The Blazing Sun

A social melodrama by Youssef Chahine that has the particularity of featuring a very young Omar Sharif (only 22 years old).

Structurally it is a typical melodrama, rich girl who loves poor boy, but crossed with a plot that could well be from a western. There are the rich and bad who do everything to deceive the poor and one of them, like an avenging angel of family and class, manages to destroy the conspiracy. The final scene of the Karnak temple duel almost feels like the duel at the OK Corral.

However, there is that social background that always characterizes Chahine's films and that, once again, is present in this scorching Luxor sun. Realism would arrive a little later in Egyptian cinema. Here we are still, at best, in a proto-realism, waiting for the ideal moment to blossom.