When Tarik Saleh’s muscular noir The Nile Hilton Incident took home Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize in 2017, it generated major buzz both in the West and in its nominal setting, Egypt. In the U.S. and Europe it was seen as a stark critique of the increasing grip of the police state in Egypt, made with dark incremental vigor, and it achieved a surprising success. Along the Nile the reaction was more complex given that the Swedish-Egyptian director was forbidden to shoot there and the film was unsurprisingly banned. Those who were able to see the movie – it wasn’t so difficult to download – felt it didn’t go far enough, and were especially critical of its clear pitch to Western audiences who wouldn’t get that milieu, actors and accents weren’t Egyptian, notwithstanding the ostensible location. Boy From Heaven, about a religious studies student unwillingly recruited by the Secret Service, will receive similar complaints in Egypt but will also be less fêted in the West, where audiences will feel unfamiliar with the depth of the powerplays between State and Religion.
In truth, though, Boy From Heaven wants to be seen as a complex work, yet its script is really rather simple. Handsomely made and solidly constructed in a cautiously contained manner that aims for a slow-burn effect, the film weaves in scattered Islamic teachings but those scenes are superficial at best, and while the whole doesn’t exactly demonize orthodox Sunnis, it doesn’t do anything to combat the West’s inevitable discomfort with the topic. The answer to whether it should do such a thing is inextricably tied to who the film is designed for, and the response to that is a Western audience nourished on distrust of the Muslim world. That’s an extratextual problem Saleh’s chosen not to take onboard, and while a Cannes competition slot will certainly help the film’s chances for international distribution, the subject and execution combine to make it a tough sell.
Though from a humble fishing family, Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) has been studying with the local imam (Hassan El-Sayed); when he’s accepted to Al-Azhar, the most prestigious religious university in the world, his illiterate father (Samy Soliman) says it’s God’s will. His first days in Cairo’s Al-Azhar (shot in Istanbul’s Süleymanye Mosque, more about that below) are expectedly disorienting as he aims to find his feet and understand the different cliques, but then the Grand Imam dies and not just the institution but the whole country is thrown into uncertainty, as the university’s scholars go about electing a successor. The government of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wants to ensure the appointee is in line with its policies – the President’s stranglehold could be diminished should there be a Grand Imam able to stand up to the regime – so Colonel Ibrahim (Fares Fares, also in The Nile Hilton Incident) is tasked by General Al Sakran (Mohamad Bakri) to make certain their candidate, Sheikh Omar Al-Beblawi (Jalal Altawil) is given the position.
That means sidelining everyone else, most especially the likely choice, blind Sheikh Negm (Makram J. Khoury). To that end, Colonel Ibrahim puts Negm’s assistant Zizo (Mehdi Dehbi, Messiah, again underused) on the payroll, yet when Zizo feels compromised he tries to recruit the naïve Adam as a replacement. Then Zizo is stabbed to death in the Al-Azhar courtyard, witnessed by Adam from atop a minaret, and Colonel Ibrahim forcefully persuades Adam to be his mole by promising needed medical attention for the young man’s father.
A murder in the heart of Al-Azhar would in reality cause outrage, but the script passes that over as Adam reluctantly spies on a group of Muslim Brotherhood adherents who’ve established a cell within the institution. The narrative builds up this element, playing with the radicals’ distrust and Adam’s dangerous position, but then abruptly moves on to his next task, which is to get dirt on another candidate for Grand Imam, Sheikh Al Durani (Ramzi Choukair), a less-than-pure soul whose role is pure caricature. At least Sheikh Negm is a more believable figure, though his idea of confessing to Zizo’s murder in order to expose the government’s machinations in a trial is a laughable proposition, given Sisi’s iron-fisted control of the media.
Boy From Heaven is ultimately designed as a loss-of-innocence story in which the guileless Adam rather quickly learns how to play the game in order to survive, and on that level it works fine, even though the script’s methodical approach is undermined by a piecemeal attitude to narrative development. While Adam’s uncertainty makes sense, together with his eventual complicity, an unexpectedly altruistic move by Colonel Ibrahim doesn’t quite fit with how he’s been presented and comes too much out of left field – it’s good he’s suddenly seen as multi-faceted yet that element needs to be better fertilized. Snippets of Al-Azhar sermons are so banal they could almost have been written by an algorithm, and the depiction of the storied Al-Azhar as an institution rife with corruption and competing extremist views feels too obvious, even if that overall impression is likely accurate.
Palestinian actor Tawfeek Barhom (The Idol) has a shy, nervous energy that underlines the inherent tension in the character’s transition from bumpkin fisherman to unwilling government stooge, holding our sympathy even when he becomes a compromised figure. Lebanese-born Fares Fares is almost unrecognizable as the shaggy-haired Colonel Ibrahim. He looks more like a cabbie than a security agent, which works well in contrast with his younger, tougher superior Major General Sobhy (Moe Ayoub), whose more clean-cut appearance connects him to the current regime.
Saleh was able to insert a few shots of Cairo, including Downtown and the Cairo Tower, to try to give the film an Egyptian identity (Sisi’s face is also omnipresent), yet anyone familiar with the city will have difficulty buying Sinan’s masterpiece, the Süleymanye Mosque, as a stand-in for Al-Azhar, and despite cinematographer Pierre Aïm’s handsome use of the grand architectural spaces, it keeps taking us out of a deeply significant geographic space (on both sides). For anyone thinking this is nit-picking, imagine if London’s St. Paul’s was used as a stand-in for Paris’s Notre Dame, and then it becomes clear (and that’s not mentioning the lack of authentic Egyptian accents). Boy From Heaven marks Saleh’s return to an Egyptian subject following his 2022 Hollywood release The Contractor, and while he’s clearly engaged with the material, the film manages only an uneasy balance between Western market and Arab subject.
Director: Tarik Saleh
Screenplay: Tarik Saleh
Cast: Tawfeek Barhom, Fares Fares, Mohamad Bakri, Makram J. Khoury, Mehdi Dehbi, Moe Ayoub, Sherwan Haji, Jalal Altawil, Ramzi Choukair, Samy Soliman, Ahmed Lassaoui, Hassan El-Sayed, Amr Musad,Mouloud Ayad, Ahmed Zaki, Abdulhamid Halaf, Rasambek Bukiew, Abduljabbar Alsuhili, Zain Alabdin Fatallah, Akin Aral
Producers: Kristina Åberg, Fredrik Zander
Executive producers: Harry Bouveng, Patrick El-Cheikh, Fares Fares, Per Josefsson, Linda Mutawi, Camilla Nasiell, Lars Rodvaldr, Toni Valla, Jean-Paul Wall, Emil Wiklund, Tarik Saleh, Katja Salén, Kristina Åberg
Co-producers: Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Misha Jaari, Mark Lwoff, Peter Possne, Anna Croneman, Mikael Ahlström, Per Bouveng, Alex Hansson, Olivier Père, Rémi Burah, Toni Valla, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen
Cinematography: Pierre Aïm
Production designer: Roger Rosenberg
Costume designer: Denise Östholm
Editing: Theis Schmidt
Music: Krister Linder
Sound: Fredrik Jonsäter, Pontus Borg
Production companies: Atmo (Sweden), Memento Production (France), Bufo (Finland), Film i Väst (Sweden), Sveriges Television (Sweden), Mikael Ahlström Films (Sweden), Haymaker (Sweden), ARTE France Cinéma (France), Post Control (Finland), Final Cut For Real (Denmark), in association with Memento International, Memento Distribution, Movies Inspired
World sales: Memento International
Venue: Cannes (competition)
In Arabic
124 minutes
