Aleksandrinke, 2011

Aleksandrinke, 2011
Director: Metod Pevec
Cast: various people from that time - the documentary movie. Children and relatives of known Alexandrians


"The expression »Aleksandrinke« is a specific term which was invented by the local people of the Goriška region for the girls and women who worked in Egypt at the time of the most intense expansion of the phenomenon and doesn't mean the inhabitants of Alexandria."

Stage: Local kino Dvor, premiere


Aleksandrinke in short:The massive female emigration from the Goriška region to Egypt in the second half of the 19th century started due to the fact that during the construction of the Suez Canal, and still more so after its opening in the year 1869, the number of European entrepreneurs in Egypt, who settled above all in the cities of Alexandria and Cairo, increased. The country and middle-class girls from our area started to work for these rich European families as cooks, maids, nannies, wet nurses or governesses, dressmakers, etc..


Preps: I am not aware about the movie more than I know about the term in general. Neither I am sure whether it's a documentary or a played movie. Haven't done the homework, I was invited to the premiere which is supposed to be great. The piece, I mean. Historical part is the trigger that drags my expectations high enough.

Reality: The movie shows historical important piece of documentation on the topic - Alexandrian women, known as nannies, governesses, nurture substitute mothers for the children of the wealthy couples in Egypt. Came from all over the world, however, this documentary focuses in perticular on slovene women. Supposed to be hard working, nice, kind to the children, obviously determined to get some money in return for taking care of the children, giving them love they never received from their mothers. Sadly enough, most of them left their real children back at home in Slovenia, in the hands of their relatives, husbands they left behind, shelters for orphans, etc.

A dramatic story, sad from the beginning to its end. The poverty that ruled Slovenia at that point forced a lot of people into situations like this. The hatred the children expressed years after they grew up, the evil thoughts they still carry around and dissappointment from both parties, mothers and their children. The husbands that waited in vain for the lady to return.. Some happier stories inbetween, if the girl succeeded to be an accompanying "mistress" of the landlady, and some also married. However, most of them were there to spend their life to get some money to send it home to poor people that anxiously waited for them.

Nowadays, in Slovenia, maybe the situation is vice versa, Slovenia might now be the shelter and a promised land to many workers from balkan countries. However, the roomer around most of them is really sad, they don't get the money they worked for. Up to great extent far more sad than the Alexandrians - at least they got some money. The guys here, mostly working in construction, nowadays, they don't receive anything for several months of work. And stay, desperately hoping to get at least something, most of them never see the deserved paycheck.

Alexandrians is a documentary, pulled together with various stories, similar to the extent of the thin red line. Breathtaking emotions hidden inbetween the lines, truth as it is, no special effects, nothing more or less than the hard truth. The viewer is left with his soul, thinking about this and how deep the emotions get even after periods of time, that has passed by. The challenge was to make the movie dynamic, Pevec succeeds greatly. Change of scenes, change of people that speak - true facts, combined with status as it was (pictures, taken from that point), narrator that speaks about history, relations between different people and places, political views and culture). Letters, collected from that area and stories that cannot tell a lie. A masterpiece with extensive background research. Worth seeing and being thought about.


My personal rate: 9,0 (leaves you speechless on the topic. a good history and emotional lesson).


Official site of Aleksandrinke