A real find, the director´s cut of a celebrated film maudit, currently made available on the Henri platform through the great generosity of the Cinémathèque Française until the 15th of July.  A celebration of the Soviet-Egyptian collaboration that resulted in the building of the Aswan Dam, this film is also a critique of the dispossession and displacement it led to, a feminist critique of the loss of identity that accompanies following a husband to a new country, it can also very much be read as an inter-racial queer romance in the midst of the wrenching transformations brought on by Modernity. An extraordinary film that works on many levels, has an epic narrative sweep to accompany its 70mm Cinemascope specs, but that always brings the personal to the political and does so poetically through word, image and sound. A masterpiece of the cinema. Ou discussion of it can be listened to below:

Some of the clips discussed in the podcast can be seen below:

Two men meet

Two men part:

A glance and a cut:

A cut on feminism

Slippers and the recognition of a loss:

A comic visit

A cut on modernity:

The Ritrovato Catalogue Entry:

Theinterview with Youssef Chahine on the film cited by Richard.

And many thanks to Pastaga for alerting us to the existence of the film

Poster for 1972 version:

Soviet Poster