Sex Behind the Veil

CAIRO -- The extremely rare "Adults Only" sign hanging in the ticket window outside Egypt's current hit movie would hint that something particularly lascivious lies within.

This is, after all, a country where there are only two official movie ratings, "Normal" and "Adults Only," and it's been almost 10 years since the last rating to restrict children was issued. It's also a country where crowds of rowdy young people cram the theaters during the annual Cairo Film Festival in late autumn for a glimpse at uncensored foreign entrants. Here, coffee shops often show "cultural films" -- the local euphemism for porn -- on the sly.

But the film in question, "Sahar Al Leyali," or "Sleepless Nights," has been packing the houses and causing a stir more for its emotional and psychological frankness than its sexually explicit subject matter.

Four Couples in Crisis

"Sleepless Nights" looks at four young couples in crisis. The husbands are all childhood friends -- making the film comparable to a younger "Big Chill" or "Peter's Friends." One couple is stuck in a passionless marriage and the film includes a wince-inducing scene of their awkward sex life. Another couple is unmarried and debating their future together. In the United States this would be unremarkable, but in Egypt, it's a shock to see a neutral, matter-of-fact depiction of an unmarried pair "living in sin." Both characterizations are nearly unprecedented in Egyptian cinema.

"I'm trying to talk about things that usually aren't talked about," said first-time director Hani Khalifa, in an interview. "I'm not trying to shock people, but we need a discussion."

The film has grossed about $1.5 million and spawned a flood of newspaper articles debating its social significance. A runaway hit with critics, it stands far apart from the noisy comedies and melodramas that clog Egyptian cinema.

The film opens with all the characters in Cairo, but after all four couples have fights, the young men leave town together. From there the scenes jump between the guys in a beach house in Alexandria and their female counterparts back in Cairo.

While centering on the road trip of the young men who turn to one another to escape their love-life difficulties, it's the portrayal of the female characters that breaks new ground. Moushira, the frustrated young wife, nearly steals the show. Sexually unfulfilled, but trapped by both love for her kind, repressed husband and fear of the stigma of divorce, Moushira indulges in lurid sexual fantasies on her analyst's couch and the brief attentions of a rival suitor. She has the only real sex scene of the movie and the shot of her vacant eyes over her husband's shoulder is more haunting than racy.

Private Unhappiness That Resonates

"There's nothing arousing about that scene. That's the point," said Khalifa, who noted that the emptiness of the scene is what reverberates with viewers. The director recounts sitting through one screening where a middle-aged woman in the audience shouted, "I'm Moushira!"

Magda Khairallah, a film critic for the magazine Akher Saa, praised the portrayal for its clear-eyed view of a widespread problem. "That's very common," she said. "There are a lot of women living in 'automatic marriages' where their husband treats them as just one more thing in the house. But (Moushira) doesn't want to leave or betray him."

In a U.S. context, Moushira's unhappiness might be easy grounds for a divorce. But the situation isn't that simple in Middle Eastern society. In most cases, a divorced woman would have to move back in with her parents, essentially reducing her status to that of a child.

"The idea of divorce isn't an easy thing," said Khairallah. "Although a woman might be unhappy with her husband, she would be giving up a lot of freedom if she left him."