'Cairo Conspiracy': Drab Mystery at Islamic University

2023-04-14T10:39:40.901Z

The theme gave for much more, but the narrative has no force. Search in vain for suspense. It is very little thing even if the flattery rains on him

The director of Conspiracy in Cairo

is Swedish ,

although his name, Tarik Saleh, leaves no doubt about his family ancestors.

He also enjoys critical appreciation, which I find excessive.

He admits that he looks for illustrious backgrounds when conceiving his stories.

He must have been inspired by the magnificent

Los Angeles Confidential

when making

Cairo Confidential

, but the comparison begins and ends with the title, even though both focus on police corruption.

And it is clear that Tarik Saleh has also read Umberto Eco's masterpiece

The Name of the Rose

and that he saw the highly esteemed film adaptation made by Jean Jacques Annaud.

There was mystery, tension, violence and atmosphere in the investigation made by the Franciscan monk William of Baskerville, memorably played by the unrepeatable Sean Connery, of the crimes that had been committed in an abbey during the Middle Ages.

And consequently, he transfers that model to the supreme university of Islamic studies, located in Cairo, where the Great Imam has suffered a death full of surprises and there are political and religious powers that want to place a successor tailored to their interests.

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I admit that the police plots and the portraits of corruption in a country like Egypt can hold an exotic point for Western viewers and they also inform me that this director's films receive awards at festivals, which does not necessarily imply an endorsement by quality by my simplistic criteria.

I see and listen to

Conspiracy in Cairo

without excessive problems, but also without arousing any passion in me and immediately my memory of him is erased.

It is monotonous, although not irritating.

The theme gave for much more, but the narrative has no force.

Search in vain for suspense.

It is very little thing even if the compliments rain on him.

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And the lasting certainty when reviewing the billboards in recent years of finding almost nothing attractive is very depressing, not recognizing the wonderful sensations that great cinema always gave you.

A friend whose criteria I have trusted for infinite years, although we have also had some fierce discrepancies, recommends that I watch the latest film by director Mia Hansen-Løve, whose highly promoted work frequently chokes me, with inexcusable delay.

It's called

A Beautiful Morning.

There is a lot of sadness in its argument, but it is also beautiful.

Get the miracle of introducing me to it, the feeling of truth that the story, the situations, the characters give off.

It is not an exceptional film, but it makes me feel, understand the protagonist and the things that happen to her, love her.

She makes a living as a translator at public events, she has a daughter on the verge of adolescence, she takes care of her elderly father, afflicted with a dark degenerative disease.

This woman combines the desperate search for a residence that makes the physical and mental collapse of her father less tragic and painful with the start of a love story, something she had given up a long time ago.

And it won't be easy.

There will be breaks and returns, quite a bit of chaos, also lasting illusion.

She wonderfully plays this survivor trying relentlessly to come to terms with the life of that multi-recorded actress named Lea Seydoux.

She is also a very attractive woman.

And I find out half an hour after she's done

A beautiful morning

that I keep thinking about the story that I have been told.

Because she has made me feel, because I have believed her.

I have always asked that of the cinema.