Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Jackson Booth-Millard I read more about this Egyptian film after finding it in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, but it did not make the final nominations, so I was more intrigued to watch it. Basically newsstand owner Madbouli (Hassan el Baroudi) takes pity on physically challenged peddler Qinawi (Youssef Chahine, also directing). He is given a job selling newspapers in the Cairo train station, but he is shunned by all the women there because of his mild handicap, although he has little trouble walking. Qinawi becomes obsessed with beautiful cold drink vendor Hannuma (Hind Rostom), but she is already engaged to husky luggage porter Abu Siri (Farid Shawqi), who is trying to organise a protest with his fellow workers against exploiting and abusive treatment from the manager. Hannuma treats Qinawi sympathetically, and makes a joke about a possible relationship, this prompts him to propose to her. He has fantasies about a home and family with her, but Hannuma rejects him, and Qinawi's obsession with her turns into madness. Qinawi reads a story in the newspapers about an unsolved murder, he is inspired to buy a knife and plots to kill Hannuma. Local policemen are trying to catch Hannuma and the other women illegally selling drinks, she asks Qinawi to take and hide her incriminating drink bucket. Qinawi seeks to lure her into a warehouse to pick up the bucket, but instead she asks a friend to get it instead. In the darkness, Qinawi is unaware that a different woman comes into the warehouse, he stabs her repeatedly, hides the body in a wooden crate. Qinawi gets Abu Siri to put the crate aboard a train, but the woman inside it is not dead, she is found, and the station is alerted. The workers Abu Siri tried to form a union with at first try to blame the attempted murder on him, but the would-be victim identifies the assailant. Meanwhile, unaware of her near-death escape, Hannuma goes to the warehouse to get her bucket. Qinawi chases her through the rail yard and catches her, he holds a knife to her head to keep a crowd of people away. The newsstand owner tells Qinawi that he will be allowed to marry Hannuma, he coaxes him into putting on what he thinks is a wedding garment. Qinawi then realizes he has been put into a straitjacket, he struggles, but is taken away by the authorities. It is the story of a disabled man with a deluded affection is driven to insanity, I thought it was going to a simple sad tale of a love story that can never be, but it turned dark, and the use of the location was great, I really liked it, a most interesting drama. Very good!

MartinHafer "Cairo Station" is a very sad film...there's no getting around that. The story is tragic and when the film ends, you'll likely feel a bit drained...so don't day I didn't warn you. But I am not saying to avoid this Egyptian flick...it's well worth seeing.The story begins with Madbouli introducing the film and explaining how me met and befriended Qinawi*. Qinawi was a poor guy with a limp without a friend in the world...so he adopted him and helped set him up at the train station selling newspapers. What follows for much of the film is showing the plight of all the many workers at the station-- the porters, women who work there illegally selling drinks and the rest. They get paid next to nothing and life is very, very hard.About midway through the story, Qinawi approaches Hanouma and proposes to her. But he's poor, limps and seems a bit slow intellectually...and Hanouma is an obnoxious pig. So she laughs at him and belittles him for proposing to her! Qinawi is crushed...and soon has murder on his mind. Here is where it gets interesting because although everyone watching the picture knows murder is wrong, within many or perhaps most watching the film, there is a part of them that wants to see the coarse and horrid Hanouma die! This reminds me of the great 1944 film, "The Suspect"...where the audience naturally cheers for the leading man to kill and hopes he gets away with it!! I don't want to say more...other than the plan does NOT go as Qinawi hoped...and ends on a very sad note.The film has a good story but there are other interesting things going for it. The camera-work is pretty amazing...especially coming from a nation not known for filmmaking. Many of the scenes have an almost film noir style to them with the lighting and camera angles. And, the film is rather daring--especially choosing to make the movie about folks near the bottom of society. Worth seeing.*Like many films not in English and from countries with non-Western alphabets, there is no one way to spell the characters' names. The subtitles call him Qinawi and IMDb Kinawi...both are correct.

Boba_Fett1138 This is simply one fine movie because it follows a solid and involving story about simple characters, dealing with only seemingly small problems and frustrations.This is actually a quite daring movie, from such a religious and strict country such as Egypt, especially for its time of course. Not that there is anything shocking in by any other standards but the main characters is a both mentally as physically handicapped one and the female lead is quite flirtatious and free-minded. Besides, the movie also casually has other themes such as female rights and abuse, not just toward women but also abuse from the bosses of the simple workers and denying them equal rights. But the movie is not preachy about any of these subjects at all and I like I said, it actually only handles it casually as the movie it's main story moves along. And the movie does move quite fast, which is not necessarily due to its pace but more because there is always something happening story-wise, with one of the many characters.It's all being weaved in quite cleverly and effectively with its main story of the physically challenged peddler, who falls for the very attractive Hanuma, who is way more woman than he ever can handle. It's therefore also an already doomed love-story from the start and luckily the movie also doesn't have a fairy tale type of story.It's a bit of an old fashioned done sort of movie, with also some unusual acting styles in it but this is what works quite refreshing at the same time. It's always interesting to compare movies from different continents, that got made during the same time period. Every country has its own strongly present culture present and also a different sort of film-making that goes along with it. This movie got made at the time period that is known as the golden age of Egyptian cinema. Many people don't seem to know this but during the '40's and '50's lots of worldwide critically acclaimed movies got made in Egypt, of which this movie is also one.A great vivid movie, that follows a great story and has some solid characters in it.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

dbdumonteil This Egyptian movie is a miracle in itself.It can appeal to anyone in the world and is as good as any great work of any country.All takes place in a station with a frustrated paper boy,living his life vicariously through pin ups photographs ,the central character .Round him, lots of secondary characters revolve .He seems an outcast ,without any friend,and despised by all the girls around.The work sometimes recalls Jean Renoir's "La Bete Humaine" ,but with more attention to detail.This is a microcosm which the director films with virtuosity (the editing is stunning ) and his story has a ring of sincerity.Chahine once told he put a lot of himself in his pitiful hero.The movie does not fall easily into a genre:it is a documentary about a station with street hawkers -Hanuma almost got run over while trying to escape from the Police;it is also a political movie ,some of the workers feeling they need an union;it's also a sentimental movie ,a young couple about to be parted -strangely the young girl reappears at the very end of the movie ;it's a thriller ,the scenes in the warehouse compares favorably with Hitchcock and all best film noir directors ;it's finally a movie which almost verges on fantasy and horror ,with a final as impressive as those of "sunset boulevard" or "whatever happened to Baby Jane?" There's even an embryonic woman's lib! Let's underline the importance of the wide screen ,which makes the director look like an entomologist watching an ant hill with a magnifying glass:"Bab El Hadid" ,it's all this and more.