In thoroughly entertaining fashion, Nasser 56 gives an idea of what it means for a small Middle Eastern nation to dare to defy the worldÃs superpowers, the United States and its Western allies in particular. ThatÃs exactly what Abdel Nasser did in July 1956, when he boldly orchestrated the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the construction of which had cost the lives of 120,000 Egyptians from a population of only 4 million a little more than a century earlier. Director Mohamed Fadel and writer Mahfouz Abd al-Rahman, who shrewdly film in black and white so as to match vintage newsreel footage, present Nasser as a modest, selfless paragon dedicated to his nationÃs selfdetermination and devoted to his family. They pull off the necessary trick of making suspenseful a pivotal incident, the outcome of which is part of modern world history.
