A young student of the arts, Dunia aspires to be a professional dancer and poet. Her artistic expression is inhibited, however, by her inability to experience and express desire. Dunia’s reasoning that women should not move their bodies to evoke an act of love is challenged by the ardent public intellectual Dr. Beshir–played by Egyptian superstar singer Mohammed Mounir.

In one of the most enduring and popular films of Chahine’s career, Cairo’s main railroad station serves as a microcosm of Egyptian society, with a community of railroad workers and drink vendors living together in abandoned train cars. When the crippled newspaper dealer Kinawi (played by Chahine himself) is rebuffed by the beautiful-but-indifferent Hanuma (Hind Rostom), he kidnaps the object of his obsessive desire—with disastrous consequences.
Chahine’s steamy noir masterpiece of repressed sexuality, madness and violence earned the director international acclaim when it was nominated for the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1958.