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Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (new revised edition), Cairo, New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2007, 311 pp.
The Arab world has been usually mistakenly perceived as a unity. In fact, this world is characterized by linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity and made up of different individuals, communities and states. The religious majority there are Muslims, next to them live Christians, Jews and other minority groups. Despite this significant diversity, in the Arab world one may also observe some unifying factors, such as common topography, common cultural heritage, including the classical Arabic language, science, theology, philosophical thought and art. Furthermore, most Arab countries possess a comparable history regarding colonialism, dependency on foreign powers and similar approach to modern reforms. It is natural then, that all these features have found their reflection in modern Arab art, including cinema.
Viola Shafik, the author of Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, studied cinema in Hamburg and is a freelance film scholar and film maker. She has directed several documentaries, including The Lemon Tree (1993), which was awarded the prize for the best short documentary at the Images of the Arab World Festival in 1993. Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity was first published in 1998. Since then, the book has become an indispensable work for scholars of film and the modern Middle East. While sketching a detailed narrative history, including its economic, ideological and aesthetic aspects, Shafik provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of cinema in the Arab world, tracing the industry development from the colonial times to the present.
The introduction brings us an overview of the existing literature related to Arab cinema. As the author points out, the majority of this scholarship tends "to define identity or national affiliation merely by analyzing the story line of a film and its inherent message." Shafik admits that in her own research she does not abandon this method completely but she also "considers the film as a film, which means examining the technical and artistic methods of mise en scene, editing, visual composition,...
