Malatily Bathhouse
Malaṯily Bathhouse (Template:Lang-ar "Ĥamam al-Malaṯily") is a 1973 Egyptian film directed by Salah Abu Seif. The main actors are Shams al-Baroudi and Yusuf Shåban. It is adapted from a novel by Ismåeel Walieddin. Samar Habib, author of Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations, said "that the title of the film can "be easily translated" as Malatily Bathhouse."[1] The opening credits of the film have the English title An Egyptian Tragedy. Habib said that it was "strangely translated" into An Egyptian Tragedy.[1]
Plot
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The beginning shows what Habib calls a "long scenic tribute" to Cairo and to the general city.[1] Habib said that the director "visually implies the polymorphous vagaries of the city in which an immoral underworld is bound to flourish.[2]
Habib said "There appears to be a sensitive awareness that foreign viewers of the film should not regard its content as conspiring with or approving of the morally loose behaviour of the libertines it depicts."[1] Habib argues that this seems to depict Egyptian society in a "state of disarray" likely to be occurring during the Suez Crisis.<ref name=Habib, p. 121.</ref>
Cast and characters
One character, Raouf, is a male homosexual. Habib said that Raouf "subverts popular understandbing of homosexuality by being unable to be brought back into the norm of heterosexual desires."[1]
See also
References
- Habib, Samar. Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. Routledge, July 18, 2007. ISBN 0415956730, 9780415956734.