The script itself is masterfully written with parts foreshadowing other parts of the story, not to mention the fact that it contains carefully placed metaphors and parallelisms that might as well go unnoticed for the first time due to their careful positioning and clever placement within the plot so as not to feel forced or driven to show one meaning or the other, this subliminal nature of the message beneath the obvious one which is that the artifacts of ancient Egypt should be turned in to the government makes the script and equally the film much stronger. The film’s pace is slow and relaxed which allows the viewer to take in every scene in, and fully understand it, the story is complex so that pace was very useful in allowing the audience follow the story especially since it was also aimed at the audience of the 1970s, which had life at a much slower pace than the one we live by these days. There are some scenes that I see as longer than necessary like when the uncle is holding up the pendant. I would have gone with a much tighter and economic editing, but I believe Shadi’s choice in portraying the movie in such a slow pace a helps the overall movie’s strength, and maybe a tighter editing would have made the movie confusing as well as killed the feeling Shadi wanted to portray.
In a breakdown the story’s structure, as mentioned in screenplay books such as Robert McKee’s Story and Syd Field’s Screenplay, Most stories begin by placing the protagonist(s) outside of their element or their safe zone and from there they would have to make choices that would lead them one way or another. These choices define their character’s dimensions, and shows the viewer what kind of a character is the protagonist. This begins early in act I (if the division of a screenplay into three acts, used commonly in Hollywood screenplay standards, is taken as the model here) for Ahmed Kamal going into Thebes in a time when no other archeologists are willing to go, and also for Wanys discovering the truth about his father shattered the world as he knows it and thus placing him in a position where he has to choose between following his father’s tradition and continue living in the lifestyle he now discovered to be wrong, decide to go against his father’s will, and if so what should he do with this knowledge, should he forget about it, leave the tribe and start anew like his brother wanted to before getting killed, or turn it in the Effendis that won’t pay for it and already have more than enough money and gold. That choice is left for him to ponder on throughout the whole movie in which he studies all angles and in the end reaches a final decision. The first act ends with the death of Wanys’ brother and the arrival of the archaeologists, now even selling the artifacts would be harder since the archeologists have a police convoy along with them. This along with meeting the stranger who asks Wanys to join him in some “Halal” work strikes a note within Wanys, since grave robbing is considered the extreme opposite of “Halal” which is “Haram”.
Act II introduces the character of Morad, trying to make use of the power shift within the tribe to his own good, trying to influence Wanys’ decision, this is also affected by Wanys starting to show feelings for the girl Zeina that accompanies Morad, a fact that is changed once Wanys discovers the truth about Morad and the girls, the act ends with the beating of Wanys and the Stranger on two separate occasions for two separate reasons, this pushes Wanys to try and finally understand the strangers which are the archaeologists, a choice that he thinks might be his last hope of preserving his morality.
In act III Wanys talks to Ahmed Kamal leader of the archaeologists and finally reaches the conviction that the moral thing to do is lead them to the tomb for they will take care of the dead and not steal them, and in the climax of them trying to get the tombs to the ship and the tribe waiting to ambush them, the ending unfolds nicely and well planned and in character with the tribe’s character and even though it is a simple resolution it is not a dues ex machina in fact it is probably the only logical for the tribe to act in these circumstances. This shows how masterfully Shadi weaved his script.
The original score of the film, made especially by Mario Nascimbene is very fitting, overall the movie has a dark and ominous tone strengthened by the music to a great extent never did I feel the music at one moment or another to be exaggerated or out of place but rather fitting whenever needed. Same goes for silence and sounds, the sound of the wind in the desert during the funeral and other moments gives a great atmosphere to the scenes as well as places the audience within the movie more, as well as the long moments of silence that lend the film more of its slow and relaxed pace, allowing the viewer to take everything in without distractions of noise or sound.
Now when it comes to lighting this is probably another of the major factors of the movie, in this movie Shadi decided to use only natural light and very little sources maintaining and overall dark and ominous feeling throughout the whole movie. Because Shadi Abd el Salam was also an artist and a painter, he knew how to think with light to portray an image be it to bring out complete depth, or emphasize colors in other scenes, it is pretty obvious how he uses the concept of Chiaroscuro (light and dark) used extensively in Baroque paintings such as ones by Caravaggio, Diego Velázquez, and of course Rembrandt Van Rijn amongst other 17th century baroque artists, this lighting effect maximized the emotions and feelings within a scene and made it even more emotional, not to mention that most of his scenes are paintings within themselves, which is understandable since he used to draw sketches and paintings of scenes before working on a movie. Also his extreme long shots resemble American landscape painting in the 19th century this cl#####ical approach to painting applied to a more modern film was very effective in emphasizing the point and establishing the environment.
To brush up on other aspects of this masterpiece, the acting was stunning even with the actors having to master the cl#####ical Arabic which is not an easy feat considering they had to deliver their lines believably as people who spoke in that language, but Nadia Lotfy’s performance was extremely memorable because her performance was completely silent yet her emotions the way she communicated with the other actors and the protagonist with just her eyes was amazing. Also Ahmed Marei (Wanys) performed amazingly the struggle growing within his character and how it pains him that the loss of his father came with the fact of him discovering his father’s past causing the loss to be greater, and how that pain showed in his performance. In a comment about their performances Nadia Lotfy stated that she chose the role because it was extremely challenging to portray “a character with all its facets and dimensions in a short period of time”, Ahmed Marei also Commented on his performance how it was hard for him as a rising actor to perform a role that required “feeling his role and it’s conflicts more than actually performing it with a strong expression, regardless of all the tension arising from the society”. Such a powerful performance from them as well as the rest of the cast helped push the artistic style of Shadi Abd el Salam and his gripping tale to make the story come to life.
This Film received praise from allot of international magazines and newspapers from Variety in America to major publications in England and France, all admiring the genius that it is. Yet within Egypt no other movie comes close to that amount of recognition, and even Shadi didn’t get a chance to create another masterful feature film. The Egyptian movie industry has been there since the first ever movie in 1927 called laila and with the Egyptians studios flourishing afterwards, Egyptians have been doing movies for as long as Hollywood have been, yet the Egyptian film industry tends to go in the direction of commercialism in a high extent, from plot less comedies composed of several jokes strung together by a paper-thin story if any and over the top action movie trying to mimic the American blockbusters such as those made by Michael Bay and John Woo. And with some of these movies Plagiarism and theft is so obvious it’s disgusting. No other movie came close to have painting like scenes let alone scenes that rival paintings by the most famous painters in art history that helped shape art today and inspired modern artists like Pic#####o (Velázquez was a huge inspiration to Pic#####o, Las Meninas was recreated by Pic#####o several times), Shadi’s work was the only one to reach such a level. Why haven’t Egyptian filmmakers taken this movie as an inspiration or even a point to consider, one aspect of that movie alone could make a great movie, be it the acting, the story, the artistic style of the scenes and the set, the music. Yet very little is considered if any, I’m not saying ban commercial movies and make only art films, by all means no, but commercial films can be artistic too, Amelie was considered a commercial film in France and yet every scene was a painting in itself, this time being inspired by French impressionism and post impressionism, and very beautiful the end result was. In Bruges had also very beautiful scenery and background in its artistic style of photography it was amazing enough to bring out the city of Bruges to life, and in the end it was an action-comedy the pinnacle of commercialism. Hitchcock’s movies were all thrillers and Horror films yet no Critic would disagree that his work was artistic. The Egyptian film industry is capable of producing such artistic shots and great looking movies, and the proof of that is El Momia and yet the Egyptian filmmakers don’t even focus on that aspect at all.
Another element was Shadi’s extensive research concerning the subject of his screenplay, very few Egyptian movies have half that amount of research if any, allot of historical movie are loaded with historical inaccuracies, allot of contemporary movies have facts that have no relation to the reality, like portraying characters in a certain area of Egypt or Cairo, only the surface is portrayed as a proper representation of the demographic in question without any depth at all resulting in cardboard cut-out parodies of their real life counterparts, turning the whole movie into a farce rather than a serious piece of work let alone art. I think it is just that the current generation of filmmakers and the studio system believes being commercial is the only way they could make money, which is not true , Egyptians have been movie goers even before there was Egyptian movies, Egypt had 11 movie theaters by 1908, nearly 20 years before the first Egyptian movie, Egyptians have always enjoyed the flair of storytelling and movies and won’t stop going to the movies, in fact they are now hungry for a change for something more artistic, more entertaining, more deep, more thoughtful, a movie that will speak to the minds as well as emotions, a movie that will grip their attention from start to finish, maybe not this one, but this movie was a step in the right direction to the extent that the west feared the Egyptian crawl into their world of cinema.
So in conclusion, I believe that it is up to the upcoming filmmakers to dis#####ociate themselves from the current drivel being produced, and start anew, start fresh just like the Horabat tribe, bury the old ways in a m#####ive funeral procession and start a new wave of Egyptian cinema that has the artfulness, the beauty as well as the gripping story and acting performance as a movie like El Momia because it is only then that Egyptian cinema would rise against the ranks of internationalism and compete by world standards, because even if an Egyptian commercial movie had such attention to detail in all aspects of moviemaking that movie would be held in such high regard internationally it is unbelievable. I only hope this that upcoming filmmakers would actually watch this movie and understand the sheer genius behind it, and that in itself would help push them in the direction the Egyptian cinema so desperately needs right now.

Rating 3.5/5

It all started with the group of special arabic at my school. I meat I very good racer at the finals of a CTR competition ( Crash Team Racing) that I won. We became familiar. He’s called Samir Kazzah. He owns the TIRS ( Taiwanese International Radio Staion) and is very famous for his gases that evolve every 2 years. We began to race virtually against each other every week. I did not know this man very well neither his gases. So then it happened.

I was invited to his house with an old friend of mine Talal. We entered his house and started to race virtually on the PS2. When we were done, he suggested to walk us out of his apartment. While we were in the elevator with him, he did deliberately held his hand on his chest and did it. What he did , had changed our lives, others lives and had started a new world . Samir had introduced us to the first ultimate Burp® in history ; luckily we had air masks with us.

At first, it was only a gag between me and my friends , but through time the Burp® had evolved and had been spread among us all ;from our cl#####, the school, Lebanon till the whole world. The Burp® had become world-wide and still is today.
Yes it is true that our techniques of bringing up Burp® s became mainly comedy. It made some people laugh, happy, sad, jealous, angry or quiet. There are several types of Burp® s people use: deep burps, aqua burps, solid burps with fries, exhaustion burps, internal burps, air burps, silent burps, external burps, essential burps frozen burps and much more.

Years past by and Burp® got a bit old, so we needed a new power up for it until it hit me again. I was reading the newspaper and I noticed a lot of report of Samir’s new atomic Fart™ s. Some of them were like: “people have abandoned their homes to find a more refreshing place to live in” or “A new world record 84 Fart™ s in one day!”

After all this, I knew I had to advertise the new Fart™ all over the world. A few gentlemen helped me with the situation. Fart™ became the 2nd Burp®. Though Burp® was still a 1st category. By the time Burp® & Fart™ were number one in our company. People from all over the world have been sending us messages with their ideas to the F.B.I. (Fart™. Burp®. Investigators). That wasn’t all, we also received emails, which were sent to www.burp.com from several countries in particular. Australia gave Raspberry™. Canada gave Sneeze™. U.S.A. gave POOP™. Japan gave Cough™. The middle east gave Teezez™ and last and least, Barja gave OMAK™!Now even certain students gave in good adds like : Beidi™ from Farouk (RANK 5) , KuRDi® by Rateb, HasHisH™ by Ali.T & Meows™ by Sami.

Here we are today at the beginning of the Burp® Age. Ladies and Gentle men, prepare to burp history..