Review of Cairo Time (2009) by Ashley T — 30 Oct 2009

I was in Cairo earlier this year, and I can say first-hand that it is probably one of the craziest cities in the world. Easily the craziest that I've ever been to, and I've been quite a few places.

Here, Patricia Clarkson plays Juliette, a woman who arrives in Egypt to meet her husband for a long-delayed and much-deserved vacation. But Mark, a UN ambassador, is held up in Gaza, and nobody knows how long it will take for him to get to Cairo to meet her. So she is picked up at the airport by Tareq, an old friend of Mark's, and he gets her safely to her hotel.

When Juliette starts to go crazy from staying indoors -- Mark warned her not to wander the streets on her own, as it's not safe for women -- she takes up Tareq's offer to show her the city. Slowly, they build an unlikely friendship, and perhaps even love, but neither one is prepared or willing to act on it.

Without so much as a kiss, we witness a beautiful affair, captured perfectly by Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, who plays Tareq. Both performerances are richly nuanced and subtle, and very little dialogue is needed for the actors to get their emotions across. It's the smiles, the stolen glaces, the innocent touches, and completely silent scenes that speak volumes.

The third character here, the city of Cairo, is captured authentically. While I was left unimpressed after leaving Egypt -- it took me over a month to shake off the food poising / virus I picked up there -- it only takes this tiny Canadian film a few frames to find the beauty among the chaos. We see the main highlights of course, the pyramids, the mighty Nile, and the camels. But we also get to see the smaller details, like Juliette sharing a shisha pipe with Tareq, trying an exotic tea, wandering a busy bazaar, and being stared at and followed by packs of strange men. The culture shock is at first too much for Juliette, but as time passes and Mark remains absent, she gets used to the city, even growing to like it.

We know from the start that Juliette and Tareq's romance isn't meant to be, and that even their friendship is a fleeting one, but for the time that we are with them, we get incredibly attached, and it's as sad as it is a relief when Mark finally shows up.

This is a brilliant little film that says so much in the simplest ways, and it *almost* makes me want to give Egypt a second chance myself. Almost. If I ever do go back, I want my own Tareq there with me.