Rarely has a film looked like provided that "The Sparrow" to the expression of "Film-world" including Serge Daney described some films that had this characteristic to embrace reality in all its complexity. This expression was twofold: first, to affirm the autonomy of cinema in relation to any evidence which is external, whether social, political or cultural. Secondly, and this is a much more problematic, asserting the supremacy of film to reality, aesthetic and ontological supremacy, because it is an indivisible whole which overlaps in some ways from reality, which cancels in the duplicates, which gives a comprehensive interpretation and reduced to its essence. Serge Daney was even talk of home cinema, which would be a habitable world, because it contains all the elements necessary for self-sufficiency of the individual: the spectacle of reality magnified, both deconstructed and hyper constructed diverse and yet united by deeply the eyes of a creator. The vision of the Sparrow refers to the totalizing conception of cinema. One feels that sense of every way of the cinema a reality heterogeneous and confused, to represent the multiplicity of individual trajectories, this incessant proliferation of life into a painting overall.
Indeed, it has criticized the Chahine confused nature of the narrative, both in the House Sparrow and many other films that follow the same structure, that of a multiplicity of trajectories and evolving characters to a critical moment in our collective history. Indeed, mounting hit, the story unraveled and as popcorn, the flickering of the film almost physical sense of the historical individual logic may probably disrupt the aesthetic appreciation of the Sparrow. However, this apparent confusion only highlights deeper the foundation of the film: the prevalence the trajectory of individual characters, inextricably woven into the fabric of general history, and yet irreducible to it. For what is the value of Chahine, it's still his deep perception of human depth and more of that crowd of people who are found involved in some stage of their lives to national events or world while maintaining their inner thoughts, their doubts, their hopes and their doldrums. What is most striking about this movie is Chahine's way of undermining the very foundations of his film, confusing the audience by thwarting a systematically their expectations.
In Sparrow, the profession of faith of the film, announced at the pre-credits, is the analysis of socio-political reasons for the collapse of the Egyptian army during the War of the six days in 1967. His thesis is clear, clear, one might even say simplistic: the rout of the Egyptian troops was caused by gangrene, corruption and lies that plague the upper echelons of power. The entire film is structured by the parallelism between Egyptian troops preparing to fight against an external enemy, Israel, and the main characters who confront them with an enemy within. However, the structure elusive, almost elusive narrative, this logic phagocyte ever realistic. If we compare the film to the model Chahine films political activists of the 70s, we realize that these films often have a characteristic of both narrative and stylistic analysis and reporting of actions require underground power editing and narrative structure of type record, where each and every event plan is to serve the general thesis of the film. In the structure linear character of the film plus the one-dimensional character that serves as an indicator of corruption or bases of power. The establishment of the general context flange and any singularity of the character who becomes the instrument of a demonstration. The Sparrow is the opposite of that system. Although the willingness of the filmmaker is in the tradition of political films that attempt to explain and analyze why a particular social or political event, and although the general context, that of the days that preceded the defeat of 67 is pervasive, the film has a structure singular, which makes it difficult to grasp or clamp in a single dimension. Mounting especially dismantles this profession of faith of the political film: it is not fitting analytic, where each segment and each plan contributing to building a coherent set of events. It is instead a montage hatched hit, broken, sometimes even incomprehensible to those who viewed the movie for the first time. Temporality is often abruptly disrupted, the flashbacks are inserted as monstrous growths, the sequence of events is punctuated by sudden surges of narrative digressions, moments of pause or suspension action. One might wonder what happens to the story that its structure is thus defeated. I think the explanations are manifold: they arise from reasons both external and internal to the narrative. External because Chahine seems to bring on a stylistic break in the Arab consciousness during the defeat of 67. It is the abandonment of an entire society that the film translated and wife, so its structure is like this shattered society, breathless with so many deceptions and lies, panting and looking for truth long hidden. The second reason is internal to the film foundation. Indeed, the main characters, especially Rauf, are seeking a truth that all others strive to hide. They are sometimes lost in this labyrinth of lies woven by power, and are facing the gulf that separates truth from falsehood, fact from fiction and reality from fiction. This is all the more striking that the character of Raoul is not only seeking the truth in politics but also seeks the truth about his origins. The assembly thus reflects this kind of vague discomfort and disorientation experienced by characters, like a premonition of approaching defeat. From this angle, the film could even be considered a documentary that captures the deleterious atmosphere reigned in the streets and minds in Egypt a few days before the defeat of 67, generated by the delay, the mad hope and yet pathetic, and fever bubbling above the storms.
The first images of the film already announced the malaise of the hero and with him the whole society: Raouf and Riad, son of the chief of police, leaving each to one front: the one against the external enemy, Israel, the other to a remote village in southern Egypt to try to neutralize Abu Khedhri, a bandit accused of stealing the machines installed in a refinery to boost the economy of the village and who is able to reign terror unspeakable and heavy atmosphere. From the first images, the heroic epic of the two characters on the threshold of their house is riddled from within by some false reports between Raoul and his parents, a background concern and discomfort emerge from this shift in family relationships, the characters are planted in front of one another, rigid, tense, and as separated by a distance as irreducible invisible. Already, the undermining of the figure of the hero started, already national unity represented by the family disintegrates, bloated from the inside by gangrene and deep underground. This discrepancy between fact and perception, between actions and their explanation and deeper between the main character and the logic state is increasing throughout the film. Arriving in the village, the character runs into the code of silence and closed and inscrutable faces of the villagers. It sat in the dust and at that time still seems to condemn the emptiness and waiting. Something missing from his reading of events. The official version does not stick, something gnaws from within. But then came Youssef, the character of the journalist, who delivers a new and different story, namely that the villain in question is the victim in the senior ranks of power, who handled pushing the machines to steal. The intervention of the character Youssef is a tilting moment of the film. If Chahine had content to reveal the false, manipulative and opaque in power, his film would have been a yet another stone in the pond and would have had an interest in film, if not historical, relative. However, at the onset Youssef, new connections are taking place, a new thickness appears in the relationships between the characters. That's what usually makes the value of films Chahine: Whatever the shackles which enclose initially, the character manages to generate a force of will Promethean, and conquered this part of individual freedom and breathing that result in escape lyric at odds with the strict grid beginning of the film. As as Raouf discovers the truth not only political but also the traffic on himself and his origins, he enters a new community, whose central character is of Bahia, both mother and pasionaria, muse and shelter, one of those characters generous woman with a big heart like Egypt and extends his protection and grace on all who approach.
Here's the fauna and human proliferating pathetic observed under the microscope of Chahine. As the scenario that may seem disjointed at first, the relationships between the characters are struck with a high coefficient of improbability. The friendship between Sheikh Ahmed, a little rustic villagers, who came all the way from his village in southern Egypt, Youssef, idealistic journalist who sacrifices any family or personal search for the truth, Raouf the atypical cop, the son of a musician who committed suicide and whose theme song until the end of the film structure the narrative and give his life to patriotic and tragic, Bahia finally, character without a doubt the most poignant film, both mother, friend, lover and fighter. This friendship might at first seem quite unbelievable, was the deep humanity that Chahine invests each of his characters in his own way to discover, beyond appearances, a profound correspondence between human beings.
The relationship between the individual stories and the overall context of the Six Day War is also confusing in the film. In the pre-generic Chahine announced have designed the film to explain the reasons for the defeat, to give to the poor Egyptian people, humble and cheated, explanations of political and social reasons that led to the Naksa, the catastrophe of 67. The filmmaker was therefore initially pedagogical intentions. However, Chahine maliciously likes to blur the lines: the war against Israel is perceived as a fragmented manner, and gradually as the story advances, it becomes very secondary. Some news from the front reaches the characters in the form of letters or mental images, some concern can be seen in the faces, sometimes means the radio broadcast patriotic songs, but that's all. The reference to the general context of the war against Israel is almost erased the image, and a spectator who come from another planet and would not know beforehand the general context probably could not understand what happened during those few days. Everything happens as if Chahine liked to constantly engulf the very logic of his film. The investigation into the reasons for the defeat of 67 is replaced by a quasi-police investigation on flights factory in a village lost in southern Egypt. The character trivial and ridiculous of this survey is quite confusing. It continues to be taken from a growing unease throughout the film: where are the images of war that hides the politicians who planned it, the soldiers who were unable to conduct the people she has destroyed? The image of this war constantly eludes us, it seems that the characters and with them the whole society have forgotten that they got lost in deceptive research. Only in the last frame as the brutal and shocking return of reality has hit the characters. Latest sequences of the film could also be likened to what is called return of the repressed. Reality forgotten, repressed, relegated to second place, again suddenly surface. In the latest plan, the truth is finally discovered: Egypt lost the war. Any official propaganda was a big lie, like everything else besides, as these flights factory, these crimes feud between villagers, such as family relationships. Something fatal was played without the knowledge of the characters, something they could not grasp the stakes.
The last sequence Film: Bahia hand deliver a neighbor who is expecting her umpteenth child, she probably stay there all night, with Fatma Rauf is still taking trucks from thieves legitimate, "Youssef is fighting for the newspaper to publish an article. At dawn, when Bahya returns to her home, she finds Youssef, slouched on a chair, his haggard face and as distorted by pain, unrecognizable. What happened? The new, overwhelming, incomprehensible, unimpeachable, fell on all the characters. They meet in front of the television to listen to the speeches of Nasser who announced his resignation. A close up on TV and on the face of Nasser, who delivers his speech in a flat voice, then successive shots on the various characters who seem dazed by the news. In this last sequence, we feel that this sense of unease underground, this vague uneasiness, this frantic and fruitless search, finally find their enlightenment in a final speech.
What happened? Chahine really not trying to answer this question. It stands rather the finding of gangrene that eats away at society. But his film does not stop there. The intercutting and sometimes confrontation between the individual history and collective history, the multiplicity of trajectories, reflecting on the reasons for the defeat compose a kind of puzzle, which is gradually established. But this puzzle helps to reveal the most popular of these action figures that give a definitive explanation for the defeat.
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