Dark Waters (1956), directed by Youssef Chahine. This is something of an Egyptian On the Waterfront, the waterfront here in Alexandria, Egypt. Young Ragab, played by Omar Sharif, returns from a three year voyage working on a ship to find his girl friend has formed a relationship with Mamdouh, the son of the wealthy owner of the dockside business. Set in motion is a love triangle that is bound to end in tragedy. The web cite, First Impressions: Notes on Film and Culture has this to say about the film:

"There’s a dramatisation of class in the film with lots of parallelisms between aunt and niece and also what turns out, in typical melodramatic form, two brothers raised on opposite sides of a considerable class divide. One begins to detect patternings in Chahine’s films, the extraordinary compositions, the visual poetry, the excitement of the narrative, the visual beauty of the production, a Hollywood-style story telling with a grand romantic finale that takes advantage of the teaming of Sharif and Faten Hamama, glamorous stars that were then a real life couple. There are long takes that often involve difficult orchestrations of movements of large numbers of people. This and The Blazing Sun are also melodramas where, like in noir, it is the man who’s wounded and suffers for love, often due to his own misapprehensions. In spite of certain macho attitudes now alien to us, the film remains engaging, exciting and revealing."

What interests me in the two Chahine films I have seen is the director's interest in class, especially the working class. In Cairo Station the background of the story is the attempt of workers to form a union. In Dark Waters we have two groups of workers, one group in the employment of Mamdouh's father, and the other group unemployed and following their conniving leader to oust and then replace the dock owner and his workers. Caught in the middle are the young men, Ragab and Mamdouh. The machinations of the power-hungry villain result in dockside turmoil, worker disunity, and even death. Chahine's sympathies appear to be with a settled and fairly treated work force.

The review above mentions "macho attitude," and yes the presentation of the young lovers does contain unpleasant violence. It is, however, noteworthy that the young woman is feisty and fights back. She is hardly passive.

Cairo Station (1958), directed by Youssef Chahine. I know nothing about Egyptian cinema, but if Cairo Station is representative, then I look forward to seeing more films from that country. Cairo Station has elements of American noir, Italian Neo-realism, and Hitchockian thrillers, yet it is quite different from these. Gritty and dark, the film focuses on Kenawi, a lame porter in the Cairo train station. At the beginning of the film Kenawi, apparently a homeless street person (played by the film's director), is offered a job by the news agent in the station, and this person focalizes much of the film, providing an extensive voice-over. The plot is simple: Kenawi sees one of the women who (illegally?) sell pop on the trains, and he is infatuated. She, however, is the fiancé of a worker who is trying to organize a union. So we have a love triangle of sorts. When Kenawi does not find success in his quest of the lovely pop seller, he becomes a murderer, or at least nearly a murderer. But the plot is hardly what matters here. The cinematography is stunning, and the action must reflect a country on the edge of change. Tension is palpable. The characters are convincing and the use of the station is masterful. It is a prison. It is a small world. It is a maze. It is bustling with people and yet a person can feel isolated, alone, beyond reach. The use of the large crate near the end is a touch from Hitchcock. The peripheral story of a well-to-do young man and an innocent young woman who love each other, but who are star-crossed, serves as an undercurrent to the main story and a reminder that all does not always end well.