by Vanessa Farquharson, National Post Published: Thursday, October 08, 2009
Awkward exchanges and stilted conversation are director Rubba Nadda's specialty, although it's most likely an accidental one.
The Canadian filmmaker's 2005 romantic comedy Sabah, about a Muslim woman who falls for a secular Western man and finally realizes the pleasure of wearing lipstick, involved a courtship that was so painfully self-aware and stiff that only a belly-dancing montage could ease the secondary embarrassment.
Now, audiences are transported to Egypt for yet another culture-clash-turned-romance: Magazine editor Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) has landed in Cairo, ready to go off and explore the Pyramids with her aid worker husband. But he's been detained in Gaza, so she instead discovers the city with his old friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig), a retired cop who now runs a men's café downtown.
Fortunately, the affair between the two is subtextual rather than overt; even when they find themselves alone together in a hotel room, physical exchanges are confined mostly to glances or elbow touches. And to Nadda's credit, the ending is hardly predictable, with a sudden blast of realism after 80 minutes of dreamlike storytelling.
But what would really be nice, at this point, is a blast of actual fresh air - the characters, perhaps themselves suffocating on the polluted smog of the Egyptian capital, spend the entire film moving in slow-motion and speaking with delayed reactions, as though they weren't in fact standing next to each other but were on opposite ends of a trans-Atlantic phone call, using tin cans and rope.
Some may interpret this as being languid and sultry - and indeed, the immensely talented Clarkson is able to convey much inner turmoil with a single twitch of her eyes and breathless parting of her lips - but it also comes across as not quite believable, and the frustration reaches a boiling point with dialogue as stilted as: "I first came here with Ali. We had lunch with bedouins. It was great."
Add to this a couple of Orientalist clichés (a white woman smoking a hookah pipe - get outta here!), a few touristy shots of the pyramids and the Nile and generic Middle Eastern accents for when subtitles get tedious, and the result is a film that's perhaps engaging at first, but quickly loses its appeal as the minutes go by (then again, it won the best Canadian feature prize at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, so clearly some audiences were impressed throughout its duration).
Either way, while it's always a pleasure to watch Clarkson slip so effortlessly into a role that is, in most cases, utterly contrary to whatever character she played in the movie before, she just isn't strong enough to make this film great. And those seeking a love story with actual love in it should probably look elsewhere - Cairo Time is closer to a promotional film for Egypt's tourism board than a genuine romance.
-------------------- your ass is so tight when you fart only a dog can hear it.when you queef only a cat can hear that one. Posts: 9776 | From: You like If only mosquitoes sucked fat instead of blood. | Registered: Jul 2007
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I watched the trailer last week and I agree with the person who wrote this review.
Posts: 1626 | From: whatever, wherever | Registered: Jul 2008
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posted
damn i called the film place in canada and he said it wont be in the us until june. we wanna watch it now...
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Sorry but I can't see any future opening for the movie in the US. Hopefully it will be available on DVD at one point. I wanna watch it too.
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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Foundry Films 403-225 Richmond Street West, Toronto, ON, M5V 1W2 Tel: 416-260-3030 Email: foundryfilms@gmail.com
i called and asked them when it will come to usa he said in june. so i cant wait.i wish it was out now.
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well i got the dvd cairo time today and watching it now. so far it is a good movie.
-------------------- your ass is so tight when you fart only a dog can hear it.when you queef only a cat can hear that one. Posts: 9776 | From: You like If only mosquitoes sucked fat instead of blood. | Registered: Jul 2007
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in the movie the military stopped the bus to gaza can they do that and make u leave on the spot? what would be the reason for making a woman only 1 woman get off a buss and leave.
-------------------- your ass is so tight when you fart only a dog can hear it.when you queef only a cat can hear that one. Posts: 9776 | From: You like If only mosquitoes sucked fat instead of blood. | Registered: Jul 2007
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quote:Originally posted by tina kamal: in the movie the military stopped the bus to gaza can they do that and make u leave on the spot? what would be the reason for making a woman only 1 woman get off a buss and leave.
Sure they can. Tina, Egypt's government is a military dictatorship and it's the military that runs the country. I suspect the reason Juliette had to get off of the bus was she was the only passenger holding a foreign passport, so she was given the option to call someone to come and get her. Remember the soldier told her that bus wasn't going anywhere? Gaza, and travel in and out of that region, is sensative and subject to restriction. I suspect the reason anything having to do with Gaza was included in the film for the sole purpose of pointing toward the Palestinian plight.
Posts: 758 | From: Here. There. Everywhere. | Registered: Mar 2008
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well i guess since we dont have that in usa i wouldnt understand.but y did they stop the buss and make her call someone to come get her. did it explain or did i miss it or what? and whats with the girl with that letter to the man she had the white lady deliver?
-------------------- your ass is so tight when you fart only a dog can hear it.when you queef only a cat can hear that one. Posts: 9776 | From: You like If only mosquitoes sucked fat instead of blood. | Registered: Jul 2007
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quote:Originally posted by tina kamal: well i guess since we dont have that in usa i wouldnt understand.but y did they stop the buss and make her call someone to come get her. did it explain or did i miss it or what? and whats with the girl with that letter to the man she had the white lady deliver?
Busses are stopped and checked all of the time.
Local, in town micro busses are regularly stopped by the police to make sure the driver stays on his route and if he doesn't, his license is taken away until he pays a hefty fine to get it back.
In the movie, this particular bus was stopped at a military check point. The government restricts movement of busses - something to do with only a certain number of them allowed to cross from one geographical area into another at any given time, I believe. If it's not the military keeping a handle them, the police will. Passing some cash will usually get a bus through when the police stop it, but not so much with the military. The bus in the movie would have been checked simply because it was going to Gaza.
The military wasn't going to let this particular bus continue on to Gaza, so they gave Juliette the option of calling someone to come and pick her up, a privilege they didn't extend to anyone else. Foreigners, particularly westerners and, yes, Americans, have more rights in Egypt than Egyptians. The girl surely knew that the military wasn't going to search Juliette's bag because she carried an American passport.
The letter was telling the girl's boyfriend she was pregnant. If the army guys searched her purse, found the letter, opened and read it, they would have known she was unmarried and pregnant and I'm pretty sure you know how horrible that would be for any girl in Egypt. Sex outside of marriage is a crime and they could have asked her to see a copy of her marriage contract on the spot. She wouldn't have one, so they could have arrested her. That's why she gave the letter to Juliette to deliver - so she wouldn't be caught with it and to keep her secret from the authorities.
Tina, there's a lot of things in that movie that would be hard to understand without first-hand experience, like the comment about "petroleum wives" and the hand movements and Juliette walking down the street smoking a cigarette.
Posts: 758 | From: Here. There. Everywhere. | Registered: Mar 2008
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thanks for explaing that to me. i understand now.but like u said if i have never been there there aqre many things i could never explain.
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I downloaded the first link since it would only let me try one at a time. I had to wait about 4 hours (since I am a free user) to be able to start the download and then it took 1 hour 30 minutes to download. When I tried to open it, it was unable to extract from the file because it was asking for a disk to be inserted. So it looks like I won't be able to see it. I will wait till someone puts it on YouTube or some other movie download site. Thanks for sharing it anyway.
Posts: 1626 | From: whatever, wherever | Registered: Jul 2008
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I really enjoyed the movie but hated the ending especially the scene where shes crying in the taxi... Posts: 140 | From: Ireland | Registered: Nov 2009
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quote:Originally posted by melissa87: I really enjoyed the movie but hated the ending especially the scene where shes crying in the taxi...
i know. i wonder y she is crying?is it she will miss egypt or miss him?
Posts: 9776 | From: You like If only mosquitoes sucked fat instead of blood. | Registered: Jul 2007
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quote:Originally posted by melissa87: I really enjoyed the movie but hated the ending especially the scene where shes crying in the taxi...
Really don't need to watch it now then do i ? Posts: 3945 | From: ' Res Contr ' Amor non es guirens, lai on sos poders s'atura | Registered: Dec 2007
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Yeah..go on and tell us what happens..do they need to go to mogamaa at least for orfi..visa..whatever ?? Posts: 3219 | From: Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone. | Registered: Nov 2005
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hehe, the housekeeper was sweet. no u shud watch it!! sorry i didnt mean to give away any og the plot :s its very gud in my oppinion and definately worth watching. glad the download worked for u shahrazat
Posts: 140 | From: Ireland | Registered: Nov 2009
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Wikipedia: Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi (Arabic: صدّيق الطاهر الفاضل الصدّيق عبدالرحمن محمد أحمد عبدالكريم المهدي; born 21 November 1965) is a Sudanese-born English actor, also known as Siddig El Fadil and Alexander Siddig....Dr. Julian Bashir in the tv series Star Trek.... Prince Nasir Al-Subaai in Syriana (2005) ...Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)...guest starred on 24 as Hamri Al-Assad.... Siddig co-stars in the award-winning film Cairo Time (2009) as Tareq Khalifa.
So, he is an English who plays various Arabs Posts: 132 | From: Alex | Registered: Oct 2009
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Well the link worked. I managed to get the download and I just finished watching it. So thanks for the help with the links, but...
I'm so glad that movie finally ended. Am I the only one who hated it? I must have paused about 19 times to refresh my Facebook page - which turned out to be more exciting than the movie.
First of all, the chick walks out of the airport with no luggage. All she has is her handbag and a second slightly oversized handbag. Yet from that bag she manages to pull about 9 different outfits, 3 pairs of shoes, an Apple laptop computer, and a day planner bigger than a Stephen King novel? What was that some kind of Mary Poppins bag?
And why did she go through the whole movie speaking in a breathy whisper? It had me constantly turning up the volume to hear her over the noise of Cairo. There was just one too many dramatic pauses in her delivery.
He was no better. The chemistry between them was unbelievable and unrealistic. Speaking of unrealistic - I laughed my ass off at the way they portrayed the group of guys that followed her the first time she went out alone. What, the guy walking in the other direction just automatically makes an about face and follows her? It reminded me of the scene in Andy Griffith where Opie was walking down the street with a wagon full of fresh meat and all the dogs started following him. What, did she have a pound of bacon under her dress? I have never seen it actually happen like this in all the time I've been in Cairo. It would be more like the guys would be chatting her up trying to guess what country she was from and then telling her about all their relatives who just happened to immigrate to that country. But I guess if they gave all those guys speaking roles in the movie they would have had to pay them more. The one that lingered outside the shoe store when she ducked in there to escape them was quite comical.
When her husband finally showed up I almost wished he had stayed stuck in Gaza. There was even less chemistry between them. I started rooting for Tariq at that point. Granted they've been married for years and years, but I don't see what ever brought them together to begin with.
And who in their right mind wears that severely low cut too much cleavage revealing dress and high heels to go visit the pyramids? Surely she could have pulled a pair of flats and a t-shirt out of her Mary Poppins bag. But at least she got to see the pyramids when there was not another single living soul in sight - twice no less.
Posts: 1626 | From: whatever, wherever | Registered: Jul 2008
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wow never thought of it like that lol. i never pay attention to details like that.
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quote:Originally posted by tina kamal: wow never thought of it like that lol. i never pay attention to details like that.
Well I usually don't either. But then again in most movies the editors and writers have usually done their best to make a very realistic movie. This one could have used an additional round of editing.
posted
I have to agree with Clear on her review. The female I found to be pretty lame if I'm honest. It was nice seeing Cairo though.
Posts: 4476 | From: Scotland | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Clear and QSY: Well the link worked. I managed to get the download and I just finished watching it. So thanks for the help with the links, but...
I'm so glad that movie finally ended. Am I the only one who hated it? I must have paused about 19 times to refresh my Facebook page - which turned out to be more exciting than the movie.
First of all, the chick walks out of the airport with no luggage. All she has is her handbag and a second slightly oversized handbag. Yet from that bag she manages to pull about 9 different outfits, 3 pairs of shoes, an Apple laptop computer, and a day planner bigger than a Stephen King novel? What was that some kind of Mary Poppins bag?
And why did she go through the whole movie speaking in a breathy whisper? It had me constantly turning up the volume to hear her over the noise of Cairo. There was just one too many dramatic pauses in her delivery.
He was no better. The chemistry between them was unbelievable and unrealistic. Speaking of unrealistic - I laughed my ass off at the way they portrayed the group of guys that followed her the first time she went out alone. What, the guy walking in the other direction just automatically makes an about face and follows her? It reminded me of the scene in Andy Griffith where Opie was walking down the street with a wagon full of fresh meat and all the dogs started following him. What, did she have a pound of bacon under her dress? I have never seen it actually happen like this in all the time I've been in Cairo. It would be more like the guys would be chatting her up trying to guess what country she was from and then telling her about all their relatives who just happened to immigrate to that country. But I guess if they gave all those guys speaking roles in the movie they would have had to pay them more. The one that lingered outside the shoe store when she ducked in there to escape them was quite comical.
When her husband finally showed up I almost wished he had stayed stuck in Gaza. There was even less chemistry between them. I started rooting for Tariq at that point. Granted they've been married for years and years, but I don't see what ever brought them together to begin with.
And who in their right mind wears that severely low cut too much cleavage revealing dress and high heels to go visit the pyramids? Surely she could have pulled a pair of flats and a t-shirt out of her Mary Poppins bag. But at least she got to see the pyramids when there was not another single living soul in sight - twice no less.
Rofl, now I am even more interested in watching it. Thanks for the entertaining film review!!
Well I believe it all comes down to the writer/director which was Ruba Nadda here. Anyone heard of her before???
Well some folks must have liked her piece cause it won the the Best Canadian Feature Film award at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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Wikipedia: Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi (Arabic: صدّيق الطاهر الفاضل الصدّيق عبدالرحمن محمد أحمد عبدالكريم المهدي; born 21 November 1965) is a Sudanese-born English actor, also known as Siddig El Fadil and Alexander Siddig....Dr. Julian Bashir in the tv series Star Trek.... Prince Nasir Al-Subaai in Syriana (2005) ...Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)...guest starred on 24 as Hamri Al-Assad.... Siddig co-stars in the award-winning film Cairo Time (2009) as Tareq Khalifa.
posted
They must have some pretty bad movies in Canada for this one to win an award. It had the potential to be a great movie, but the acting was just so lame. Can't wait to hear what you thought of it.
Posts: 1626 | From: whatever, wherever | Registered: Jul 2008
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“It was madness,” Nadda said of filming there. “It was absolute, sheer madness. But, you know, I set this movie in Cairo for a reason. Because I thought it was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. So I knew what I was getting myself into. But it’s not a gentle city. There’s 20 million people. The heat is crazy. There’s no streetlights. There’s bureaucracy level hell. We had a censorship woman from the government who was watching my every move.”
The censorship woman was not there about sexual content (Nadda even joked that she wanted more sex), it was more about Cairo was being portrayed in an international film. Clarkson joked she’d distract the censorship woman, and Nadda had a secret weapon in her near-identical looking sister, who would take the censor shopping when Nadda needed to shoot a questionable scene.
Nadda told a wide variety of horror stories, though in the end seemed quite proud that she and her cast and crew had pulled it off.
“There’s so many stories I could tell you where we were almost arrested,” Nadda said with a smile. “You have to have permits, and sometimes we just didn’t. There’s this scene in the movie where we are filming on a very famous bridge… And there’s just no way you can shut down this bridge. It would create chaos and havoc. But I really needed this scene, and my first AD was saying ‘you know, you probably have to cut this out.’ So what I did was I threw my producer in front of one side of the traffic, and stopped it, and I went over to other side of traffic, and stopped it. And they beeped the hell of us, but it didn’t matter because there was no dialogue… I feel that basically, if you can get a film shot in Cairo, you can get a film shot anywhere.”
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especially the scene where shes crying in the taxi... 
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