Rotary reels in Cairo Time
The film 'CAIRO TIME' will be shown at Columbia Theatre Thursday November 5 at 7:00 pm.
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Updated: November 02, 2009 12:58 PM
The latest Rotary Film Series installment offers a well-known recipe for cinematic success: Take two attractive people who are either legally or emotionally attached to other partners and mix in a distinctive setting. Bake them with external pressures beyond their control. Garnish with bittersweet chocolate and a few tears. Serve to an appreciative public.
When done well, it's a classic formula. Who can ever forget David Lean's saga of stiff-upper-lip adultery, Brief Encounter? Noel Coward dialogue, with Trevor Howard and Ceila Johnson to deliver it. Heaven.
The latest entry in the field is Cairo Time, which won the Best Canadian Feature trophy at the Toronto International Film Festival. Even if you're not a fan of the genre, it's easy to see why Ruba Nadda's lovingly made movie earned such acclaim.
Not only is it exquisitely photographed, with frame after frame making you want to leave on a trip for Egypt immediately, but there's a pleasing 21st-century restraint about the script that keeps it from becoming too sentimental.
Still, all of that would be in vain if there weren't two interesting and able performers in the leading roles. Luckily, there are.
Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Patricia Clarkson is a darling of the art-house crowd for films as varied as The Station Agent and Lars and the Real Girl. She's the known commodity who helps anchor the package.
Alexander Siddig is the wild card; an intense actor who is best known for two drastically different television roles: Doctor Bashir in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Hamri Al-Assad on Season 6 of 24.
-The film "CAIRO TIME" will be shown at Columbia Theatre Thursday November 5 at 7:00 pm. Tickets are available at Lotus Books $10 or at the door $12.
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