By: Yomna Walid
For more than five decades, Ibrahim Al-Ariss has been one of the most influential voices in Arab film criticism. Born in Lebanon and closely connected to Egyptian cinema, the renowned critic, cultural history researcher, translator and journalist has translated more than 40 books and written some of the most significant studies on Arab and world cinema.
Al-Ariss studied film directing in Rome before moving to London to study screenwriting and film criticism. Among his most notable books are A Journey in Arab Cinema and Martin Scorsese: A Cinematic Biography. His deep attachment to Egyptian cinema also led him to write extensively about the legendary director &lsquo;Youssef Chahine: The Child&rsquo;s Gaze and the Rebel&rsquo;s Grip&rsquo;.
In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural Gouna Film Festival. His other works include Gharam fi Istanbul and Sin Path. In 2019, the Arab Cinema Center honoured him with the &lsquo;Critical Achievement Award&rsquo; in recognition of his influential career in film criticism across the Arab world.
NileFM speaks to Ibrahim Al-Ariss about his journey in film criticism, his relationship with Egyptian cinema, his memories of Youssef Chahine, his favourite contemporary stars and behind-the-scenes stories from some of Arab cinema&rsquo;s most celebrated films.
Your journey in film criticism spans more than 50 years. Looking back, which phase most shaped you as a critic?
I believe my path was shaped by two major phases. The first was my time in Rome, where I studied film directing but devoted most of my energy to art-house and experimental cinema, particularly at the Farnese Cinema. There, I watched, almost daily, films of the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism.
The second phase was in London, where I studied criticism and screenwriting at the British Film Institute, especially through the Free University and the lectures of John Blize. We also held regular evening gatherings to watch films, often by a single director or screenwriter, and once focusing entirely on the actor Dirk Bogarde. These sessions would begin at 8:00pm and last until 6:00am, followed by long discussions. This period was my true formative stage, both as a critic and as a cinema practitioner.
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Has Arab film criticism played a real role in supporting Arab cinema globally, or has it remained in directors&rsquo; shadows?
Over the past 25 years, Arab film criticism, particularly in Egypt, played a major role in supporting serious Arab cinema, especially filmmakers who understood how to engage with critics. Among them were Youssef Chahine, Mohamed Khan, Radwan El-Kashef, Daoud Abdel Sayed, Atef El-Tayeb, Borhane Alaoui&eacute;, and Tawfiq Saleh.
These filmmakers read criticism carefully and engaged with it seriously. Some major actors even sought our opinions, as criticism could directly influence careers. That is no longer the case today. Most critics of my generation have passed away, as have many of those directors. Today, critics have largely become festival employees, institutional consultants, or cinema traders. A close friend once told me a Gulf festival had appointed him its &ldquo;official critic.&rdquo;
You are also a researcher, translator, and writer. How has this diversity shaped your approach to film?
I place everything I know and practise at the heart of what I write. For me, there is no separation between criticism and creativity, nor between creativity and research. I often say that criticism is creativity built upon creativity.
A true critic does not aim to correct the artist or change the world, but to express themselves, perhaps creating a form of aesthetic contagion in the reader.
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As we mark the centenary of Youssef Chahine, why do his films still feel alive to each generation?
That is the essence of true creativity: to be born of its time yet remain alive forever. At its core is the relationship between the self and the audience across generations.
That is why I titled one of my books The Language of the Self and the Eternal Modern. We still read Plato and One Thousand and One Nights, watch Chaplin, John Ford and Hitchcock, and listen to Bach, Fairuz and Mozart, just as generations before us did, and as future generations will continue to do.
I often smile ironically when people speak of supposed conflicts surrounding Umm Kulthum, Salah Abu Seif or Abdel Halim Hafez or even Ella Fitzgerald.
You once described Chahine as the pioneer of autobiographical cinema in the Arab world. What does that mean?
Cinema is both an industrial and commercial art, which long imposed a rule: that personal films required large budgets. Chahine was among the first to break that rule.
He did so most clearly in his autobiographical Alexandria quartet: Alexandria&hellip; Why? (1979), An Egyptian Story (1982), Alexandria Again and Forever (1989) and Alexandria&ndash;New York (2004). In truth, he practised this approach, sometimes implicitly, across much of his work.
His success, both artistically and commercially, encouraged many Arab filmmakers to follow. Without Chahine&rsquo;s courage in exposing his personal history on screen, we might not have seen the later autobiographical films of Yousry Nasrallah, Khaled El-Hagar, Mohammad Malas, Nouri Bouzid or F&eacute;rid Boughedir.
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While writing The Child&rsquo;s Gaze and the Rebel&rsquo;s Grip, did you discover anything new about Chahine?
If I were to rewrite the book today, I would add many things; not because it is lacking, but because time reshapes reception.
I read The Brothers Karamazov at 15, again at 30, and many times since. Each reading revealed something new, and my sympathies shifted between characters. This is what reception theory is about.
Which Chahine film holds the most personal meaning for you?
On a human level, "Bayya&lsquo; El-Khawatem" (The Ring Seller) is the most important, as it marked my first meeting with Chahine and my work as his assistant on set between 1964 and 1965.
The film I love most is "Cairo Station," which I consider one of the most important films in Arab cinema history. Abdel Hai Adeeb, its screenwriter, later became my mentor. Working with him prepared me to study screenwriting at the BFI.
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What has Arab cinema lost since the passing of figures such as Chahine and Salah Abu Seif?
Their films remain present and continue to reach audiences worldwide. Each of these directors created cinematic schools and languages that later generations continue to develop.
What we lost, I lost, were friends and exceptional interlocutors.
Is there a memory of Chahine that best reflects his humanity?
There is one memory I will never forget, or rather, two.
The first was when Egypt&rsquo;s Ministry of Culture wanted to honor him in the final years of his life. The distinguished minister Farouk Hosny and the late critic and official Ali Abu Shadi met with Chahine and told him that the ministry intended to publish a book about him. They presented him with a list of around ten Egyptian critics and asked him to choose one.
He looked at the list and said to the minister: &ldquo;They are all my friends and beloved colleagues, and all are great critics, but I want Ibrahim Al-Ariss to write the book.&rdquo;
Ali Abu Shadi immediately left the minister&rsquo;s office to call me in Paris and ask if I agreed. Of course, I did. Despite the fact that Abu Shadi&rsquo;s own name was on the list, he fully supported the decision. Although Chahine later declined the honor and the project was frozen at his request, after his passing, publisher Ibrahim El-Moallem of Dar El Shorouk contacted me to publish the book. That is how The Child&rsquo;s Gaze and the Rebel&rsquo;s Grip was born.
The second moment took place during the night shooting of a scene from &ldquo;Al-Massir&rdquo; (Destiny) at Galal Studio, at a time when I was in a deep disagreement with Chahine. I met actress Laila Elwi, who was extremely happy working with him and invited me to attend the shoot. I told her about my disagreement with Chahine and that my presence might bother him. She convinced me otherwise.
During a break, Laila and I were talking when someone suddenly stood between us, leaning on our shoulders and handing me a sandwich. It was Youssef Chahine himself. Laila laughed and said, &ldquo;I thought you were fighting.&rdquo; He replied jokingly, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been fighting and reconciling for thirty years, and both of us explode like bombs.&rdquo;
Throughout your career, which Egyptian actors or actresses did you feel closest to, on a human or artistic level, and why?
First and foremost is my lifelong friend Mahmoud Hemeida, for whom I once wished to write a screenplay about Al-Mutanabbi, though circumstances prevented it.
There is also Laila Elwi, whose creativity, humility, culture, and intellectual curiosity restored my faith in great artists and reminded me that they possess emotional and human particularities that compel us to understand them, even their impulses.
Among other dear friends in cinema are Lebleba, the great cinema lover, Yousra, Yousra El Lozy, Nour El-Sherif, with whom I shared deep cultural ties, as well as Khaled El-Nabawy, the late Mohammad Bakri of Palestine, Nada Abou Farhat from Lebanon, and more recently Boshra and the remarkable Moroccan actress Nisrin Erradi, who restored the presence of the true movie star in Morocco despite her young age, something that had somewhat faded since the unjustified disappearance of the wonderful Mouna Fettou.
<a href="https://ibb.co/F4QYrfZJ"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/5hQj0zpv/5.png" alt="5" border="0" /></a> Finally, what are your upcoming projects? Are you currently working on a new book or project that we will see soon?
My current projects revolve around distancing myself more and more from what is today, somewhat humorously, called film criticism, and focusing instead on my other interests, such as philosophy, political thought, literary criticism, and encyclopedic projects.
Recently, two of my books were published in Saudi Arabia: &ldquo;Cinema and the Desert &ldquo;and &ldquo;Cinema and Its Sisters.&rdquo; I also released The Encyclopedia of the Global Novel in two volumes. In the coming weeks, in Cairo will publish a complete enlightenment library by me, beginning with books on Garc&iacute;a M&aacute;rquez, Naguib Mahfouz, Ibn Khaldun, Bergman, Plato, Picasso, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare, among others.
Photo Credit: Hanna Ward via Luxor Africa Film Festival&rsquo;s official website
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