Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 9
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 0
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
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The lives and loves of a handful of Egyptian aristocrats -- some flush, others living in shabby gentility -- set the stage for this epic-scale drama, based on a best-selling Egyptian novel. The Yacoubian is a luxury apartment building which was built in Cairo in the late '30s. At the dawn of the 21st century, the Yacoubian still has charm and a reputation for elegance, but is beginning to show clear signs of decay, and the rooftop laundry facilities now double as flats for the less fortunate.
Apr 27, 2006 Wide
Jan 29, 2008
Bac Films
All Critics (9) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (1) | DVD (1)
Rich and imposing.
At more than 2 1/2 hours, The Yacoubian Building is nothing if not long. But it's a window into a culture that few of us get to see.
The Yacoubian Building distinguishes itself both as the most expensive Egyptian film ever made and, despite its nearly three-hour running time, one of the most watchable.
It's a bold film for an Arabic country.
Islam is only cast as anti-democratic. Only homosexuality is [shown as] worse. The Yacoubian Building slums around in the basement when it could have shown some messy, lived-in corners of a down-to-earth, honest-to-god African nation.
[A] swoony romantic sheen...threatens to downgrade the endeavor from ethnographic document to lifestyle porn with a heavily moralistic edge.
The Yacoubian Building is a flawed, yet ultimately illuminating film worth seeing.
This sweeping melodrama is nothing less than an Egyptian state-of-the-nation address.
A revelatory slice of secular life in downtown, modern-day Cairo... like an Egyptian Tales From the City, soapy with communal taboos in each of its entwined scenarios... enlightening and articulate...
A grand and soapy experience set in the fading glory of apartments meant for a better time and place.
While it was commendable how the film stuck closely with the important themes of sexuality, religion and politics as in the novel, it was less subtle in the treatment of them, almost to the point I felt like it had changed the meaning of what the novel had implied. This was especially so in the portrayal of the gay
March 20, 2011Super Reviewer
Alaa Al Aswany's novel adaptation is a great picture with a few flaws. First, we don't need to know off the gay ass shit that's happening behind closed. In other words, spare us the disgust. Second, religious people are portrayed stereotypically. Other than that, great acting and cinematography.
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