On the 50th anniversary of the release of its first issue in 1951, a French cinema magazine organized a ceremony that included the screening of 50 films at the Parisian hall Arlican. The films represented the magazine and its editors’ top choices over 50 years at the rate of one film per year, according to the daily Al Hayat.
The Arab cinema had its share of this significant ceremony, as the movie “Al Asfour” (The Bird) by Yousef Shahin was chosen to represent the Arabic film industry in 1973.
The French magazine gave a full account of the film, saying, “It is a plot that begins in the form of a detective story about a thief who hides in the mountains, but who quickly finds himself surrounded with questions.”
These questions, the magazine added, “appear to be metaphysical and political. This is exactly the same situation of soldiers in the Sinai desert who waited for an imaginary enemy, and as a result started suspecting the presence of such an enemy. The accused appears in the investigation as nonrepresentational.”
“The film, which tackles the question of meaninglessness, is one of Shahin’s films in which he had mastered better than the others the overlapping political scenario. “Shahin knew how to add real touches to the film, which may appear more complicated than it should be,” continued the magazine -- Albawaba.com
