Mohamed El-Assyouti watches Mohamed Khan reclaim overlooked lives in Banat Wist Al-Balad Mohamed Khan's latest film, Banat Wist Al-Balad (Downtown Girls), depicts the lives of a socially marginalised set of characters who spend a substantial amount of their lives commuting to and from work on the Cairo Metro, making friendships, flirting, arguing -- all underground. The metro -- it is, says Khan, an "artery of life" for millions of Egyptians struggling to make a living as they eke out a largely hand-to- mouth existence -- seldom makes it onto the big screen, a result not only of the logistical difficulties of a film crew working there but also of cinema's lack of interest in the lives of the millions who daily use the underground system. The film contains echoes of Khan's earlier works, particularly Ahlam Hind wa Camilia (Dreams of Hind and Camilia, 1987) which focussed on the trials and tribulations of two maids who work in Heliopolis and frequently meet on the metro. Banat Wist Al-Balad rejects the comic formula that dominates today's mainstream cinema. Instead it depicts characters from everyday Egyptian life in a straightforward manner and in doing so undermines the pervasive stereotypes of most film and TV narratives. What is more, the leading protagonists are women. Leading female roles have been the exception for two decades now as cinema has increasingly catered to a conservative audience that views the very presence of woman on screen as a potential taboo and thus relegates them to secondary and supporting roles for the macho star. Not that this is so terrible bearing in mind the scripts that used to be tailored for Nadia El-Guindi and Nabila Ebeid in the sexploitation movies that reinforced the notoriety of the stars and the chauvinist prejudices of the audience against the femme fatales they play. In a whole series of films audiences were treated to a simple moral -- that a woman's control of her destiny begins in bed. On some levels Banat Wist Al-Balad depicts emancipated, free- thinking, independent metropolitan women of the 21st century, wise enough to neither let themselves be victimised by a male-dominated class-based society, nor to expect too much change in their socio- economic situation. Yasmin lives in Al-Maasara, Jumana in Helwan. They meet everyday in the metro as they commute to work Downtown. A friendship develops between them, and when two young men approach them in the metro the girls playfully swap names and identities. Yasmin, who works at a hairdresser's, pretends she is a singer in a chorus, while Jumana, who works at a clothes store, claims she is a fashion designer for actors -- a "stylist", she explains. The men are more forthcoming about the nature of their work: Samir is a cook, a trade that runs in the family -- his grandfather was the former king's personal cook -- while Osman is a sales agent for a mobile service provider, one which we never know though a film by another director would have included brand placement and benefited from a sponsor. Samir has travelled, studying his trade and working in restaurants abroad. He believes in marriage, and thinks women have the right to fall in love and choose a partner. Osman comes from Upper Egypt and believes no woman met in the street is worth marrying since they are all too easy. It is a position that neatly encapsulates the schizophrenia of Egyptian patriarchy: men can have relationships and still regard themselves as honourable whereas the women with whom they become involved are, by virtue of these premarital relationships, dishonourable. Although Jumana, who likes reading romantic novels and books about sex education, is the more sentimental and easygoing of the two, she refuses the advances of Osman and when she does go with him to his flat it is only to have a cup of tea, over which she confronts him with the question -- "when did you lose your virginity?" -- normally asked of women, thus reversing the relationship between the sexually dominant and dominated. Jumana, though, is humiliated because of her needs: when her employer sees her stealing a bra she is fired in an echo from Ahlam Hind wa Camilia, where Hind is caught stealing. Jumana later explains that she is not a thief but sometimes likes to have things she knows she cannot afford. As a woman in a society with very few opportunities she is expected to work but has not the earning power of her male counterparts. The fathers of Yasmin and Jumana are mostly absent -- one works as a train driver on the Upper Egypt line and has another wife and children in the south while the other deserted his family many years ago. Yasmin's adolescent brother exercises his right to be "the man of the house", laying down rules, dictating the way she wears her hair, the time she must return home, where she can smoke etc. Yasmin's pet goose is slaughtered to satisfy the appetites of her mostly absent father and brother. A wage-earner since she began work at 16, Yasmin remains firmly ensconced at the bottom of the family pecking order. Yasmin teaches her brother a lesson by sleeping in her workplace overnight and cutting her hair short -- subtly signifying a gender-reversal as she negotiates the contradictions of a society that expects her to slave for a living yet be ashamed and humiliated on account of her sexuality. Other types of harassment provide comic relief. Yasmin resists the advances of her philandering boss whose obese wife feigns fainting fits when he flirts with customers. Yasmin's bedroom window is broken, allowing a neighbour to spy on her: she is, though, in control of the situation, teasing her peeping Tom neighbour who, in his desire to continue peeping, eventually has an accident. Yasmin later mocks him when he is in bandages. She insists on continuing to smoke when she marries Samir, and is fully aware that marriage is not the end of a girl's troubles, something of which she constantly reminds the brides-to-be who come into the shop by playing the 1980s Hani Shnouda song "Don't you girls think marriage is comfort" which comes from the album that provides the soundtrack to Khan's Al-Harif (Streetplayer, 1984). Stereotypes are debunked in abundance. In the film's only dream sequence the girls spot a man in an expensive car and each fantasises about the driver, seeing herself sitting in the car next to him. But the fantasy stops there: the man in the dreams is an anonymous shadow, the girls focussing instead on the dream of wealth and luxury regardless of the identity of the driver. They are simple girls, who can respond to the insistent approach of a stranger in the metro where everyone is equal but will not be picked up from the streets where those with wealth and power are likely to treat them as prostitutes. They fantasise about, respond to, start relationships with and accept invitations to the houses of strangers on the train. None of this, though, impinges on their respectability. They never lose their innocence or honour, those qualities patriarchal society reduces to the concept of virginity. They are oppressed by capitalism and by patriarchy -- struggling at work, struggling as they try to get there, struggling with the rules of family and marriage -- yet they refuse to be victimised. They adapt to their limited prospects. Yasmin learns not to lie about her humble background, of which she had been ashamed. Both girls actively shape their life and infuse it with humour, romance and optimism. The stories of Yasmin and Jumana are among millions that daily unravel on the overcrowded metro, lives overlooked by those who wield power and wealth but which continue in the centre of the town and in the eye of Khan's cinema.
