Youssef Rakha assesses the significance of a sensation The comic as frivolous farce, sometimes rising to the status of cult movie, has for long, far too long, monopolised the box office. And it is in this context that the astounding success of filmmaker Hani Khalifa's Sahar Al-Layali (Sleepless Nights) -- fortunately the namesake not of Ihab Tawfiq's omnipresent pop track but of an older and much better song by Fairuz -- has generated a sensation. Due as much to its relatively "serious" orientation as to its being a young filmmaker's debut, the success of the film reflects not only its own merits, and there are those who question its quality, but the poverty of today's local film industry. Many have contended that, in welcoming what remains by objective standards "an ordinary film", viewers are in effect contenting themselves with the absolute minimum, in terms of artistic requirements, having abandoned hope of anything better. Others point out that in the light of such poverty it is failing to see at least a glimmer of hope in an articulate and largely compelling feature like Sahar Al-Layali that constitutes the real pessimism. Fortunately the film offers plenty of scope for argument, though it remains up to individual viewers to endorse or resent the sensation it has generated. Revolving around four young couples, old friends and college mates, three of whom are married, thematically Sahar Al-Layali reads like a lexicon of all those amorous troubles with which a relationship advice columnist, particularly well versed in the antics of Hollywood, might deal: Perry (Mona Zaki) has reached the end of her tether with the incurable promiscuity of her husband Khaled (Fathi Abdel-Wahab); Amr (Ahmed Helmi) and Farah (Hanan Turk) are plagued by memories of the latter's engagement to another mutual friend, Ali (Khaled Abul-Naga), and the fact that their marriage has facilitated Amr's career and afforded him a better standard of living than he would otherwise have had; Moushira (Jihan Fadel), who has had no experience of love prior to getting married, is chronically dissatisfied with the sexual side of her marriage to the self-same Ali; and Inas (Ola Ghanem) increasingly resents the fear of commitment that her boyfriend Sameh (Sherif Mounir) has consistently displayed. True to tradition, the film ends with a resolution, however tentative, to all four dramatic conflicts, granting its audience the prerequisite happy ending often associated with love. Such a complex set of relations is bound to lead to complications, and one of the most recurrent criticisms directed at the film centres on Tamer Habib's script, which seems to lack focus. There is no principal character or action with which to give shape to the drama. The fact that all four dilemmas reach their climax at the same time, thus giving rise to the four male characters' apparently incidental reunion, and the climactic trip they undertake to Alexandria, takes away from the credibility of the story. Alexandria is the scene of arguably the most entertaining episodes in the film -- including the appearance of a very convincing, and remarkably amusing, Alexandrian prostitute -- yet by then the initially brisk pace of the film has slowed down considerably; and sympathetic identification tends to give way to intellectual doubt, something that makes the happy ending even more difficult to accept. The script's most obvious fault begins to emerge as the psychological superficiality and moral limitations of the characters assume increasingly unattractive colours. Khalifa's directorial approach lives up to the requirements of the drama, however. Seamless, often effortless, and only very occasionally subject to verbosity or the easy way out, the action manages to hold the viewer's attention for the duration of a relatively long feature. The sets are true to life, if slightly biased towards its upper middle class echelons. And Khalifa's image of contemporary life in Cairo -- arguably the film's strongest point -- is daringly realistic. Cars, mobile phones, computers, camcorders, beer and hashish are present in abundance. Perhaps to a greater extent than any other contemporary Egyptian movie Sahar Al-Layali affords a prospect that is visually true to life. Minor but telling details, even if their significance is barely broached, add to this sense of verisimilitude: Perry is veiled; Ali's family forced him to leave Farah because her mother was a belly dancer, which explains the fortune of which Amr has become a beneficiary; Inas is a career driven woman, hence an object of desire for a rich businessman who can facilitate her work; and Moushira's brother is a staunchly conservative army officer who fails to understand her problem. Khalifa's most impressive feat, however, is to imbue such vitality in the performance of this generation of by now well-known actors. Ahmed Helmi, for one, had always come across as a clown; in Sahar Al-Layali he emerges for the first time as a serious performer capable of emotional range. Mona Zaki is likewise in touch with previously hidden aspects of her actorly persona: a capacity for selflessness and muted distress. Fathi Abdel-Wahab, a relative new comer to fame, excels at portraying the inconsistent charm of a latter-day incarnation of El-Sayed Abdel-Gawwad, a man of the world divided between illicit pleasures and loyalty to his family; Sherif Mounir is at his funny best; and Jihan Fadel is remarkably convincing as the frustrated, slightly disturbed subject oppressed by convention. All in all the actors are well cast, and they give satisfying performances -- something of which many of them had not seemed capable prior to working with Khalifa. Despite Hisham Nazih's mawkish score -- one wonders why Khalifa, having chosen the Fairuz song as the film's central motif, did not depend solely on Fairuz music, which would have suited the mood much better -- Sahar Al-Layali fills a gap by offering good acting and directorial finesses. Whether or not its merits justify quite how much it is being talked about is open to debate. The film's faults notwithstanding, it remains true that Egyptian cinema with Sahar Al-Layali is better than Egyptian cinema without.
