La terra

Just saw it tonight at the Cinémathèque de Paris, for the second time after more than 30 years, and found it utterly magnificient politically wise and cinema wise from the first image to the very last

This film can be considered one of the world's best movies, actually it was chosen on top of the best 100 movies in Egypt.

The movie is adopted from a novel written by Abdel Rahman El Sharkawi and was directed by Youssef Shahin.

Abdel Rahman El Sharkawi is a well known novelist and play-writer, in fact he's much more recognized for the plays he wrote. The movie "El-Ard" was produced in 1969, which falls inn a very important period of time in the Egyptian history, at this time the Egyptian ideology was being restructured.

As for the film itself, I would start by the choice of actors, when you think of the actors that were in Egypt at that time, you can't find a replacement for any of the actors in the movie, and you feel that no one else can play in any of the roles.

I would start by the Great actor Mahmoud El-Meliguy. His performance in this movie is like an intense lecture in the art of acting, Mohamed Abu Swelam, that character he played is so nicely written by Abdel Rahman El Sharkawi, it's a character facing so many struggles and at the same time with a history to be proud of, but it reached a point where he feels helpless in the struggle between him and the rich man in his village, who is connected to the Egyptian Royal palace (the time of the story was before Egypt changed from a kingdom to a republic). At the same time he's facing struggles with the English authority, which he has a long history with, and finally a struggle with the people of his village who are facing the same in justice he's facing!! This dilemma reflects to a great extent how the human behavior changed over the years. Back to Mahmoud El-Meliguy's acting, if this movie was translated to other languages I bet he would have been rewarded for his performance. I believe he's one of the best world's actors. He was known for playing the roles of gangsters and bad guy's, although all his friends and colleagues refer to him as the kindest person, in this movie his character was the main character in the film, another actors in this film were, Ezzat El Alaili and Yehia Shahin, they were both performing amazingly in there roles. The movie can be considered as a success story, even the music and the song performed were so distinguished and were so related to the movie. As for the directing, I believe Youssef Shahin did the right choice of actors which got his mission even easier. But this does not mean he wasn't good. In fact this is his masterpiece.

Finally, I would like to recommend this movie for any one who wants to enjoy acting

Perhaps this is the best Egyptian movie of all time , and before chahine started to write his own script from where it all went down hill.the acting is superb specially Elmelliguy and Yehia Chahine, they are very believable but all thanks to the original novel.a recommended movie for all.

el ard , by yossef chahine is a masterpiece of egyptian cinema.. as it deals with a very egyptien dilemma that you won't find such conflict in any other country !

When people ask about Egypt's best film ever, the first film that comes to the mind is this one, and it's for a good reason.

How the story talks about the life in the Egyptian countryside during the colonial times and kingdom, is so amazing you feel like it was written by the people there themselves.

The story is so complex with a lot of side plots, that give you an exact idea about each character and how you expect them to act in the end. And with all these side plots you're never distracted from the main plot because they all feed it.

The choice for the actors is wonderful, unlike nowadays when they just get the main super stars even if they don't fit the characters at all, everyone in the cast looked, sounded and acted like a peasant perfectly, that sometimes you forget what the real actors looked like.

I am not even going to talk about the editing and the cinematography, this film has iconic shots and scenes that until now they are shared over social media because of how great they are. And this is what we expect from a Yousef Chahine film.

The music is one of the most famous ever in Egyptian cinema, people who haven't seen the film can recognize the music. This is enough to make it one of the greatest in Egyptian cinema as well.

All the reasons above make this film ageless and one of the pillars of The Egyptian Film Industry.