Cairo Time 2009
I never heard of this movie, but it showed up in a wave of Canadian blu-rays at Dollar Tree and got pretty good reviews when it came out in 2009. Patricia Clarkson does a good job in the main role as the wife of a UN worker in Gaza who goes to meet him in Cairo (she is a magazine editor in New York City as most women are in the movies), but he can’t get away. A local shows her the real Cairo while she waits and sparks start to fly. The movie is very slow and seems as interested in showing off Cairo as it does in telling a story. So there are lots of lingering shots of scenery, sites, markets, and some cultural stuff in addition to lots of lingering shots on the two main characters. There are a few subplots to add some interest, but I found myself pausing the movie quite a bit and it took most of the day to watch. Of course that makes it seem even longer, but that’s what I do. Clarkson does well with her part and her co-star shows some charm, but I think the director has a little too much confidence in the actors, thus the lingering shots and fairly sparse dialogue. It is an enjoyable, albeit slow, movie that rewards patience, but don’t expect too much.
The extras are informative, giving writer and director, Ruba Nadda’s take on how she came up with the movie and a little about the making of the movie. She was born in Canada to parents from the Middle East and wanted to make a movie set in Cairo since visiting the city with her parents as a teenager. She got her wish just a couple of years before the Arab Spring and the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Certainly Egypt was already simmering in a lot of ways, so not many people were making movies there at the time or since.
Written: 08 Feb 2020
Owned on: Blu-ray