THE RIVULETS of obituaries turned into a deluge of obituaries. So why is an actor so paramount? The parts he played ranged over issues of love, life and death, and revealed aspects of Egypt's collective national psyche that had not been explicitly expressed in public before. The iconic figure who passed away last Saturday was famed for searing social commentary. Equally adept at comedy and drama, Mahmoud Abdel-Aziz passed away in Cairo on 12 November. Born in the Alexandrian suburb of Wardeyan, he worked until he breathed his last even though he was struggling for his life after a long illness. He started his acting career by taking a role in Al Dawama (The Whirlpool) TV show in the mid-1970's, and to an amazing extent the whirlpool was the very essence of Egypt at the time, as the nation did not know where it was going. Was it headed for Heaven or Hell? However, his cinematic debut was Al Hafeed (The Grandson), an all-time Egyptian film classic. Legal nihilism was no longer acceptable. Do people fear freedom? The economy was developing and state institutions were working somewhat more reliably.This all changed. His sons Karim and Mohamed, a film producer and a director, held their father's coffin in a most moving gesture of love at his funeral, but their father was buried in his hometown Alexandria in the family cemetery. His films depicted the awful mistakes committed by big business moguls and bureaucratic statists within the regime of ex-president Hosni Mubarak who were all for bourgeois business. The abuse of power was a constant and often a confounding theme in his films. Abdel-Aziz was awarded the Best Actor for Kit Kat (1991) at the Damascus International Film Festival and at the Alexandria International Film Festival and Best Actor for The Captain (1997) at the Damascus International Film Festival and Best Actor for Pleasure Market (2000) at the Cairo International Film Festival and Best Actor for The Magician (2001) at the Damascus International Film Festival. The late 1970s were his most productive years. Al-Bint Al-Helwa Al-Kazaba (The Beautiful Liar Girl), Khataya (Sins) and Banati Wal Deeb (My Daughters and the Hyena) took up one of his key themes of sex on the path of capitalist development and a strong state driven by careless nihilism. And Abdel-Aziz played the perfect part. He drew a vivid picture of this particular aspect of Egypt under the Mubarak era. Sheitan Al-Gezira (The Devil of the Island) and Wadi Al-Zikrayat (Vallet of Memories) were masterpieces and so were Al Aar (Shame), Al-Maatouh (The Fool), Wekalat Al-Balah (Dates Market), Al-Azraa Wal Shaar Al Abyad (The Virgin and White Hair) and Al-Khobz Al-Morr, (Bitter Bread). These films were followed by the Mamlakat Al-Hawajess (Kingdom of Hallucinations) and Darb Al-Hawa (Wind Way). In 1984 Abdel-Aziz appeared in Bayt Al-Kasserat (The House of Female Minors), another landmark in Egyptian cinema. Abdel-Aziz is also known for Emraa Fi Dammi (A Woman in My blood), Shabab Yarkos Fouk Al-Nar (Youth Dancing on Fire), Shafiqa and Metwelli, Aqwa Min Al-Ayyam (More Powerful Than Days), Al-Toofan (The Flood) and Al-Saalik (The Riffraff). These films show little or no inclination to make a political statement of any kind, but demonstrate his talent for unveiling the true spirit of Egypt. Laylat Al Baby Doll (The Night of the Baby Doll) was profound. In 2001's The Magician, Abdel-Aziz plays a single father who falls in love with his next-door neighbour, whose husband has recently left her to raise her son alone. Unconventional and open to much speculation as to their political or rather ideological orientation, Abdel-Aziz's films will remain a reservoir of historical documentations of Egyptian culture. Raafat Al-Haggan, the Egyptian spy who managed to infiltrate Israeli intelligence, was perhaps his most brilliant of television series. It left an indelible mark on the Egyptian colective national psyche. He had earlier, of course, touched on the prickly subject of Egyptian intelligence services vis a vis Israel in the film Eadam Mayet, (The Execution of a Dead Man). His last performance was The Monster's Head, a television series, in 2016.
