Youssef Chahine

 Youssef Chahine



Father Amin (1950)



RANKED:


1. Father Amin (1950)


The career of Egypt's most renowned filmmaker, Youssef Chahine, spanned almost 60 years. This prolific career had to start somewhere and that ignition point would come when the director was only 23 years old with his first feature-length film, 1950's "Father Amin." The film is a Dickensian tale of a father who watches over his family after death and must witness their complete disintegration. The son falls into melancholy, the mother must sell all their furniture to pay to keep their home, and his daughter must become a nightclub dancer and shirk her well-dignified suitor. As he watches all this from the afterlife, the titular father must reconcile with the state he left his father in after a bad business investment. It is a film you've seen the structure of many times before. But with Chahine's deft rendering, it's heart and tenderness will provide a fully engaging experience.  

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