**This article includes spoilers for the movie Leon The Professional
Movies have been there since 1888 when Louis Le Prince directed Roundhay Garden Scene. Every single movie that was made since the past is built based on six different approaches. Those approaches are the ideology, history, national cinema, auteur, genre, and formalism. Cairo Station is an Egyptian feature film directed by Youssef Chahine in 1958 and it takes place in Cairo’s trains station. It talks about a lame man called Qinawi, played by Youssef Chahine, who has sexual repression and he is rejected by Hanouma, played by Hind Roustom. This current article will study the ideological approach, formalism approach, and auteur approach of Cairo Station.
Every movie has its own ideology that is presented either implicitly, neutrally, or explicitly. In Cairo Station film, an ideology about the gap between social classes and poverty in Egypt is presented. The people who work at the station are very poor, while most of the travelers are from the bourgeois class and they are called “pashawat”. For instance, Hanouma is a woman who works at the station as drinks illegal vendor and Qinawi works as magazines vendor. This shows how poor the people who live in Cairo’s station are; they work illegally in order to get money for living. Chahine also shows how the station’s workers are there to serve the rich traveling pashas.
The ideologies presented in Cairo Station are sexual repression, gender inequality, and the gap between social classes. In Cairo Station, Qinawi is an Egyptian man from Upper Egypt and he lives in a small hut in Cairo’s trains station. He uses his hut as a secret place to express his sexual repression through attaching photos of half nude women on the walls of his hut. Moreover, Qinawi is seen sexually repressed when he follows Hanouma to her room and watches her while changing her clothes. He also proves his sexual frustraition by asking Hanouma to let him touch her “soft hand”. Moreover, Youssef Chahine shows in his movie how the patriarchal society dominates women and how women are objectified. This is conveyed through how men in the trains’ station look at women’s body parts as if women are objects that only can use their bodies. This is also proved by the use of closeups on women’s breasts and legs. Due to the patriarchal society that Arab women live in, women are always blamed for any kind of harassment that they face. In addition to that, gender inequality is visible in most of the scenes of Cairo Station. For instance, Abu Seri hits Hanouma because she was dancing with a rock band in the train. He also tells her that he told her before to wear more conservative outfits. Another example of gender inequality is when a man in the station tells his wife that Qinawi is looking at her because she is not wearing her veil.
When it comes to the auteur’s approach Youssef Chahine did several roles in his feature film, Cairo Station. He was the director and the main actor of his film. Chahine have chosen drama, comedy, and crime as a genre for his film Cairo Station (as cited in Kumar, 2018). In other words, he delivered the ideologies of his film through the dramatic events of the station’s workers, Hanouma’s comic actions, and through Qinawi’s mysterious crime. Therefore, Chahine is distinguished from other directors and labeled as auteur when it comes to using genres as tools to convey the ideologies of his films. One of the tools that made Chahine an auteur is how politics are implied to the characters’ lives in his films (as cited in Bradshaw,2008). This means that this tool was used in Chahine’s films in order to show the political situation of Egypt through the different stories of each character. Another tool that makes Chahine a great auteur is his usage of light and darkness in order to deliver the ideologies and the character’s thoughts. For instance, darkness was the dominant in Cairo Station’s first crime scene that was totally dim. Furthermore, in the last scene, when Qinawi tried to kill Hanouma, Chahine used a dark look to convey how dangerous Qinawi’s sexual frustration is.
When it comes to the formalism approach, in Cairo station Chahine choices of the mise en scene are chosen carefully. Chahine used a lot of close ups. For instance, he chose to take closeups on women’s body parts and on Qinawi’s eyes to show Qinawi’s sexual repression. This means that the usage of close ups on Qinawi’s face utilized his feelings. Moreover, props play a major role in delivering the content of Cairo Station. For example, trains were used to show how the proletariats serve the bourgeois. Trains represented a home and a working place for the station’s workers. Another major prop that was used in Cairo Station is Hanouma’s bucket that was a symbol of Hanouma’s different statuses during the events of the film. Every time Hanouma is seen with the bucket a major act happens. For instance, when Abu Sri sees Hanouma, in the train, dancing and holding the bucket he abuses her for working and for dancing. Furthermore, Qinawi’s sexual repression was portrayed through very essential props which are the women photos displayed in Qinawi’s hut. In addition to that, sound was used to convey all of the events happening in the station. Sounds of trains moving, people chatting, people walking, actors talking, and train’s whistle are heard at the same time, but in a very smooth way. Chahine delivered his content through different formalistic tools.
Chahine portrays the various statuses of Egyptians in the late 50s through the cinematic techniques and the content of his film Cairo Station. The auteur Chahine achieved a breakthrough in the way he delivered his content. He had his own tools that made him produce an artistic and successful film. Although Cairo Station is produced in the late 50s, yet this film holds deep ideologies that people are still facing until now. As noted, the ideology, auteur, and formalism approaches are all related and they all correlate to each other.
References
Bradshaw, N. (2008, July 28). Youssef Chahine: an appreciation. Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/jul/28/youssef.chahine.
Kumar, A. (2018, September 26). Cairo Station [1958] – The Struggles against Sexual Repression and Social Oppression. Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://www.highonfilms.com/cairo-station-sexual-repression/.