I just came from the Black Nights film festival here in Tallinn, where I had the chance to see "Sleepless Nights". First of all I was very eager to see it. As yesterday I talked to one of the actors - Khaled Abol Naga, playing Ali, he convinced me that its controversial and is a good example of new Egyptian cinema generation. The opening titles were OK, the first 10 minutes also, but what happened later, well, not my cup of tea. The first half of the movie seemed to me like an Mexican soap opera - the dialogues, acting and locations (mostly inside). The only good part there was Khaled playing Ali and that's it. The second part of the film changed the atmosphere...mainly because the guys went to the beach house. Still, all the time I could see through the characters and mostly I recognized actors trying to struggle.
When talking about the script itself, well, it was too long and with many "cheesy" elements, especially the ending...
The only good thing were some interesting camera shots.
The controversy...well, maybe for the Arab world. And respect for that! I don't know their culture very good, so I suppose they conceder this (braking up couples) controversial.
After the movie Khaled Abol Naga said that in Egypt they censor most of the movies. That means no sex, religion and so on. This could be a very good explanation why maybe in Europe and rest of the western world, this movie is nothing special.
