Days and Nights: An Example of Classic Egypt

My last post examined a recent Egyptian film filled with stories about various problems affecting contemporary Egypt. To contrast, I am providing some analysis on an older film, the 1955 film by Henry Barakat Days and Nights (Ayyam w layali) starring the legendary Abdel Halim Hafez.


Days and Nights follows a very standard formula for 1950s Egyptian romantic melodramas. A young man falls in love with a beautiful girl, but something about him prevents him from being with her. In this film, it is because he takes the blame for an accident caused by his step brother's drunk driving.

Family, responsibility, dignity, and the dangers of drinking are all prominent themes of the film, which does nothing to hide its moral messages. The dialogue is often very pointed, sometimes even contrived, in communicating the "right" point of view.

In the film, Yehia (Hafez) is a university student whose mother divorced his father because he was a drunk. She remarries to a single father, and then realizes her new husband does not treat her two sons equally, favoring his son over Yehia.

Yehia spots the gorgeous Samia (actress Iman) and the two fall in love. However, Yehia's brother hits and kills a man while driving drunk but refuses to turn himself in, leaving Yehia's best friend to be wrongly accused of the crime. Yehia pleads with his stepfather to do the right thing and tell his brother to confess, but his stepfather demands Yehia stay quiet to repay him for raising him.

Frustrated with the injustices, Yehia seeks out his biological father for advice. Yehia proceeds to confess to the hit-and-run, landing himself in court and causing Samia's mother to forbid her from seeing him. At the last minute, Yehia's mother turns in her stepson and takes back her ex-husband, restoring her family unit.

The story preaches honesty, taking responsibility for one's actions, and respecting family as the basic social unit. However, this is not what the film is "about." Ultimately, it is a romance-musical designed to be a box-office hit with mass appeal. The insertion of so many moral messages is reflexive of cinematic trends of the time. Most classic Egyptian films--like many Hollywood films of the time--reinforced the status quo in society.

With that said, Days and Nights is most notable for its incredible soundtrack, featuring several of Hafez's best songs, such as the timeless ballad "Ana Lak Ala tool." However, this is not to say that it does not push boundaries. The film opens with a birth scene, portraying Yehia's mother laying in bed after giving birth, something that may have been problematic in Hollywood at the time.

In terms of aesthetics, Days and Nights is a perfect example of the majority of classic Egyptian cinema. The film uses a style generally known as Classic Hollywood Realism, which entails narrative-oriented editing with predominantly medium shots. There is no experimental or montage editing and one could say the film "plays it safe" stylistically.

One of the biggest criticisms surrounding popular Egyptian film in the 1950s is that it was essentially trying to copy Hollywood style to recreate its success in Egypt rather than form a unique cinema for itself. I would like to argue against this statement and claim that the themes and genres popular in 1950s Egypt were in fact a reflection of the cultural climate.