The Blazing Sun

Youssef Chahine's 1954 Egyptian film is about a conflict in the countryside over land and water. The local landowner deliberately floods the fields to stop the peasants profiting from their crop and destroys the harvest. Ahmed is a young man who studied agriculture in the city and has come home; he tries to expose the calculation behind it. At the same time he is involved with the landowner's daughter Amal, which puts them both in danger. The film treats class inside a melodramatic shape, and criticism of landholding this direct was not common in Egyptian cinema of the period. It was the first film Faten Hamama and Omar Sharif made together and Sharif's first step into cinema. The chase filmed in the desert around the temples is its best known passage. Who it's for: viewers who like classical Egyptian cinema and social melodrama. Who it's not for: anyone expecting restraint; the film keeps the feeling high.