It's been too long since we've drawn on the inexhaustible archives of Egyptian cinema for some amusement, but today's selection will soon take care of that.
Here we have Egypt's beloved "Cinderella", Souad Hosni, in a number from her 1974 hit Amira Hobbi Ana (Amira My Love). You will learn - almost immediately, and, I fear, unforgettably - that the song is called "Kiki Kiki Kiko" or something very similar.
No, I cannot explain the presence of a vast visage of someone who looks very like Nicolae Ceauşescu at the back of the set, any more than I can explain the perplexing (and yet not unalluring) bellydancing of leading man Sameer Ghanem, or how it's possible that the scriptwriter for this picture was Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz.
Since I am a very newcomer to this interesting blog and it is an old post of yours, I am not quite sure you will have the chance to read this comment. But I just want to say that the picture at the background is of the late Sayyed Darweesh whome I guess, due to your past stay in Egypt, you must know of. The song is a modern version of one of his songs that was written at the beginning of the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteThank you! The great thing about the comments stream that appears in the right column is that it shows up comments on older posts as they come in.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation makes perfect sense - I had no idea that was Darweesh, who is in many ways to Egyptian music what Mahfouz is to literature. How nice to know, although I wonder what he would think of this pretty kitschy "updating" of his work...