The Yacoubian Building Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Sprawling, messy ... and occasionally great

Despite a virtual roll-call of bleak current-affairs concerns (fundamentalism, prostitution, sexual harassment, adultery, homosexuality, domestic violence, political corruption, drug-dealing, torture, you name it...), THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING is actually like nothing so much as an Arab version of those hysterically overblown Latin American soap 'novelas' which go on for ever. Even Brookside was never like this...

It's not particularly visually ravishing, and it certainly isn't a model of how to structure or edit a film - like the Cairo in which it's set, this movie sprawls all over the place and has long stretches where nothing valuable seems to happen at all. But (again like Cairo) it's stuffed with gems: some wonderful performances, especially from Adel Imam as the world-weary rake and roue 'Pasha' and Khaled Saleh as a wonderfully roguish and sinister State Security man, an astonishingly frank head-on approach to some of its 'big issues', and an overall sense that it's a love letter to an impossible city.

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING - both the film and the novel it's based on - caused a huge stink (and a huge splash) in Egypt for being so frank in confronting many 'taboo' subjects, like state oppression, what motivates the young to go in for fundamentalism, the decline of the country's hopes over the past few decades. There are certainly moments when it feels a little clunky, a bit too much of an 'issue' film at the expense of real drama or characterisation. But to a non Arab audience maybe what comes across most strongly is the intense atmosphere of envy and barely-suppressed class hatred and violence. Everyone's jockeying for a better future, and ready to sacrifice any 'finer' feelings they might have for a good swindle. The rich sneer and exploit, while the poor scheme to bring them down. It's an overwhelmingly claustrophobic and decadent milieu (especially as the film mostly sticks to interiors), and really not a barrel of laughs.

But despite that, and some frankly clumsy direction at some points, you should see this film: because it's a miracle it exists at all, because it truly does give a window into a part of the world all too infrequently seen on film, especially in the West, and because of its deeply humane, elegaic and often comic view of its setting. (Almost) all human life is here. Give it a go!

Preferred the book

I first read the book, which is a highly recommended read - and decided to see the film. The film is good, only problem which I realised too late, is that the film is in Arabic with no English subtitles - there are no subtitles in any languages. My understanding of Arabic is quite limited...