The Night of Counting the Years

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The Night of Counting the Years Al-Mummia
A screenshot from the film.
Directed by	Chadi Abdel Salam
Produced by	Roberto Rossellini
Written by	Chadi Abdel Salam
Starring	Ahmed Marei Ahmad Hegazi Zouzou Hamdy El-Hakim Nadia Lutfi
Music by	Mario Nascimbene
Cinematography	Abdel Aziz Fahmy
Editing by	Kamal Abou-El-Ella
Distributed by	General Egyptian Cinema Organisation Merchant Ivory Productions
Release date(s)	1969
Running time	102 min
Country	Egypt
Language	Classical Arabic
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Night of Counting the Years, a.k.a. The Mummy (Arabic: Al-Mummia المومياء) is a 1969 Egyptian film directed by Chadi Abdel Salam. Egyptian critics consistently list it as one of the most important Egyptian films ever made.^[1]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Symbolism 3 Visual style 4 See also 5 Bibliography 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Plot

Set in 1881, on the eve of British colonial rule, it is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that had been robbing a cache of mummies discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, and selling the artefacts on the illicit antiquities black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members goes to the police, helping the Antiquities Service find the cache.

[edit] Symbolism

The film casts its story in terms of the search for an authentic, lost Egyptian national identity, represented by the neglected and misunderstood artefacts of ancient Egyptian civilisation. However, the conflict between city and countryside suggests questions that are not resolved in the film, making it an ambiguous, unsettling reflection on the price of identity.

[edit] Visual style

Its slow pace, unusual camera angles and striking colours give the film a dreamlike quality, reinforced by Mario Nascimbene's eerie music. Moreover, the dialogue is entirely in classical Arabic, a very unusual trait for an Egyptian film, which adds to the sense of unreality.

[edit] See also

• Grave robbing

[edit] Bibliography

• Colla, Elliott (2000-10-06). Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib: History, Culture, and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 109-146 ("Shadi Abd al-Salam's al-Mumiya: Ambivalence and the Egyptian Nation-State"). ISBN 978-0312222871. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Night of Counting the Years at the Internet Movie Database
• Free subtitled version of The Night of Counting the Years at the Internet Archive
• Non-subtitled DVD version of The Night of Counting the Years at the Internet Archive

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