The Night of Counting the Years


The Night of Counting the Years, also released in Arabic as The Mummy, is a 1969 Egyptian film and the only feature film directed by Shadi Abdel Salam. The film was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot

Set in 1881, a year before the start of British colonial rule, it is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that is stealing piecemeal a cache of mummies they have discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, and selling the artefacts on the black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members goes to the police, helping the Antiquities Service find the cache.

Cast

Critical reception for The Night of Counting the Years has been very positive, with Egyptian critics consistently list it as one of the greatest Egyptian films ever made. Aaron Cutler from Slant Magazine called it "both a classic film and a classic Arab film". Time Out London praised the film, calling it "Slow-moving but absorbing, and quite beautifully shot."
The film was not without its detractors.
Richard Eder of The New York Times was critical of the film, writing, "Most of the movie, is done with stupefying grandiloquence. Wherever the camera touches, it sticks and won't let go. Landscape, brooding close-ups—and how they all do brood—interminable patterns of black-robed figures against the white sand: Every shot lingers and lingers. The acting is heavy and hieratic, fogged with a pretentious mysticism."