salama, Tamer Ezzat and Ayten Amin. Documentary. Breathe Out (2011). Director: Omar El Zoheiry. Feature Short. Bahary (2011). Director: Ahmed El Ghoneimy. Feature Short. Coming Forth by Day (2012). Director: Hala Lotfy. Feature. Rags and Tatters (2013). Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. The Cave (2013). Director: Ahmed El Ghoneimy. Feature Short. The Square (2013). Director: Jehane Noujaim. Documentary. Harag w Marag (2013). Director: Nadine Khan. Feature. Waiting for the Return from the Mountain (2014). Director: Bassam Mortada. Documentary. The Gate of Departure (2014). Director: Karim Hanafy. Feature. The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375 (2014). Director: Omar El Zoheiry. Feature Short. Dream No.1 (2014). Director: Amr Wishahy. Feature Short. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1

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APPENDIX B

Decor (2014). Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. Nawwara (2015). Director: Hala Khalil. Feature. Out on the Street (2015). Directors: Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk. Documentary. Dry Hot Summers (2015). Director: Sherif El Bendary. Feature Short. Mother of the Unborn (2015). Director: Nadine Salib. Documentary. Clash (2016). Director: Mohammed Diab. Feature. In the Last Days of the City (2016). Director: Tamer El Said. Feature. Withered Green (2016). Director: Mohammed Hammad. Feature. Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim (2016). Director: Sherif El Bendary. Feature. Day for Women (2016). Director: Kamla Abu Zekry. Feature. Cactus Flower (2017). Director: Hala El Kousy. Feature. Tripoli Tide (2018). Director: Ahmed El Ghoneimy. Feature Short. Ext. Night (2018). Director: Ahmed Abdallah. Feature. Yomeddine (2018). Director: Abu Bakr Shawky. Feature. Poisoned Flowers (2018). Director: Ahmed Fawzy Saleh. Feature. Soad (2020). Director: Ayten Amin. Feature.

Index1

A The actual, 13, 33, 34, 63, 108, 129, 152, 164, 209, 224, 233, 302, 306 Alternative narrative, 3, 8, 161, 162, 279 Arab uprisings, vii, 1, 20, 39, 54, 59, 60, 62, 214, 306 Assemblage, viii, 2–5, 10, 31–36, 47–57, 59–63, 100, 129, 131, 134, 161, 162, 266, 284, 301, 302, 304–306 B Baecker, Dirk, 21 Bordwell, David, 106, 111n2, 140 C Camera, 3, 8, 9, 68, 87, 91, 109, 110, 112, 114–120, 120n3, 127, 131,

135–140, 142, 143, 145–147, 152–155, 159, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171–174, 176, 178, 179, 184, 185, 188, 191, 194, 196, 197, 200, 202, 205, 207, 210, 216, 218–220, 222–224, 234, 236–238, 245–248, 250, 252, 253, 255–259, 261, 262, 267, 269, 271, 273, 277, 280, 282, 283, 286, 287, 289, 304 Capture, 1–3, 6–8, 10, 32, 35, 36, 39, 48, 50, 53, 54, 59, 63, 87, 90, 92, 94, 114, 120, 126, 131, 152, 153, 161, 164, 184, 188, 192, 195, 196, 201, 205, 207, 208, 215, 216, 222, 227, 253, 256–258, 283, 290, 301–303 Causality, 7, 26, 27, 49, 50, 105, 106, 127, 128, 141, 143, 163, 168, 192, 199, 227, 280, 282, 284, 289, 302, 306

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Taha, Film and Counterculture in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68900-1

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INDEX

Censor, 10, 74, 76, 78, 81–83, 89, 96–100, 208, 234, 235, 262–266, 272, 285–287, 303 Censorship, 5, 6, 10, 40, 69, 72–74, 82, 83, 87, 91, 96–100, 206, 207, 262–270, 285, 293, 303 Central Security Forces (CSF), 45, 46, 55, 60, 61, 89–91, 94, 205, 232, 234, 241, 269, 270, 272, 274, 274n33 Change, vii, 1–3, 10, 12, 14, 26, 30, 31, 35, 36, 40, 44, 48, 49, 57, 59, 62, 63, 70, 79, 80, 89, 91, 96, 112, 116, 118, 119, 126–128, 130, 131, 145, 146, 148, 152, 153, 155, 168, 169, 172, 176–178, 180, 184, 192, 211, 215, 252, 257, 258, 269, 270, 284, 286, 294, 302 Cinema, viii, 1–6, 10, 36, 40, 57, 62, 67–77, 81, 82, 87, 88, 91–93, 96–100, 105, 106, 109, 111, 111n2, 114, 123, 128, 129, 132, 140–143, 147, 155–157, 159, 165, 168, 169, 174, 175, 183, 191, 192, 207, 210, 233, 235, 249, 262, 276–282, 285, 287, 288, 290–294, 302, 303, 306 Cinematic language, 4–9, 71, 87, 91, 100, 114–115, 122, 142–143, 154, 155, 159, 168–169, 175, 176, 191, 199–200, 234, 252–253, 266, 279, 282, 283, 285–288, 291, 293 Cinematography, 8, 114, 190, 192, 253, 259, 286 Color, 199, 203, 205, 206, 218, 222, 223, 288 Control, 2, 3, 6, 26, 32, 34, 40, 40n1, 52–55, 57, 63, 76, 77, 86, 91, 91n5, 93, 94, 110, 115, 122,

123, 129, 144–146, 146n10, 161, 181, 182, 200, 238n27, 262, 287, 301, 304 Counterculture, viii, 1–5, 11–21, 29–31, 33–35, 39–63, 129, 155, 162, 266, 268, 283, 301, 302, 305, 306 Creativity, 1, 3, 5, 10, 52, 53, 57, 63, 123, 127, 130, 155, 183, 286, 294, 302 Cultural, vii, viii, 1–3, 14, 16–20, 22, 24–26, 35, 57, 72, 76, 97, 129, 142, 210, 226, 278, 291 Culture, viii, 2, 11, 13–15, 17–30, 32–35, 45, 59, 63, 106, 122, 148, 203, 203n22, 263, 266, 288, 301, 302, 305 D De Landa, Manuel, 2, 47–49, 302, 306 Deleuze, Gilles, 2–5, 9, 26–35, 28n5, 28n6, 62, 111, 128, 129, 164–169, 174, 183, 200, 305, 306 Deleuzo-Guattarian, 3n1, 3n2, 11, 21, 26, 29, 31, 33, 34, 62 Depth-of-field, 114, 117, 120, 120n3, 253 Depth-of-focus, 117, 120, 120n3, 253 Deterritorialization, 4, 5, 29–31, 33, 34, 39, 48, 50, 59, 123, 128, 155, 156, 159, 161, 294, 301, 302 E Editing, 3, 8, 9, 68, 87, 106, 110, 111, 113, 140, 176, 192, 197, 198, 206, 234, 253, 256, 259, 273, 283, 286, 287, 304

 INDEX 

Egypt, vii, 2, 4, 5, 7–10, 19, 20, 35, 36, 39–63, 67–100, 106, 109–111, 113, 118–123, 126, 128, 129, 132, 134, 136–138, 142, 150, 155–157, 161, 175, 179–183, 192, 195, 199, 202, 203n22, 205, 207, 208, 214, 226, 228–235, 239, 241, 243, 244, 251, 254, 254n32, 255, 259, 262, 263, 265–267, 270, 272, 274–278, 282, 284–289, 291–293, 301, 303–306 F Film, viii, 1–10, 15n4, 35, 36, 45, 67–100, 105–294, 301, 303–306 Fragmentation, 199, 283, 284 G Guattari, Felix, 2, 3, 5, 26–34, 28n5, 28n6, 62, 305 H Historiography, 4, 9, 155, 162, 202, 214, 227, 280, 281, 284, 304–306 History, viii, 1, 6, 8, 11, 15, 18, 19, 27, 34, 43, 44, 46, 53, 71, 73, 76, 82, 92, 94, 97, 100, 114, 130, 151, 152, 154, 155, 162, 176, 200, 202, 213, 215, 220, 227, 233, 235, 251, 257, 264, 280–282, 288, 302, 303, 305, 306 L Lighting, 8, 71, 135, 137, 148, 158, 164, 166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 176, 194, 199, 202, 222, 259, 282, 283, 304

315

Linear, 3, 4, 25, 27, 29, 34, 106, 127, 128, 151, 166, 251, 281, 305, 306 Line of flight, 2, 29–31, 33, 34, 36, 48, 50, 59, 63, 155, 159, 161, 183, 192, 278, 279, 281, 293, 294, 301 M Media, 2, 10, 40, 42, 44, 48, 52, 57, 58, 94, 97, 131, 134, 137, 146, 151, 158, 161, 227, 229–231, 262, 263, 268, 271, 276, 301, 304 Military, 39, 40, 40n1, 53–56, 60–63, 76, 78–80, 82, 84, 86, 90, 131, 146, 146n10, 151, 158, 175, 195, 208, 226–228, 230–233, 235, 236, 254, 254n32, 259, 262, 263, 265, 267, 270, 272, 275, 291, 292 Morsi, Mohammed, 10, 40, 40n1, 61, 61n7, 97, 208, 227–233, 235, 236, 245, 246, 264, 271 Movement-image, 4, 5, 166 Mubarak, Gamal, 2, 5–7, 29, 40, 41, 43–46, 48n5, 51–53, 55–58, 60, 61, 63, 84–95, 97–99, 109, 126, 128, 131, 158, 194, 195, 202, 203, 203n22, 206–208, 228, 229, 231–233, 263, 270, 276, 283, 301, 303 Mubarak, Hosni, 84, 109, 110, 123, 126 Muslim Brothers (MB), 10, 20, 40n1, 53, 55, 59–61, 63, 80, 84–86, 86n4, 131, 175, 180, 203, 205, 208, 227–232, 234–238, 241–245, 247, 249–251, 254, 254n32, 257, 262, 264, 265, 267, 269, 270, 273–276, 286

316 

INDEX

Mutation, 1, 3, 10, 31, 35, 36, 44, 48, 52, 53, 57, 62, 63, 127, 129, 130, 155, 286, 294, 302 N Narration, 3, 5–8, 105–106, 113, 122–124, 127, 129, 133–138, 140–142, 149, 151, 157, 162–163, 168, 192, 194, 196, 197, 199, 202, 224, 227, 233–235, 246, 251–253, 263, 278–281, 283, 284, 288, 304, 306 Narrative, viii, 1–4, 6–9, 21, 40, 54, 55, 59, 82, 88, 91, 96, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111–113, 111n2, 115, 119, 120, 122–124, 127, 128, 133–143, 146, 147, 151, 153–155, 157–163, 165, 168, 172, 174–176, 183, 191, 192, 199, 201, 202, 207, 218, 226, 234–236, 238, 242, 245, 246, 249, 251, 252, 264, 265, 268, 273, 277–282, 285, 286, 288, 289, 304–306 Neo-Realism, 68 New Egyptian Cinema, 5, 10, 36, 163, 168, 277–294, 302–304, 306 Nonlinear, 6, 7, 29, 49, 50, 82, 108, 111, 113, 123, 164, 197, 199, 279, 283, 302, 304, 306 O Opposition, 5, 17, 24, 43, 48, 48n5, 71, 77, 80, 81, 84, 86, 89, 131, 208, 228, 262, 301, 304

P Political, vii, 5, 6, 10, 13–18, 15n4, 21, 27, 31, 35, 36, 41, 42, 46–48, 50, 53, 56–58, 56n6, 60–63, 67, 69–72, 76–87, 89–91, 91n5, 94, 97, 125–128, 131, 140, 150, 155, 158, 161, 175, 176, 180, 182, 194, 199, 205, 206, 210, 214, 227–231, 234, 236, 245, 252, 254, 262, 265–268, 270, 272, 276, 277, 279, 282, 285–287, 292–294, 301–304 Politics, viii, 2, 5, 9, 13, 15, 16, 33, 41, 47 Protest, 7, 11, 12, 14, 17, 20, 21, 26, 39, 41n2, 43–48, 43n3, 44n4, 50–52, 54–57, 61, 72, 79, 80, 90, 94, 127, 128, 134, 158, 159, 161, 202, 207–209, 211, 227–230, 235–237, 241, 243, 247, 250, 258, 259, 263, 264, 271–273, 277, 288, 302 R Realism, 6, 8, 87, 114, 136, 140, 141, 163, 176, 179, 186, 280, 283, 303 Rebellion, 5, 6, 9–11, 44, 45, 70, 90, 123–124, 127, 155–156, 162, 175–176, 183, 191, 206–210, 224, 226, 230, 234, 262–263, 274, 276, 277, 286, 292 Regime, 2, 8, 9, 13, 14, 41, 46, 51, 53–57, 61–63, 70, 76–78, 80–82, 84–86, 89–92, 94–100, 128, 131, 134, 151, 180, 195, 206–208, 227–229, 232, 239, 251, 262–264, 266, 268, 271, 276, 277, 294, 302, 306

 INDEX 

Religious, 7, 9, 40, 57, 73, 75, 78, 83, 84, 119, 131, 150, 179–182, 191, 205, 252, 282, 283, 290 Reterritorialization, 32–34, 53, 59, 161, 162, 266, 286, 293, 301, 303 Revolution, 2, 5, 13, 14, 16, 20–22, 29, 39, 40, 43, 43n3, 44, 49, 51, 53, 54, 58–60, 62, 67, 71–74, 76, 92, 93, 96, 123, 126, 131, 133, 134, 136–138, 141, 146, 147, 151, 155, 157–162, 175, 176, 208, 264, 267, 268, 277, 281, 286, 291, 302 Revolutionary, vii, 8, 16, 21, 35, 59, 63, 82, 129, 154, 155, 159–162, 228, 229, 232, 245, 268, 276, 277, 281, 285, 286, 303 Roszak, Theodor, 11–21, 11n3, 268 S Second-order observation, 4, 11, 21–23, 27, 29, 30, 59, 146, 305 Segment, 4, 29–31, 35, 108, 112, 141, 143, 199, 280, 284 Al Sisi, Abdel Fatah, 6, 9, 10, 41n2, 89, 97–100, 195, 206–208, 227, 230, 231, 233, 262–264, 271, 276, 277, 285, 293 Social, vii, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12–15, 17, 24–27, 30, 33–35, 43–45, 50, 53, 57, 62, 68–70, 72, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 90–92, 97, 98, 100, 113, 119, 121–123, 126, 127, 129, 131, 136, 137, 141, 150, 152, 155, 158, 161, 175, 176, 178–183, 191, 210, 226, 228, 232–234, 238n27, 239, 241, 262, 266, 274, 282,

317

283, 287, 288, 290, 292–294, 301, 303, 304 Social-machine, 3, 3n2, 6, 32, 50, 59, 63, 301, 302 Sound, 3, 100, 115, 120, 121, 135, 136, 139–141, 149, 150, 153, 156–161, 164, 165, 166n17, 168, 172–174, 183, 189, 192, 194–197, 203, 218, 222, 224, 237, 246, 248, 282 State, viii, 2–9, 3n2, 11, 13, 14, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28n5, 30–36, 39–41, 43, 44, 48–60, 56n6, 62, 63, 68, 70, 72–75, 79, 82, 83, 88, 90–92, 94–99, 113, 114, 122, 123, 129–131, 134–137, 139, 151, 155, 156, 158, 160–162, 182, 205, 208, 210, 214, 218, 220, 227–232, 235, 236, 238, 241, 251, 257, 264–266, 268, 270, 273, 276, 280, 285, 286, 288, 291, 293, 301–304, 306 State media, 10, 52, 134, 137, 161, 271 Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), 58, 62, 63, 228, 233, 270 T Time-image, 4, 5, 111, 112, 127–129, 163–165, 166n17, 168, 174, 183, 200, 282, 306 Tradition, 5, 7, 10, 36, 83, 100, 129, 141, 233, 234, 277, 286, 290 2011 uprising, 10, 36, 41, 44, 94, 128, 227, 229, 235, 240, 254n32, 262–264, 266–268, 276, 278, 279, 281, 283–287, 290, 293, 303, 304

318 

INDEX

U Uprising, vii, viii, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–10, 19–21, 29, 35, 36, 39–41, 44–47, 50, 54, 55, 57, 60–63, 92–98, 126, 128, 132, 148, 175, 202, 205, 208–210, 214, 226, 227, 229, 232, 235, 240, 254n32, 262–264, 266–268, 270, 276, 278–287, 290, 292–294, 302–306

V The virtual, 3, 33, 34, 63, 128, 129, 164, 195, 224, 302, 306 W War-machine, 3, 3n1, 5, 11, 29, 31–36, 39–63, 131, 134, 159, 161, 162, 266, 278, 281, 302