Tag Archives: Tommy

Thinking Aloud About Film: Tarik Saleh and The Cairo Trilogy

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Richard and I were so excited after seeing Eagles of the Republic (2025), that when we learned that it was the third film in a trilogy, we made a point of seeing the other two: The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) and Cairo Conspiracy/ Boy From Heaven (2022). José went even further and also saw his first live action film, made in Sweden, Tommy (2005), and, at least up to now, the only feature film he’s made in the US: The Contractor (2022). Thus the podcast encompasses all of his live-action feature films (he also made Metropia (2009), an animated film) and spans a twenty-period.

Saleh is the offspring of an Egyptian father and a Swedish mother. The Nile Hilton Incident  was set to be filmed in Cairo but Saleh was given a week to flee the country before shooting started. Thus the trilogy is a critique of Egypt that could not be made in Egypt. The films are genre pieces — and are satisfying on that level; you don’t need to know anything about Egypt or Egyptian culture to enjoy them — but they are also serious films about morality, ethics, the extent of corruption, and the limits otherwise good people are willing to go to in order to prosper or even survive. In the podcast we discuss this and contrast with his earlier Swedish film, fascinating in that it makes the gangster’s girlfriend the central figure in a genre piece, and his later American film, in that it points to the limits on free speech currently imposed on American cinema.

 

Aside from all of this, we also linger to appreciate the beauty and expressiveness of the mise-en-scène and encourage everyone to see these marvellous works.

Eagles of the Republic is currently on distribution (I saw it at the MOCKINGBIRD)

The Nile Hilton Incident is available on MUBI

Boy From Heaven/ Cairo Conspiracy is available to see on BBC i-player.

 

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

José Arroyo and Richard Layne

Tommy (Tarik Saleh 2005)

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What happens to gangsters’ girlfriends or wives? In film we see them making pasta, looking after children, held for ransom or shot. Cinema usually use them to create a tension between what they represent and what gangsters do. TOMMY is unusual in making the wife/girlfriend the protagonist. He’s already dead as the film starts. Estelle (Moa Gammel), his partner,  has come home to Sweden to collect his share of the money from a bank heist that netted 4 million euros so she and her daughter can start a new life. But in order to do so, gangland must not know the man they fear is dead.
I was glad to see the film – a combination of noir and maternal melodrama – so clearly focussed on women: wives, daughters, sisters, mothers. The Cairo Trilogy with its focus on power and corruption has little place for them. We see particular types — femme fatales, wives, too-young women impregnated by too-old Imams — and briefly. It didn’t bother me per se but I noted it had the potential to. This film – Saleh’s first live-action feature and second film (METROPIA, his first feature, is an animated film) – is a corrective.
This is also the first film of his I’ve seen that is set in his native Sweden – Saleh is the progeny of an Egyptian father and a Swedish mother who grew up there – and it’s further proof that who makes movies matters. His Sweden is full of people of colour — Turks, blacks, Middle-Easterners; and he’s aware of the tensions between migration and place. There’s a lovely scene at the beginning when our heroine is held by immigration – her husband is wanted for robbery – and the way it’s filmed and edited – the pale blonde faces of our heroine and her daughter in a sea of brown; shots of a young dark-skinned boy looking on that is held just a beat too long — so well communicates that what is happening is the rule for the dark-skinned people and alarmingly exceptional for the likes of her.
The rest is beautifully structured. Estelle stops being treated like a wife/girlfriend at almost exactly 2/3rds through the film, when the gangland gloves come off, and she becomes the hunted. It’s tense, dark, thrilling; and yet it’s not one of those films where women become action heroines. The action is generally enacted by others. Estelle is motivated by fear for her daughter and sister. She’s very beautiful but her looks are never an element she resorts to in getting the money. It’s all wits, smarts and courage; and it’s lovely to see. An excellent genre piece. As you can tell from the poster a noir/maternal melodrama is not something the marketers had much confidence in.
José Arroyo