The Night of Counting the Years

The Night of Counting the Years, also released in Arabic as The Mummy (Arabic: Al-Mummia المومياء), is a 1969 Egyptian film and the only feature film directed by Shadi Abdel Salam.^[1] The film was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. It is the 3rd on the list of Top 100 Egyptian films. ^[2][3][4]

It remains one of the best examples of neo-realism in Egyptian cinema. Other notable examples include Youssef Chahine's Al Ard (The Earth, 1968) and Al Usfur(The Sparrow, 1972) as well as Tewfik Saleh’s The Dupes(Al Makhdu'un, 1973).

Produced by Roberto Rossellini, who was instrumental in encouraging Abdel Salam to make the film, The Night of the Changing Years tells a story set among the grave robbers of Kurna in Upper Egypt.^[5]

"Shadi Abdel Salam's The Mummy was the forerunner of what was to become the hallmark of the new realism, namely, the preoccupation with the search for identity and the relationship between heritage and character."^[6]

The relationship between contemporary and Ancient Egypt is dealt with allegorically in the film. The static images of landscape and the rigid expressions of the main characters reflect those of the statues and reliefs found in Ancient Egypt. The use of classical Arabic, not Egyptian dialect which is normally used in Egyptian cinema, reinforces the impression of monumentalism.^[7]

The unrestrained sacking of the tombs is represented as a danger, threatening moral decline by inviting greed and sex to undermine the dignity of the tribe and its traditions, replacing the order of the world with chaos.

Shadi Abdel Salam has said that his task was to remind Egyptians of their own history: "I think that the people of my country are ignorant of our history and I feel that it is my mission to make them know some of it. I regard cinema not as a consumerist art, but as a historical document for the next generations."^[8]

Although he went on to direct short fiction and documentaries, The Night of the Changing Years remains Abdel Salam's only full length feature film.

Plot[]

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Set in 1881, When Egypt was under the rule of the Ottoman Khedives, a year before the start of British colonial rule, it is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that is stealing piecemeal a cache of mummies they have discovered at a tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, and selling the artefacts on the black market.

The central character, Wannis, discovers that his life is built on a lie, that his family have been looting valuable treasures from the tombs buried in the mountain behind their village. Wannis struggles to reconcile his conscience with his loyalty to his people. After his brother is killed, Wannis decides to inform the archaeologists who have come from Cairo, led by French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, of what has been going on.

Cast[]

• Nadia Lutfi as Zeena
• as Wannis
• Ahmad Hegazi as Brother
• Ahmad Anan as Badawi
• Shafik Nour El Din as Ayoub
• Gaby Karraz as Maspero
• Mohamed Khairi as Kamal
• Mohamed Nabih as Murad

Reception[]

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Critical reception for The Night of Counting the Years has been very positive, with Egyptian critics consistently list it as one of the greatest Egyptian films ever made.^[9] Aaron Cutler from Slant Magazine called it "both a classic film and a classic Arab film".^[10] Time Out London praised the film, calling it "Slow-moving but absorbing, and quite beautifully shot."^[11]

The film was not without its detractors. Richard Eder of The New York Times was critical of the film, writing, "Most of the movie, is done with stupefying grandiloquence. Wherever the camera touches, it sticks and won't let go. Landscape, brooding close-ups—and how they all do brood—interminable patterns of black-robed figures against the white sand: Every shot lingers and lingers. The acting is heavy and hieratic, fogged with a pretentious mysticism."^[12]

See also[]

• CIFF Top 100 Egyptian films
• List of Egyptian films of the 1960s
• List of Egyptian films of 1969
• Grave robbing
• List of submissions to the 43rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Egyptian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Bibliography[]

• Colla, Elliott (6 October 2000). Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib: History, Culture, and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 109–146 ("Shadi Abd al-Salam's al-Mumiya: Ambivalence and the Egyptian Nation-State"). ISBN 978-0-312-22287-1.

• Shafik, Viola (1998). Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-9774244759.

References[]

External links[]

• The Night of Counting the Years
  Al-Mummia at AllMovie
• The Night of Counting the Years at IMDb
• The Night of Counting the Years at Rotten Tomatoes

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