A vivid portrait of a nation in chaos, The Sparrow is set against the background of Egypt’s shocking defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel, a traumatic event that transformed Egyptians' confidence in Nasser into ambivalence towards a leader suddenly revealed to be deeply fallible. Eschewing traditional narrative in favor of an episodic ensemble piece focused on the hunt for a politically connected crime kingpin, The Sparrow'sheady combination of realist and expressionist elements is meant to disorient the viewer and evoke Chahine’s vision of a country suddenly gone far astray.