The suspense arises in a university for The Cairo Conspiracy by Tariq Saleh. This film, awarded for its screenplay at the last Cannes Film Festival, leads a student barely out of his village into rivalries and mysteries worthy of the rose name by Umberto Eco. “I wanted to tell a story like this in a Muslim context, but Islam is not my subject,” explains the director in the press kit.
Behind the scenes of power
The sudden death of the great imam of the university plunges the young hero into a pitiless universe where religious and political influences collide for the desire to gain power and the desire to maintain social peace. After the police in Confidential Cairo, Tarik Saleh reveals the secret world of Al-Azhar, a prestigious Sunni university. His uncompromising demonstration earned him to see his film, shot in Turkey, banned in Egypt.
“I wanted to show the stakes involved in leaving one’s village to study and the personal cost that this entails”, insists Tarik Saleh. The loss of his innocence is the tribute the young hero must give in order to survive. Murder, corruption and manipulation are part of the subjects on the program and he has an interest in assimilating them if he does not want to risk a definitive dismissal. He was soon forced to choose his side, which was not easy when the police and fundamentalists fired at him. The Swedish director of Egyptian origin does not spare his characters to describe a corrupt institution where hypocrisy and intolerance have the force of law.
In the style of John Le Carré
Tarik Saleh does not attack religion as such, but he shows how power-hungry men can hijack it for their own benefit. His demonstration looks like a thriller spiced up with an initiatory story. We think of the novelist John Le Carre by his virtuoso way of making a struggle between powerful elites fascinating for a spectator who is not always aware of the forces involved.
The virtuosity of the story makes you dizzy with its intelligence. We understand that the scenario seduced the Cannes jury chaired by Vincent Lindon, but Tarik Saleh could also have received that of the staging. The Cairo Conspiracy fascinates from start to finish.