The Hunger Ali Badrakhan (Egypt, 1986)

Adapted from episodes of Mahfouz’s novel The Harafish from 1977 and set in 1887 the film follows the diverging paths of two brothers. One will bow down before material wealth walking proudly down the avenue of prestige; the other will walk up the unglamorous alleyway of idealism. Will they meet again?

Charged with allegorical references The Hunger resonates loud in these days of rage when global multitudes are rising against the undisputed blackmail of financial terrorism. Its theme is universal, its message timeless and its call urgent. While men pursue ephemeral profits, women steer through the triviality of life to aim straight to the essence of communal life.

The film is indeed also a hymn to the dignity of Arab femininity for its non-objectified beauty is the fundament of society. The soave fire of their eyes is the guiding light, their voluptuous discreetness the gate of bliss, their determination and gentle competence our best hope. “Why is man so weak in the face of the devil?” asks the mother to the wiser son after refusing the money coming from her crooked son. When famine will strike, the humble brother will feed the poor stealing from his richer brother. The law will punish him but the ‘feral underclass’ has awakened. When desire and rage meet the simulacrum of power will vanish, the unkind has been warned: “Trade is one thing and humanity another”.

The unkind is blinded by prosperity, deafened by the noise of luxury, trapped in his fortress of solitude. Once the kinder brother wins the heart of the people he will not guide them. “Trust yourselves, not me” is his self-discharge from an unwanted leadership. A hungry man is an angry man; if conscious he will need no leader. “Have no mercy with the merciless” shouts the anonymous stone thrower, the secular intifada against patriarchal capitalism will know no respite. Faced by the just and necessary anger of the oppressed sharpening their weapons of subversion, the almighty narrator will crumble into insignificant pieces.

By Celluloid Liberation Front