A love story doomed to end, set on an island doomed to change. Raafat Al-Mihi’s Lil Hobb Qissa Akheera (Love’s Last Story, 1986) is set in Al-Warraq, an island-city mired in controversy and clashes to this day. Al-Mihi navigates the topic far more subtly than recent news coverage on its clashes and informal housing demolition. On the surface, it is about the impending tragedy of a marriage. Peering deeper into the plot, it becomes a film about the people of Al-Warraq, and how they turned an island into their home. THE STORY BEHIND ‘LOVE’S LAST STORY’ The story of the film, set in the 1980s, is mainly on the troubling existence of Al-Warraq’s inhabitants and the identity they build for themselves that gradually isolates them from mainland Cairo – all through the lens of a struggling marriage. In an Egypt of post-war economic damage and political anxiety, ‘Love’s Last Story’ centers around a married couple: the fun and light-hearted Refaat (Yahia Fakharany) and Salwa (Maali Zayed), his loving yet emotionally uneasy wife who frets over the fact that Refaat barely survived a heart attack. Al-Mihi’s cinematic masterpiece slowly plays on…
‘Love’s Last Story’: The Film That Predicted Egypt’s Al-Warraq Dispute
September 6, 2022
