Anticipation.
Director Tarik Saleh serves up a noir-influenced political thriller set in Cairo.
Enjoyment.
A slow burn with some interesting turns, and a few predictable ones.
In Retrospect.
Well-executed satire on corruption during the Mubarak era.
“You can’t buy dignity son” are the words uttered by the father of Noredin Mostafa (Fares Fares) a corrupt, chain-smoking policeman to his son. This line encapsulates the power, corruption and lies at the core of Tarik Saleh’s political thriller The Nile Hilton Incident. Set in Cairo over the course of the month leading up to the internet-fuelled 2011 Egyptian revolution, the film rides on the impending explosion of collective frustration which is slowly rising to the surface.
The film begins with the murder of a famous nightclub songstress in a luxury hotel whose sole witness is a Sudanese migrant maid named Salwa (Mari Malek). Noredin’s lazy and desultory colleagues rule it as suicide, but something doesn’t seem right and, as the investigation begins to unravel, this unlikable, corrupt detective is lead straight into the heart of the ruling elite.
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In the background the white noise of Hosni Mubarak blares on TV as he announces his plans to rebuild Egypt and preaches moral righteousness. What begins to unfold is a series of bleak but revelations which exemplify the anger and state of political turmoil in the country at the time. Powerful men of pure self-interest break and destroy lives for sport while fully acknowledging the lack of repercussions. Despite Noredin’s complicit actions, his sense of moral ambiguity is questioned on the case and we see a conflicted figure with a genuinely sense of decency and persistence who begins running into danger over time.
Navigating around the bustling cityscape, Cairo is presented out the dashboard of Nordein’s car as a drowned in sound dystopia with seedy goings-on in dimly lit back streets and corners. One memorable sequence follows Mubarak into an exclusive club, he lights a cigarette and moodily observes an archetype female fatale crooning into a microphone reminiscent of the film’s noir influences.
As the film reaches its soul wrenching finale, tension builds between Noredin and his morally-questionable colleagues as the mystery draws to a close while the imminent throngs of protesters come together to topple Mubarak. The film asks you, then, to disagree with Noredin’s father original statement: in fact, dignity can be bought.
