La momie

This film on one level is about the discovery of a cache of royal mummies, rediscovered by a local grave robbing family on the west bank at Luxor in Egypt. On another level it is about the guilt felt by one member of that family for the exploitation of the heritage of the country made by that discovery. This is truly a beautiful film in which full use has been made of the locales and local color, beautifully directed and acted and entirely convincing as an examination of family conflict in a 19th century Egyptian setting. It did not have a large American audience at the time of its release, probably because it is in Arabic with subtitles.

A very un-sentimental view of serious moral struggle. The silent messages of the ancients seems to speak as eloquently as the poetically formal language of the tribal elders. Not for everyone, to be sure, but a tour-de-force of fusing visual imagery with a message of deep principles.

I loved this film, and am trying to obtain a copy, either video or DVD. I had taped it off the TV many years ago, but unfortunately the video tape deteriorated beyond hope of repair, and I don't remember which channel I taped it from... Can anyone help me to get a copy?? I have recently been to Egypt and fell in love with the whole thing, am returning there next year, and would so need to revisit this movie. As a movie, it is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, and very well directed, using the amazing light of that country to best effect. The fact that it was produced by Roberto Rossellini is also quite an accolade! Please will some other Egyptophile, who knows anything about the whereabouts of this lovely film, please respond, and make me very happy?

On the death of his father, head of a tribe, the family secret is passed on to his two children: the smuggling of archaeological finds from the lost tombs of a dynasty of pharaohs. The brother is the first to rebel and is killed. An expedition arrives from Cairo that wants to trace the tombs. Also the other brother, Wasin, tries to rebel: he refuses to sell a precious object to a merchant, who makes him beat. Wasin reveals to the members of the expedition the location of the tombs, which are stolen. Wassin grew up in contact with the archaeological ruins and keeps them in storage. Full-field shots, a very long field, close up and in detail show the monumentality of these architectures in relation to man. Wassin thinks he can change the fate of the lost tombs, revealing the secret to the Cairo expedition, while an alternate editing shows Wasin coming down repented and upset by the ship while all the graves are carried away. "Al- mummia" is the masterpiece of Egyptian cinema.

"Al-Mummia" is a tragedy of the collision if two cultures. The effendis of Cairo are loyal to the history of the 21st Dynasty. the tribe of people dwelling among ancient tombs are sustained by and called on to be loyal to the ways of their more immediate ancestors. The one group sees hierogylphs as inscrutable or meaningless, the other can apparently read them right off. The stateliness of the narrative style of the movie some might say is operatic, or rather, it has the solemnity of ancestral ways. In particular, the movie is a rare success in conveying the sacrality of artifacts of the particular religion of the pharaohs. The camera, for example, cautiously follows a "secret trail" into a tomb, watches a dark corner being turned before it turns itself, shows the desecration of prying the lid of a sarcophagus and touching the mummy inside. (I may be particularly vulnerable, taken on trips as a child to a museum where I was dared to see into a mummy by x-ray.)