Cairo Time

2009
6.6| 1h28m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 09 October 2009 Released
Producted By: Téléfilm Canada
Country:
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.cairotime.ca/
Synopsis

In Cairo on her own as she waits for her husband, Juliette finds herself caught in a whirlwind romance with his friend Tareq, a retired cop. As Tareq escorts Juliette around the city, they find themselves in the middle of a brief affair that catches them both unawares.

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Kirpianuscus a large puzzle. the romance as the picture. but each piece has its splendid traits and flavors and sparkles and mysteries. and this does Cairo Time almost an experience.because beauty is present in each scene. the details of Cairo. the chemistry between the lead characters. the impression, who grows up than Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig are the perfect choice for a story who has as basic virtue the delicate and precise exploration of nuances. it is not the classic love story. slow and almost a jewels shop, touching and profound, portrait of a professional relation who becomes more, drop by drop, it has a not ordinary art to be a trip, a kind of sociological documentary, an embroidery of small gestures, silence and looks, a subtle definition of life's authentic taste and run, frustrations, expectations of a workaholic, a film about freedom at the mature age and the change of perception about reality, an inspired homage to a land, with its voices, lights, events and vulnerabilities. it is different and surprising. because it is a delicate subject and the art of director to do a beautiful story to become convincing and touching is real admirable.
filmalamosa A UN employee's wife Juliette finds herself alone in Cairo. An Egyptian Tareq who worked with her husband and is now retired and runs a coffee shop--shows her around the city. They become attracted to each other.This unlikely silly story provides a mechanism for showing a judiciously pretty upped Cairo. Since I had a big interest in Cairo this worked rather well for me.Ignore the story and watch the scenery. It all works the music is nice the acting and the story can be sublimated into something better than it is.As for the prettied up Cairo....it gives you a flavor of things so you want to see more.RECOMMEND as a Travelogue only
kastellos This is a great film, one of the best romances of the decade. It is very, very slow and measured, but you will not get bored. The romance builds at a slow but very constant rate. While many critics praise Clarkson's work in this film, and I agree she is wonderful and I am happy to see her in a starring role, I also felt Siddiq was just as good. The chemistry is powerful. The use of subtle body language, the occasional glance or stare, etc., are used so well to quietly relay the attraction to the viewer. I will draw your attention to the first time while walking together that Siddiq puts his hand on Clarkson's lower back. Another subtle scene is the expression on Clarkson's face when she touches the necklace Siddiq gave her. Those who are used to the spit-swapping, naked buttocks and grunting that pass for romance in most modern films will probably not like "Cairo Time." The sound-bite generation that probably never read a book written before 1900 and few, if any, books at all, will probably not like the slow pace of this great film.The cinematography is equally wonderful. The glimpse of Cairo portray the seething city as much more beautiful than most would imagine. Lastly, pay attention to the music. Juliette's theme (the piano music) adds so, so much to this film, and the Arabic music also adds a great dimension.This is not just a "chic flick", it is a wonderful romance; it is great cinema; I urge you to curl up with someone special and see it.
coyote521 In the summary it says that the affair that takes place in this movie catches the characters "unawares". If they are unaware, they are certainly the only ones. If anybody watching this movie doesn't know exactly what's going to happen within a few minutes, then they've fallen asleep. And if they've fallen asleep, they probably probably had a dream in which people said interesting things to each other and some of the things that took place came as a surprise.On the other hand, those of us not lucky enough to fall asleep at least get this much: At the end we are rewarded with exactly the ending we expected five minutes in.Yes, it's beautiful to look at. If you want to look at pretty shots of Cairo and the pyramids for 90 minutes, you might do better to pick up a few postcards and while away the hours looking at them. It would be silly to waste your time doing that, of course, but it would probably be a better waste of your time than sitting through this tired old movie.Patricia Clarkson may be a very good actress. But she is not a particularly interesting actress, at least not in this movie. And she certainly isn't playing a very interesting or compelling person in this movie. She is not helped much by a limpid script or by an uninspired director. There are hundreds of shots in "Cairo Time" of Patricia Clarkson doing pretty much nothing. Here she is lying in bed. Here she is staring out a window. Here she is walking down a street. She looks blank all the time. It's a profound statement about loneliness in a strange city. It must be awful to be alone in Cairo. But it's probably better to be alone in Cairo than it is to be with Patricia Clarkson in Cairo.There are many long takes of Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig looking at each other. I don't know what they're thinking. I know what I was thinking. I was thinking "could we please look at something else now?" How about some more pretty shots of the Nile?During much of this movie I found myself wondering how Cairo could be so quiet and sparsely populated. This is not what I'd heard about Cairo. Then it occurred to me that the making of this movie probably sent people running in the other direction. I began to wonder about the poor crew that had to work on this movie. It's bad enough to sit through the long boring scenes in this movie as a viewer. Imagine how excruciating it must have been for the crew who had to endure several takes of some of these dreadfully boring "episodes". I feel for anybody who had to endure any scene in this movie more than once.If you want to see a movie about a middle aged woman who unexpectedly falls in love with a man she is ill suited for in a beautiful location, then I would suggest "summertime" starring Katherine Hepburn and Rosanno Brazzi and directed by David Lean and set in Venice. Katherine Hepburn, though frequently annoying, is a much more interesting and inventive actress. Brazzi was a far more suitable foreigner to fall in love with. David Lean was a director who seemed to be engaged in what he was directing. And Venice is a better actor than Cairo.