Bothayna, poor and beautiful, supports her family, wanting to do so with dignity intact. Having received the Adults Only seal from the board of censors in Egypt, the film debuted on June 25 to box office returns of over LE 6,000,000 in its first week, according to Al Ahram daily, giving it the record for the biggest debut ever for a theatrical film in Egypt. A smart lawyer and minster and a muslim brotherhood man in one box and they play bad, The slow mental deterioration of a loved one is extremely distressing. Yacoubian building starts as a documentary, through which the history of the Yacoubian luxury apartment building is made known to the audience. But much of it works quite well too, especially the acting, which is pretty good across the board, the crisp pacing and the driving musical score.A big bold movie that bites off more than it can chew but provides a solid few hours of entertainment nonetheless.Grade: B+. Search for "The Yacoubian Building" on Amazon.com, Title: In this program, partners of Alzheimer's sufferers tell their stories, relive their challenges and daily struggles ... See full summary », During WW2, an oasis village is being under attacked every now and then by a group of robbers, led by a marshal. The Yacoubian Building holds all that Egypt was and has become over the 75 years since its namesake was built on one of downtown Cairo's main boulevards. Chapter 1. The apartment building exhibits the area’s standard mixture of residential and commercial, its doorway plastered with signs and its first floor nothing but a row of typical and unremarkable small shops. This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. The Yacoubian Building provides a glimpse into the complicated lives of residents of an Egyptian building. After the success of the film in 2006, a television series under the same name of Yacoubian Building was launched in 2007 with a major difference – the gay character in the film and the source novel was excised from the TV series adaptation of the novel because of its controversial nature. Welcome to the Yacoubian Building, Cairo: once grand, now dilapidated, and full of stories and passion. Excerpt from Essay : ¶ … Yacoubian Building Often a writer goes about the process of adapting a story from one type of media to another certain components of the original story have to be altered. European values, both refined and worldly, provide a subtext. The Yacoubian Building: A Novel - Ebook written by Alaa Al Aswany. Most of the action also takes place in this apartment. By all accounts, the frank candour about corrupt government, homosexuality and the prostitution of Egyptian citizens (of all types and at all levels of society) have been greeted with quite an uproar in this film's country of origin. Now the one thing we wants is a college certificate which he seeks to buy. As in the novel, the film's version of the building is "in the high classical European style, the balconies decorated with Greek faces carved in stone.". Each day, Zaki Bey el Dessouki takes an hour to reach his office in the Yacoubian Building in Cairo because he stops and greets all of his friends on the street. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Built in 1934 for an Armenian millionaire, its fall from grace is just one aspect of Egypt's general dilapidation. It follows the stories of several characters who live in the Yacoubian Building, a once-luxurious building that houses rich residents inside and a shanty town on its roof, creating a clear divide between the building’s rich and poor. (2006). The Yacoubian Building. Bothayna, poor and beautiful, supports her family, wanting to do so with dignity intact. The major political theme of the Yaucobian Building is politcal corruption in Egypt during the 1990's. Morgan, who is an uneducated very rich man, is used to buy everything he wants. Set in the late 20th century Egypt, after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the Yacoubian Building started filling up with people from Egypt's lower class, while some others from the upper and middle classes stayed put. , "The Yaboubian Building" reminded me of those over-heated Spanish soap operas that air nightly on Telemundo. The setting is downtown Cairo, with the titular apartment building (which actually exists) serving as both a metaphor for contemporary Egypt and a unifying location in which most of the primary characters either live or work and in which much of the action takes place. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Constructed as a series of vignettes about characters whose fates will soon converge, a stylistic device highly popular in today's Hollywood, Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswany's Arabic best-seller The Yacoubian Building brings to life a seedy and despicable Cairo where … Pius Haj Azzam takes a second wife, in secret, to satisfy sexual drive within religious bounds. The Yacoubian Building is fast-moving and action-packed, with drama in every scene and shifts between the different strands used to provide tension. The taboo subjects “The Yacoubian Building” touches made the film a sensation inside Egypt. Ali ... See full summary », When the lives of Mahmoud, a Muslim Sheikh (Omar Sharif) and Boulos, a Christian Priest (Adel Imam) are threatened by religious extremists on both sides, the Egyptian government inducts ... See full summary », A story of Saeid and Marzouq two friends who made it through poverty and aspire to become successful businessmen. The Yacoubian Building (Arabic: عمارة يعقوبيان‎, transliterated: ʿImārat Yaʿqūbīān or Omaret Yakobean) is a 2006 Egyptian film based on the novel of the same title by author Alaa Al Aswany. Hosni Mubarak served as Egypt’s President from 1981 to 2011. Photo by Ahmad Hosni. The film is expected to bring in more profits when it is released on home video and to TV. Welcome to the Yacoubian Building, Cairo: once grand, now dilapidated, and full of stories and passion. The actual namesake Yacoubian building, constructed in the Art Deco style, still stands in downtown Cairo at the address given in the novel: 34 Talaat Harb Street (referred to by its old name, Suleiman Basha Street, by both native Cairenes and the novel's characters). Here are some great movies worth streaming that you won't see at the Oscars this year. Built in 1934 for an Armenian millionaire, its fall from grace is just one aspect of Egypt's general dilapidation. The Yacoubian Building: A Slice of Pre-January 25 Egyptian Society? The Yacoubian Building was Egypt's official submission to the 79th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. "Queer (Im)possibilities: Alaa Al-Aswany's and Wahid Hamed's, This page was last edited on 15 February 2021, at 09:44. Pius Haj Azzam takes a second wife, in secret, to satisfy sexual drive within religious bounds. Part 1, Pages 6-31 Summary. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Under his tenure as President, The Guardian reported that Mubarak’s family was worth up to 70 billion dollars partially from public corruption, bribes. Was this review helpful to you? The film opens with a luff tracing the building's history, as wealthy expatriate and Egyptian residents give way, after the 1952 coup that overthrew King Farouk and eventually resulted in the installation of Gamal Abdel Nasser as President of Egypt, to new families, and as the rooftop storage rooms are converted into living space for lower-class families. Built in 1934 by an Italian firm for an Armenian millionaire, the Yacoubian Building, "ten lofty stories in the high European style", is a metaphor for wider historical upheavals. Bothayna, poor and beautiful, supports her family, wanting to do so with dignity intact. A family man frustrated by the bureaucracies of the Egyptian public system as well as difficulties of life finds himself inadvertently accused of terrorism and decides to maintain this role... See full summary », Ali Abd-El-Zaher is a member of an Isalmic radical group which has been launching attacks against the government and the society under the orders of the spiritual leader Brother Saif. Deze film laat enkele levens zien van zijn bewoners. Zika, an aging libertine, feuds with his sister. An actual downtown Cairo landmark called the Yacoubian Building is the book’s unifying element, housing all strata of Egyptian society; Aswany brings those who … (Note: Contains adult language.) Of course, it's tough as an American, and therefore one used to experiencing art that throws critical darts at my country's beliefs and institutions, to fully understand how controversial this film (and the book on which it is based) has been in Egypt. 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