CAIRO TIME - On DemandAugust 18, 2010
IFC Films
On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: CAIRO TIME.
Email Amy Slotnick
I once had an astrologer tell me I should never go to Cairo, explaining that something terrible would happen to me there. To date, I have followed her advice. That really isn’t saying much though, considering I also have not gone to the place she told me something amazing would happen – Vancouver. That aside, CAIRO TIME, the new independent film which played many prestigious festivals last year, has served for me as a reiteration of that psychic’s message, reinforcing that I should never go there...
Though the city and the film’s star, Patricia Clarkson, look beautiful in director Ruba Nadda’s story, the plot is about as stagnant as the air seems to be in Cairo. The film tells the story of Juliette’s (Patricia Clarkson) trip to Cairo to meet her husband for a vacation. Upon her arrival, she learns that her husband, a UN diplomat, has been called away to a refugee camp in Gaza and he has sent a local friend, Tareq (played by Alexander Siddig), to greet her at the airport and deliver the news. Over the following days and weeks, Juliette waits patiently for her husband and begins to explore the city.
Despite the oppressive Egyptian heat that is referenced, Juliette dresses in always-pressed and sweat-free linen whites and beautiful sundresses. She is clearly attractive to Tareq who frequently serves as her guide. Gradually, Juliette’s rapport with Tareq grows into emotional, albeit muted, feelings. These are never stated, nor fully acted upon, by either of them, though they come close a few times.
Only a symbolic betrayal is made when Juliette visits the pyramids with Tareq, even though she states several times that she had agreed to wait to see them with her husband. In the end, when her husband does finally arrive in Cairo, she sadly parts from Tareq without any real acknowledgement of their unrequited romance, and we see her visit the pyramids again, pretending it is for the first time.
The simple elegance of the script and Clarkson’s portrayal of Juliette is lovely, to an extent. Eventually though, I was eager for something to happen, good or bad, to energize the film’s slow pace. The closest the film comes to this is when Juliette boards a public bus to Gaza to find her husband for herself.
When the bus is stopped at the Gaza border, she is removed by Israeli military for her own safety and Tareq comes to drive her back to the hotel. The young woman whom Juliette sat next to on the bus handed her a letter to deliver to the woman’s lover. Juliette does get the letter, in which the woman tells her lover that she is pregnant, into the right hands, but nothing further ever comes of this subplot.
Similarly, other subplots involving the girlfriend of a fellow UN worker and the story of a past love of Tareq’s raise our interest level and create a hope that some conflict will develop. However, like the main relationship in the film, they fade away without being fully realized.
The chemistry between Juliette and Tareq comes through from Clarkson and Siddig’s subtle performances, and one gets an accurate sense of what it can be like to be a traveler in a strange city. However, the languid pace and incomplete connections between characters make CAIRO TIME as relaxed and inactive as the teashops we see all over Cairo on a hot, lazy day.
- Amy Slotnick
Amy Slotnick is a new contributor to On Demand Weekly. She works as an independent producer and freelance consultant to film financing start-ups. Previously she was a Senior VP of Production at Miramax Films.
CAIRO TIME is Available On Demand until 11/06/10
Running Time: 89 minutes / Rated PG
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