Raafat El-Mihi

As a filmmaker El-Mihi has been controversial, to say the least. Together with other directors of the same generation, he is often characterised as being too artistic; his own preference for fantasia is indicative of a cinema, many argue, accessible only to an elite, intellectual class. His films, furthermore, are often read as subversive, and the subsequent uproars resulted, most dramatically perhaps, in a civil suit filed against Lil-hobb Qissa Akhira (For Love, A Final Story, 1986), a film containing sex scenes that undoubtedly enraged many.

El-Mihi’s films often adopt a similar gambit, tackling controversial subjects by positing them in fantastic settings. In several films he has discussed the absurdities of current moral codes; in Al-Sada Al-Rigal (The Gentlemen, 1987) the two protagonists each undergo a sex-change; in Sayyidati, Anisati (Ladies and Gentlemen, 1990) the four leading females decide to marry the same man and live together, thereby exposing the absurdity of polygamy while in Samak, Laban, Tamrhindi (Fish, Milk and Tamrhindi, 1988) the protagonists are brain washed by their enemies to prevent them from rebelling, a process that eventually leads to their deaths. —Al Ahraam