Cario Station Review

 

Rating: 3/5 ✯✯✯

Release Date: 1958

Genre: Crime/Drama

Director: Youssef Chahine 

Actors: Youssef Chahine, Farid Shawqi, Hind Rostom

Plot

The 1958 release of "Cairo Station" is a great Egyptian movie. In the film, a physically challenged newspaper salesman named Qinawi develops an obsession with a young employee named Hannuma at the Cairo railway station.

Qinawi starts stalking and harassing Hannuma as his obsession develops into a lethal addiction. Abou Serib, a porter who also works at the station, is the man she is engaged to.

In his increasing fascination and desperation to gain Hannuma's love, Qinawi ultimately reaches a violent and deadly conclusion. In a Cairo that is quickly modernizing, the movie examines issues of abuse, workers issues, and violence.

Review 

"Cario Station" was both a good and poor film. The performances, filming, and extras would have to be considered the positive components of the movie. Amazing Qinawi performance by Youssef Chahine. It was easy to tell that this person had a mental illness. He was a lame man, which explained why he walked with a lack of energy. It was as though he was gazing into people's souls when he would stare at them. When they would zoom in on his eyes and the person he was staring at, it increased the tension and made the scene even more impressive. Because of how much emotion they would show, the extras they used truly gave these characters a sense of being a part of the story. With everyone being so loud and enthusiastic, the union scene gave me the impression that I was there with everyone. The creepiness of Qinawi was one of the movie's problems for me. When he would look at ladies or make obscene moves towards Hanuma, He truly bothered me. I felt it strange that she would be overly playful with him, but it demonstrated how independent of other people's characters she was as she did her own thing her way. I was unable to grasp the movie's core message. It felt like there was mini sub points such as domestic abuse and mental health. The film never wrapped up any of these points for me. I'm left wondering what exactly was the point of this film, was it to show what a modernizing Cario is like or was it to highlight problems with Egypt's society? Overall, this is why I give it only 3 stars and not 5.  

 

Outside Class Review 

I chose a review from IMDb. The review I evaluated is by user kinchomatto. They give the film 6 out of 10 stars. What made their review stand out was the title. The title of their review is "Exotic Pervy Period Piece". They call the film a "quirky side story to a classic Film Noir such as Casablanca." I do not know about the film they are representing but in my free time I want to find out and see if I agree with them. They don't go into detail why they gave their review this title. I thought about it, and I would name my review the same thing.  The creepy side of Qinawi's really stood out to me and did not sit right with me.