Alexandria Why? (Youssef Chahine, 1979)

Alexandria… Why? (Youssef Chahine, 1979)

إسكندرية ليه | ALEXANDRIA... WHY? (1979) dir. Youssef Chahine The film, set during World War II tells multiple stories, one being the director’s own story through the character of Yehia, a young man in Egypt with directorial ambitions but the passion to be an actor, who frequently watches the same film repeatedly at his local cinema out of fear that he missed something the first time, performs Shakespeare, struggles with social and familial pressures, falls in love, and pursues his dream of studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Subplots include a Jewish-Muslim couple struggling once a pregnancy comes to light, a homosexual romance between a gay English soldier and a wealthy Arab, and a wacky group of communists who plan to kidnap Winston Churchill in hopes of ending the war. (link in title)

The Night of Counting the Years. Dir. Shadi Abdel Salam. 1969.

life made a mess of us

in junior year of highschool my art teacher would let our ceramics class play music of our choice off of her desktop. we usually used spotify or youtube but she did have one album downloaded on her computer. it was a halloween sound effects/ambience collection. i dont remember why she had it. there was a track on there called "burning screams" which was exactly what it sounds like. just a cacophony of screams alongside crackling fire. she only let us play it on very special occasions, and we would cheer and jump with joy every time. it was like a pizza party to us

of course, and i see this reflected when i tell others to watch/read media from my country & realise no translation or lack-thereof will ever do the originals justice

Do you ever get sad knowing that you'll never know all the languages and so since translators make choices (they have to) and things sometimes don't fully translate you can never experience every book exactly as it was originally intended to be read?