If you want to dip your feet into Egyptian cinema, "Bab El Hadid" aka "Cairo Station" is probably a safe bet: reportedly considered by connoiseurs as one of the very best films of this country's industry ever made, it also quite accessible to "Western" audiences, and available in a fair-quality print with very good English subtitles. It's very well-crafted, with impressive use of close-ups and a highly suspenseful climax. Of course the "illiterate sexually-frustrated deviant" is a familiar trope by now, but in 1958 it wasn't - and in fact "Cairo Station" predates the similar, more famous British film "Peeping Tom" by two years. And in this film, the psycho-sexual thriller is fused with social-realism and the formation of workers' unions! Worth tracking down. *** out of 4.
Review of Cairo Station
