"Alexandria . . . New York" opens with the Arab filmmaker character deciding to travel to the United States despite his unease over its support for Israel. "It's hard to rip my deep love for America out of my heart," the character says.
The plot wanders into flashbacks about the man's education at a Pasadena, Calif., drama school and his struggles for acceptance. Someone asks him if he lived in a tent.
"America has changed," laments filmmaker Youssef Chahine, now 78.
(2002 Photo Mohammad Sehety -- AP)
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He enters into a tender affair with an aspiring actress. They separate but have a fling years later that produces a son. But the son turns out to be a hard young man who sees himself as American rather than Arab. He is a professional dancer and suggests that Jews in show business won't accept him as an Arab. None of the filmmaker's preaching about the fabled tolerance of his own home town, Alexandria, touches the son. And the two part ways.
"I don't know if this is a final divorce," Chahine, 78, said as he smoked cigarettes against the wishes of attentive aides. "I think about the friends I have had in America every day. It was in New York where I saw the greatest plays. I saw Sinatra at the Paramount.
"I don't think we Egyptians are fanatics. But I'm not optimistic about dialogue. Look, my generation learned about America from its movies. They were elegant. What would we learn now?"
The "I Hate Israel" pop singer Shaaban Abdel Rehim, a former laundryman, describes a similar falling-out. "You know, I was like other Egyptians. I liked America when I thought it was working for peace," he said in his dressing room at a Cairo theater.
This spring, Abdel Rehim recorded "Hey, Arab Leaders," in which he says the United States has made the world a "jungle." The song complains that the country flexes "her muscles on Syria and Iran, but when someone utters North Korea, she keeps her mouth shut." In "Attack on Iraq," he goads the U.S. government to inspect Israel -- widely believed to possess a nuclear arsenal -- instead of Iraq. "Enough!" he sings. "Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, South Lebanon, the Golan Heights and now Iraq!"
Shaabi music traditionally deals irreverently with Cairo street life, and Abdel Rehim has sung about smoking and Nile pollution. He dresses in the flamboyant style that shaabi enthusiasts expect of their heroes: greased-down hair, a flaming red sports jacket, bling-bling around his neck with a portrait of himself attached, and a large diamond watch on his wrist.
"Egypt is ready for political messages in music," he said. "After all, I only sing about what people say on the streets. That's what shaabi is about. People are saying these things about America, so why shouldn't I say them?"
He crushed a cigarette and prepared to go on stage. "Hey, do you think President Bush has heard of me? I hope so."
The anti-American trend has often been a boon at the box office. "We had our first hit in 15 years thanks to Bush," said Khaled Sawi, leader of the Haraka Theater group and a left-wing activist. Sawi and his troupe put on "Messing With the Mind," a strident satire of U.S. power in the Middle East. The show opens with people portraying armed Marines entering the theater and shouting at the crowd: "You have the right to remain seated and to die. And turn off your cell phones!"
It ends when the main character, a Gen. Tom Fox (named after Fox News), yells, "I hate Arabs," and gets a pistol shot to the head.
The United States gets a pummeling even in light comedy.
Adel Imam, an enduring comic actor, turned out a film not long ago called "Hello America," about the adventures of an Egyptian immigrant in the United States. He is warned by his friends to be wary of "imperialism" and spends much of the movie looking for such a person.
At one point, he joins a freedom march, but is distressed to learn it is for gay rights. He kisses the son of his cousin and is charged with child molestation. Eventually, he strikes it rich by winning a lawsuit in a questionable auto accident, but has to pay all the winnings to creditors he left in Egypt.
