''Sleepless'' ( ar, لا أنام, translit. La Anam) is a 1957

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

ian melodrama film. The film follows the intricate story of Nadia Lutfi, a daughter of divorced parents who suffers from

Electra complex In neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his ''Theory of Psychoanalysis'', is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the ...

, which drives her to intervene in her father's relationships. Directed by the

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

film director

Salah Abu Seif Salah Abu Seif ( ar, صلاح أبو سيف, ) (May 10, 1915 – June 23, 1996) was one of the most famous Egyptian film directors, and is considered to be the godfather of Neorealist cinema in Egyptian cinema. Many of the 41 films he direct ...

, this film is based on a novel with the same name written by the Egyptian novelist

Ihsan Abdel Quddous Ihsan Abdel Quddous ( arz, إحسان عبد القدوس ', ) (1 January 1919 – 12 January 1990) was an Egyptian writer, novelist, and journalist and editor in Egypt's '' Al Akhbar'' and '' Al-Ahram'' newspapers. He wrote many novels tha ...

. The film, which is currently ranked the 29th best Egyptian film by the cinema committee of the Supreme Council of Culture in Cairo, starred

Faten Hamama Faten Ahmed Hamama ( ar, فاتن حمامه ; 27 May 1931 – 17 January 2015) was an Egyptian film and television actress and film producer. She was the first wife of Ezz El-Dine Zulficar. She made her screen debut in 1939, when she was ...

, Yehia Chahine,

Mariam Fakhr Eddine Mariam Mohamed Fakhr Eddine ( ar, مريم محمد فخر الدين , 8 September 1933 – 3 November 2014) was an Egyptian film and television actress, and was the second wife of prominent filmmaker Mahmoud Zulfikar (1914-1970). She was nickna ...

, Omar Sharif,

Emad Hamdy Emad Hamdy ( ar, عماد حمدي, ; November 25, 1909 – January 28, 1984) was an Egyptian actor. He was married to the Egyptian actress Shadia between 1953 and 1956. And between 1962 and 1975 he was married to the Egyptian actress Nadia ...

, Hind Rostom and Rushdy Abaza. It was released on DVD as part of the ''Egyptian Cinema Classics'' film collection. ''Sleepless'' is one of the ten first Egyptian colored films.

Plot

plays Nadia Lutfi, a young woman who belongs to an aristocratic, upper-class family. After her parents divorce each other, her father ( Yehia Chahine) wins custody of her. She lives with her father and over the years develops a very close and strong relationship with him to the extent of being sexually attracted towards him, an obsessive behavior known as

. At the age of 18, she plunges into a premature relationship with Mustafah (

Imad Hamdi Emad Hamdy ( ar, عماد حمدي, ; November 25, 1909 – January 28, 1984) was an Egyptians, Egyptian actor. He was married to the Egyptian actress Shadia between 1953 and 1956. And between 1962 and 1975 he was married to the Egyptian actre ...

), a writer and journalist who is quite older a bit than she is. Meanwhile, her father meets and falls in love with another woman, Safia (

). He decides to marry her, which Nadia is forced to accept. However, her father gradually starts spending more time with his new wife, which galls and displeases Nadia who does not receive an equal amount of love and attention anymore. This compels and drives her to step in and ruin their relationship. Now seeing Safia as her enemy, Nadia plots for revenge from her stepmother. Nadia accuses Safia of having an affair with Aziz ( Omar Sharif), Nadia's young uncle. To convince her father, Nadia had to ask her friend Kawthar ( Hind Rostom), a voluptuous and licentious woman, to seduce her father. Nadia's successful conspiracy results in a divorce between Safia and her father. Not only that, Nadia's father decides to marry her. Enticed by the wealth of Nadia's father, she agrees to marry him. Nadia is devastated when she discovers that Kawthar is having an affair with another young man, Samir ( Rushdy Abaza), realizing that Kawthar is only living with her father for his fortunes. Mustafah, who had secretly admired Safia, proposed to her after her divorce with Nadia's father. Nadia conceals the truth from her father, worried that such a revelation might strike and shatter him. Her father finds about Samir. Nadia, finding no escape route, lies and tells her father that he is her

fiancé An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''fi ...

. Kawthar nefariously adds that Nadia and Samir are getting married, which Nadia is forced to accept. On the night of her wedding, Nadia shocks her father and the wedding attendants with the startling truth, leaving her father traumatized. At the end of the film, one of the candles fallen in Nadia's wedding dress, so she became burned. Nadia taken to the hospital and she became deformed.

Cast

as Nadia Lutfi * Yehia Chahine as Nadia's father *

as Safia *

as Mustafah * Hind Rostom as Kawthar * Rushdy Abaza as Samir * Omar Sharif as Aziz

Reception

''La Anam'' premiered at the Cinema Miami theater in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

on November 31, 1957, and was met with a lot of success and recognition in

and the Arab-speaking world. This was mainly due to the star-studded cast and the fact that it was one of the earliest colored Egyptian films. The film has maintained its popularity and has been selected amongst the best Egyptian films in 1996 by the Egyptian Film association. However, due to its controversial topic, it wasn't frequently broadcast on television.

Trivia

*The well-known Egyptian actress

Nadia Lutfi Nadia Lutfi or Nadia Loutfi ( ar, نادية لطفي; born Poula Mohamed Mostafa Shafiq ( ar, بولا محمد مصطفى شفيق); 3 January 1937 – 4 February 2020) was an Egyptian actress. During the apex of her career, she was one of the ...

got her stage name from Nadia Lutfi in ''Sleepless''.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0355674 1957 films 1950s Arabic-language films Films based on Egyptian novels Films based on romance novels Films directed by Salah Abu Seif 1957 romantic drama films Egyptian romantic drama films Melodrama films