Photo: Latifah as Malak in Youssef Chahine's Silence...We're Rolling
Youssef Chahine's Silence...We're Rolling is a rollicking paean to the Hollywood and Bollywood musicals of yesteryear. Recently separated from her husband, singer/actress Malak (Tunisian singer Latifah) falls prey to slimy lothario Lamei (Ahmed Wafik), a psychoanalyst with aspirations of superstardom. Lamei is a threat to family and the purity of song, moving his attentions from mother to daughter once he's tricked into thinking Malak's mother (Magda El Khatib, resembling a Dynasty-era Barbara Stanwyck) left her fortune to the young Paula (Rubi). A screenwriter angered by Malak's naïveté seeks to expose Lamei for the snake he is, but he's blinded by his own genius, confusing the makeshift stairs from a film set for an actual exit. Silence...We're Rolling is an eye-popping celebration of art imitating life (and vice versa)—a movie valentine inundated with famous movie references (the uniformly excellent cast channels Sturges with every comic breath).
Youssef Chahine's Silence...We're Rolling is a rollicking paean to the Hollywood and Bollywood musicals of yesteryear. Recently separated from her husband, singer/actress Malak (Tunisian singer Latifah) falls prey to slimy lothario Lamei (Ahmed Wafik), a psychoanalyst with aspirations of superstardom. Lamei is a threat to family and the purity of song, moving his attentions from mother to daughter once he's tricked into thinking Malak's mother (Magda El Khatib, resembling a Dynasty-era Barbara Stanwyck) left her fortune to the young Paula (Rubi). A screenwriter angered by Malak's naïveté seeks to expose Lamei for the snake he is, but he's blinded by his own genius, confusing the makeshift stairs from a film set for an actual exit. Silence...We're Rolling is an eye-popping celebration of art imitating life (and vice versa)—a movie valentine inundated with famous movie references (the uniformly excellent cast channels Sturges with every comic breath).
