The Cursed Palace (1962)

 

Director: Hasan Redha

Screenplay: Adly El-Mowalid, Hasan Redha and Farooq Said

Cast: Maryam Fakhruddin as Yusriyyah; Salah Zoalfaqar as Hasan; Mahmoud Al Meleji as Fahmi Bey; Abdel Moneim Ibrahim as Fathi; Mahmoud El-Sabbaa as Mursi; Olwiyya Gamil as Nagiyyah

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #182

 

Why didn't he die while living and now lives while he's dead...?

A note to begin: as one imagines cinema from around the world, one would wonder what horror cinema would look like hypothetically. In mind to how rich Egyptian culture is, one cannot help but envision, after the exoticism of the country from the West including insidious attitudes, a film about Ancient Egyptian mythology if shot in real Egyptian locations by people who grew up in the environment, where it is not considered a foreign form but entirely of its own history and folklore like many films I have covered from other countries have thankfully been. I think, not a horror film, but how Youssef Chahine for Struggle in the Valley (1954) managed to be striking for its place of origin and the perfect use of it; a drama with genre types ends with a final confrontation...set among Ancient Egyptian architecture and pillars, a thousand years old at least, which was breathtaking to witness.

The Cursed Palace is not this, but again all films have promise when you come to them. In fact it is on the border of horror, almost about to become gothic horror. A lawyer is asked to help create a will for a wealthy man, only his home is said to be haunted by ghosts and, falling for his daughter, our protagonist soon comes to learn she is under peril. It is a tale spoken in many languages, of inheritance on the line, ghosts and possibly some gas lighting too. Stories which are always compelling no matter how many times they are told as their deal with the worst in human behaviour which is timeless, and they are international in their existence.

Even in mind to, well, whether a good copy can be found of The Cursed Palace to watch or not, it does embrace the gothic aesthetic, with a lot of deep shadows and the palace itself closer to a decadent western home full of paintings and tight corridors. The orchestra music is overbearing mind, which sucks the atmosphere out of the film most times, lush music that would have been perfect is used sparingly but used too much instead.

In truth, this is just an okay film. The is possibly straying back into exoticisation if I am not careful, as an outsider thinking to dictate how another country's cinema should be, but it is bad that there is no real sense of the country in the film, a gothic tale where the daughter is being tormented in regards to being the benefactor of her father's will, that could be made anywhere. Even in the scant I know, if this film was the same but set in the middle of Cairo, or the countryside full, this would be inherently more interesting just from a more striking change of location, which we do see later on more often thankfully. It instead feels too trapped in its central location for large portions of the narrative, an upper-class mansion in its own world, where even the outside flora is nondescript.

As much of this is because, honestly, hoping to see a snapshot of Egypt of the sixties, I even up with a film wishing to tell its tale very conventionally rather than take any risk. When you see anywhere outside, it is a nice change, whilst the film is helped partially when the plot escalates with more suspicion and a misplaced glove. Even the abrupt plot twist - [Major Spoiler] evil twin! [Spoilers Ends] - feels more necessarily as it creates a sudden lurch off the narrative into something strange, something more rewarding in how, well, abrupt it was. Again, The Cursed Palace is okay, enjoyable eventually, though it takes its time for too long to grow into something more interesting.

As a result, one of the most interesting aspects is the character playing Fathi, friend of the lead and the comedic sidekick who is a huge scaredy cat. The ultimate scaredy cat in fact, or among the high pantheon of them, his ridiculous arm movements a sign the actor has decided to chew the scenery in his role. It is a ridiculously broad performance, but it did leave me in thought how, as I have seen in films from outside my country or even the United States, you have a lot of comedic sidekicks in international cinema, in genres we usually take seriously like horror, to lighten the mood briefly with broad and over-the-top mannerisms. Mind you, it worked as I found the scene of Fathi and the tumbleweed of hay funny, seemingly moving by itself until more tumbleweed appear, as much for the actor bugging out at them. The performance is so exaggerated I ended up admiring the fact he at least swung from the rafters.

That this reviews proves anticlimactic is sad, but one factor to realise is that it really is not enough to tell a story, but how and context. Especially in mind, how Egyptian culture is not as freely available as it should be makes this even more annoying when I came to this, one I could find, and discover it was slight.