Spoiler in the last paragraph.In just his second film, Omar Sharif plays Essam, the title character in Youssef Chahine's The Devil of the Desert. He's an arrogant, unserious jerk who is too busy with his "gypsy" girlfriend (Lola Sedki as Shaden) to take on an important mission for his Bedouin community but, after everyone who did go on the mission is slaughtered, he turns avenger, resolved to get revenge upon the man who is to blame for all of the bloodshed (The extremely delightful Egyptian Dom DeLuise, Abdel Ghani Kamar, as Zubaid).*I found Essam incredibly unappealing — he's supposed to be overwhelmingly charming, but he comes across as childish and arrogant more than anything else, treating his former "gypsy" friends horribly, and immediately falling in love with the very light skinned, most European-looking girl he meets on his travels (she's played by the admittedly quite stunning Mariam Fakhr Eddine).** Of course, he keeps leading Shaden on because, as she recognizes and points out to him, he needs her for his schemes. (That doesn't keep there from being the requisite catfight, however. You know, because Essam is sooooooo amazing.)I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I hated Essam, but would likely have quite enjoyed the character, had he been played by, say, Errol Flynn. I'm not sure I have the full answer, but I think part of it is that there is very little lightness to Essam — he's all smug ego and cocksurity, whereas those explosively confident Flynn characters were always able to tease and joke when they weren't beating the bad guys. It also doesn't help that Sharif is so early in his career — within a few years, he'd probably have been amazing as Essam, but he doesn't yet have the chops for any nuance.Long story short, I was rooting hard for Shaden, his turncoat "gypsy" girl — she didn't deserve his shit, and he sure wasn't worthy of her awesomeness. Since I watched The Golden Horde right before this, my brain put Shaden in the same box as Shalimar in that film: two badass, self sufficient women dealing with what Sin would accurately call ain't shit men who over complicate their lives in entirely unnecessary ways.*LB says Eddine was in two movies, but it appears to be closer to fifty.**I am the opposite of an expert, but from the little I've read, colorism exists in Egypt, just like it does in a ton of other places. If this is incorrect, please let me know!
