Not Growing Up on the Nile:
A Review of A Struggle on the Nile

July 2, 2006

It's fascinating how geographical features get worked into cultural systems. Case in point: the cultural personalities of the Nile and Mississippi. Think of the Mississippi and an American calls to mind the voyage of Huck Finn and the adventures of Tom Sawyer. It is a freewheeling go-lucky coming-of-age kind of river.. able in a moment to rouse a smile. The Nile on the other hand evokes some quite different feelings.. hoary age, fertility in a dry land, and also a certain seriousness. It is not a place for Huck Finns..

A Struggle on the Nile (1959) is important for the way the river plays a supporting role.. and it is too bad the film is marred by a number of unbelievable situations.. i.e. points where characters do things that are impossibly stupid. But there is nothing unbelievable about the river, and that is what I want to focus on in my review: what does this stream of water mean?

The set-up for the film involves a group of old men in Luxor who sense the changes coming to their livelihood with the construction of the high dam in Aswan. They sell their boats and want to invest in a barge. To this end they employ two young men, cousins (Omar Sherif and Rushdi Abaza), to sail north to Cairo and buy that barge. Of course this means safeguarding the small bag filled with 6,000 Egyptian pounds (a fortune). Some jealous villagers learn about this plan—and the large purse of money—and set about trying to steal the money and foil the plans. The most sustained effort to do that involves a duplicitous women (Hind Rostam.. a Marilyn Monroe-type bombshell) who feigns helplessness and winds her way into the hearts of the two cousins. You can foresee the consequences: jealousy, fights, and misunderstanding.

At the start of the film it looked predictable enough. Omar Sherif's character is the young and naive boy who is going to become a man in the course of this journey down the Nile. He made some mistakes at the start, but that is how a coming of age story has to progress. The problem with this theory is that the character does not progress, he seems in fact to get more and more tied up.. and his actions more illogical.. as he gets closer to Cairo. At one point, consumed with jealousy, he even leaves his cousin for dead.. floating in the Nile. When they reach Cairo his illusions come crashing down.. and he manages to get out of there alive. He returns to Luxor, to greet and marry the nice country girl he left behind. But was there growth in that character?

It would be more accurate to say that he is simpy going back to his old simple world, having been unable to handle the emotional challenges of complex situations. As he greets the nice country girl you can almost hear him thinking: "Now I just hope no one ever tells her about what happened out there on the Nile!" And the old men who sold their boats to finance the barge clap and welcome him.. believing he is now a man.. but this is a judgment based on ignorance of what we as the audience know about his fickle character.

So how does the Nile fall into this? The course of the river from Luxor to Cairo forms the time frame in which the actions of the film take place. Americans, I think, would expect that kind of river course to align directly with personal growth. The Nile is not so easily pegged. Its course seems a good deal more static. Things don't change on this river. Sure, people adjust to new circumstances and buy a barge, but characters are not transformed. Hind Rostam as the feigning lost woman manages to bring out the desires that remain hidden in their village.. but that is hardly transformation!

One aspect of a river which makes it different than other physical markers: it is directly aligned with time, and so easily connected to character growth. Since characters develop over time, it is easy to see how cultural ideas about personality get read onto the river. I would suggest that the American river is the site for dynamic personal change, while the Nile is a river where personality stands still.. weighted down by timeless forces.