Adel Darwish reports on a new film of the life of Egypt's former President Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser which has caused controversy at home and abroad. The film portrays Nasser as a charismatic hero but, say some critics, that is not quite the way it was.

A new film about the life of the late Egyptian leader, Colonel Gamal Abdel-Nasser, has been roundly rejected by critics and historians alike, while the families of the living characters who played a part in the course of history in the making, including Nasser's own daughter, are threatening legal action.

Colonel Nasser left a complicated legacy in Africa and the Middle East and remains a subject of controversy among historians and intellectuals, who cannot agree whether his 'achievements' were good or bad for his nation.

Nasser won the admiration of many when his small African nation challenged world powers; yet his country paid a high price for his autocratic policies. Egypt lost the southern part of what was once the rich, fertile kingdom of the Nile valley, namely Sudan and its resources, while the Egyptian people lost their democracy. Nasser was utterly committed to the retention of power at any cost, which quickly evolved into a harsh, repressive socialist-style dictatorship.

Opposition figures were persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, exiled or executed. All political opposition parties were outlawed, journalists were silenced and a totalitarian pall fell over Egypt during the Nasser years.

Ironically, as he was rounding up the opposition, destroying democracy and assassinating the historic Egyptian character, Colonel Nasser achieved unprecedented popularity throughout the Arab world becoming revered as Azzaeem - the leader.

Arabs, most of whom had no previous experience of democracy and only knew Egypt through its film industry or contact with the thousands of expatriate Egyptian doctors, nurses and school teachers who treated and educated them, elevated Nasser to a mythological hero. His vehement opposition to the existence of Israel - refusing peace talks and vowing to fight to the bitter end - proved to be disastrous to Egypt, both politically and economically. However, elsewhere it appealed to the tribal temperament of many Arabs.

Now, a new generation of Arab intellectuals - mainly in their 30s, growing up in countries created after WW1 with no nation-state history but desperately searching for a hero to restore self respect - are rediscovering Nasser.

This generation did not witness the Nasser era - Colonel Nasser died in 1970, but they are dangerously rewriting history for the second cinematic remake of the the Nasser myth. Anwar Quwadry, a 30-something, previously unknown, Syrian filmmaker is an example of this generation.

In his film Nasser, released on 39th anniversary of Nasser's death on 28 September last year, Mr Quwadry generates a controversy as he remakes the myth while paying little attention to historic facts.

He seems obsessed with the idea of pan-Arab nationalism with Nasser at the head of the march. In perpetrating his belief, he falsifies history, making Nasser the prophet of Arab nationalism.

This is historically untrue; Nasser was essentially an Egyptian nationalist. He was influenced, in his ideas on reform, by Egyptian philosopher Tawfik El-Hakiem's book Awdat El-Rouh or "The Restoration of the Spirit" which celebrated the 5,000 year old spirit of an Egyptian nation that flourished a couple of millenniums before Arabs became known to history.

During his 10 years in office, Nasser was pro-African rather than pro-Arab. He backed Congo leader Patrice Lumumba - an Egyptian battalion was sent there in 1960; Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and the Ghanian leader Kwame Nkrumah - who married an Egyptian woman - and played a major role in creating the Organisation of African Unity. African festivals were celebrated and African Olympics and sports leagues were created.

Nasser also gave a lot of time and energy to a non-allied movement with Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Achmed Sukarno of Indonesia. He spent more time with those leaders than with all the Arab leaders of the period put together because he needed the backing of the non-allied countries in the UN, and later the Soviet bloc, for arms and economic advancement after the military confrontation with Israel, Britain and France in 1956.

Historians know that Colonel Nasser did not get involved in Arab politics until his adventure in Yemen in 1963 on the side of a military coup, when the Egyptian army fought the Saudi Arabian-backed royalist Yemeni tribes - and used chemical weapons against tribesmen, a fact of which Mr Quwadry's film makes no mention. This is a serious omission as the event marked a turning point for Nasser.

It was the first time the Egyptian army had fought against Arabs since Ibrahim Pasha's campaign against the Wahhabi rebels in Arabia in the 1820s, and also the first recorded use of chemical weapons in the Middle East.

It was not until the mid 1960s that Nasser signed pacts with Arab countries, not for a genuine unity, but for a joint crusade to destroy Israel. He made no mention of creating a common Arab market or free trade zone, although Europe, the Americas and the countries of the Far East had all taken steps towards this end a decade or more earlier.

Other historic errors are evident throughout the film. Egyptian historian Dr Abdel-Azim Ramadan urged the Board of Egyptian Film Classification to ban the film. "It dangerously gives the uneducated masses of viewers wrong and false historic information," Dr Ramadan wrote.

However, Mr Quwadry asserts that he has made a drama, not a documentary. In the view of distinguished Egyptian film critics like Amir El-Amri or Ali Zaki Abu Shadi he has failed on both counts. "It is neither a documentary, since it is historically inaccurate, nor a dramatic film as it fails the criteria of dramatic cinematography," says Mr El-Amri.

During a screening at London University last November, Mr Quwadry's defence of his film made matters worse. "Yes, I know Nasser was not a democrat, but I applaud his choice, as I am convinced democracy would have been a bad thing then," Mr Quwadry told a furious section of the live audience. Meanwhile, another section of spectators, largely made up of members of the older generation, some of them Nasser's former yes-men and their wives, applauded the film and shouted down its critics.

Aside from Nasser's men and a handful of journalists working for Libyan- or Iraqi-backed papers, the Egyptian's present were outraged because the film excluded the Egyptian people. Not a single Egyptian was shown making a comment, airing either pro- or anti-Nasser views. It was almost as if Egyptian opinion did not exist.

Egyptian sensibilities, in London and in Egypt, were offended by a scene depicting the late Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Israel's then foreign minister Moshe Dayan. They, not Egyptian characters, were discussing Nasser's dictatorship, his police state, his human rights' abuses and his disastrous economic policies. This is a simple ploy frequently used by state-controlled Arab mass media when they want to discredit an idea - they simply portray it as coming from the Israelis.

The film avoided showing Dayan, the respected war hero, in his army fatigues. The sight would be anathema to Arab nationalists since he defeated their Arab armies in six days. Instead Dayan was depicted almost as a caricature, carrying some obscure archaeological find under his arm - even as he talked with the prime minister - a jumpy, aggressive gangster, nothing like the brilliant military planner and cultured, sensitive statesman admired by so many in public life.

No Egyptian intellectuals or educated men and women were portrayed in the film. Nasser's own comrades in the junta were depicted as being either weak or dishonest, cowards or traitors. "This is historic injustice," says critic Mr Abu-Shadi. "They were political activists, some were involved in underground activities or were leading members of political movements . They were Islamists, Marxists and liberal democrats."

Drama critic Emad Abdel-Raziq says the film is personality cult propaganda of the type made under Hitler or Stalin, ignoring every persona other than that of Nasser as a hero of Greek myth proportions.

These inaccuracies prompted the powerful, aristocratic Amer family to take legal action. Nasser's best friend General Abdel-Hakim Amer's death in 1967, is still under investigation by historians not convinced by the official version that the general, who was put under house arrest by Nasser, committed suicide. "The film falsifies the chronicles of the death and arrest of General Amer - played by Hisham Selim, who gave an excellent performance despite the restrictions of the part," Mr Raziq added.

Nasser said no to democracy in 1954 and opposed General Mohamed Naguib - Egypt's popular first president - who called for a restoration of civilian government and free elections. The film, however, conducts a character assassination of General Naguib and of King Farouk, accusing him of importing faulty weapons which consequently caused the army's defeat in the 1948 war against Israel. This was a myth created by newspapers and nothing was ever proved either in court or by expert examination of weapons both during the monarchy and under Colonel Nasser's rule; yet the film presents what is now accepted as groundless rumour as an historic fact in order to justify a non-democratic military coup by army officers.

Mr Quwadry defended his Orwellian re-writing of history, saying he wanted to examine the character of Nasser as a private man. Yet in only three shots, totalling 73 seconds, do we see Nasser in private - with his children, with his fiance, and making a short joke about doctors ordering him to quit smoking. "The main character doesn't develop, but the viewers feelings towards the character are manipulated into "liking" Nasser, while disliking characters the filmmakers deem less worthy," said Mr Raziq. In doing so, the filmmakers don't shy away from employing racism and prejudice.

For example the then Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Salem Al-Sabah is shown in a scene which supposedly took place in 1970 as being cross-eyed and unattractive, generating laughter and applause from nationalists and Nasserites among the Arab audience in London, many of whom supported Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait. Another example was the late President Sadat - who was politically active in the underground fight for independence and imprisoned by the British long before Nasser came on the scene - and was presented as an unworthy petty-minded fellow who was kept in the dark by Nasser.

In Mr Quwadry's film, casting was, for the most part, unfortunate. Khalid El-Sawi could not act, and the part of Nasser was "too challenging for his modest talent," according to critics, Raziq, Ameri, Abu Shadi and Maurice. Mr Quwadry admits "spending months looking for a chap who look like Nasser," indicating that his study of Nasser's character did not go beyond appearance, perhaps, Raziq suggested, because his generation only knew Nasser as a legendary leader from a distance.

Critics like Mr Amri and Mr Raziq point to this as a major handicap in the film. "Any Egyptian box office name would have jumped at the part," commented Mr Amri. "This obession with the facial and physical resemblance reflects a deep misunderstanding of how to make documentary drama." He compared Mr Quwadry's film - a box office failure in Egypt - to the 1996 Cairo Television production Nasser 56 by Egyptian veteran director Mohamed Fadhel, who cast the talented actor Ahmad Zaki as Nasser. The film is still among the top ten in Egyptian cinema and a popular video choice for Arab Americans.

Nasser 56, like many good historic dramas, concentrated on character, and how Nasser's character shaped his approach to historical events: the nationalisation of Suez Canal, the negotiations and the war of October 1956 against Israel, Britain and France.

There was a real drama as the characters, whether Nasser's own family, his colleagues, or even ordinary people - who had significant speaking parts - created an historic drama of Shakespearian structure. Mr Zaki's Nasser, in Nasser 56, was credible and convincing, as he believed passionately in what he said and did. In contrast, Mr El-Sawy's Nasser in Quwadry's film is a two-dimensional character presenting a populist shouting demagogue who plays on people's emotion, but lacks credibility both in the balance between the central and other characters and in the events which falsified history.

The motives for making such a film have been questioned by many columnists. As several respected critics told The Middle East, it is a shame Mr Quwadry missed a golden opportunity to examine an important slice of history. He will receive sympathetic applause, even some awards, from autocratic leaders and Arab dictators but he will need to convince us with more serious and historically accurate works if he wants to be taken seriously as a filmmaker.