Afrita hanem
| Title: | Afrita hanem |
| Year: | 1949 |
| Directors: | Henry Barakat |
| Writers: | Henry Barakat (story) Abu Seoud El-Ibiary (writer) |
| Actors: | Samia Gamal | Farid Al Atrache | Lola Sedki | Ismail Yasseen | Abdel Salam Al Nabulsy | Stephan Rosti | Zeinat Sedki |
| Rating: | 4.9 | 36 votes |
| Languages: | Arabic |
| Color: | Black and White |
| Country: | Egypt |
| Company: | Oriental |
| Genres: | Fantasy | Comedy | Romance |
| Plot: | |
| 1) Asfour wants to marry his boss’ daughter Aleya, but Aleya’s father rejects him because of his lower class and his lack of money. Asfour later meets a mysterious old man who advises him to go to a cave in the mountain, where he will find bliss. The cave contains a magical lamp with a female genie named Kahramana. Asfour commands her to assist him in his desire to win Aleya, but the genie has plans of her own for him. | |
| Comments: | |
| 1) Afrita Hanem is one of the Classics in Egyptian Movie History. Itfeatures both Samia Gamal (a legendary dancer, considered by many to bethe greatest Egyptian dancer of all times) and Farid Al-Atrache (one ofthe best Arab musicians of all times). The two have starred incountless romantic comedies together and are beloved by the Egyptianpublic even today. This particular movie is the Story of a poorsinger(Farid) who finds a magic lamp with a beautiful genie(Samia). TheGenie falls in love with the singer instantly because he looks exactlylike her long lost love. She promises to give him anything his heartdesires. The singer who is in love with his co-star and bosses daughtertries everything he can to gain her interest but his Genie doeseverything she can to thwart his plans. This leads to some veryhumorous events. Although the movie is old and it's values are dated itcan still be seen and understood by all audiences today includingAmericans with little to no understanding of Arab or Egyptian culture.Just like the values in our old movies in America are different fromthe values we hold to day. If you keep in mind what the early portionof the 19th century was like and keep those conservative values in yourthought the movie should make a lot of sense. Someone else wrote thatone of the scenes which had demons and dancing girls in it, didn't makeany sense but seems to have forgotten that that was a part of theirshow not an actual event that supposedly happens to them in the movie.Throughout the movie they work in an Opera house producing musical anddance productions which are highly successful. This scene is from theirshow. It is also symbolically supposed to represent the torment thatthey had to go through to be with each other. The film quality iscomparable to American films of the same era. Also if you have the DVDthere are English subtitles which make the movie much easier tounderstand. I'm assuming that the person who wrote the previous reviewis probably watching one without subtitles.
2) "Lady Genie", before anything else, is a fun movie. It’s sort of across between Gene Kelly and Bollywood. The acting is good, and thesinging and dancing are excellent. The plot is very silly indeed, and Ifound it extremely diverting, despite the flaws which I shall now list. The first is not a flaw so much as a disclaimer: those not familiarwith the Arabic culture may be baffled for most of the duration. Thisis an Arabic movie made for an Arab audience, and there are noexplanations for outsiders. Second: I have compared "Lady Genie" to a Gene Kelly movie, and thesimilarities are in that the music numbers are long and don’t furtherthe plot. Especially the finale with the demons and the girls in thecages — long and random. Finally: it’s old, and cheap. The film quality in particular suffersfrom this. But, as I said in the beginning, it’s a wild romp, quite funny andfeaturing some world-class belly-dancing. |
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