Taking another deep dive into the big questions about Egyptian politics, filmmaker Tarik Saleh offers an intriguing look behind the scenes while keeping the audience steadily entertained. Eagles of the Republic concludes a trilogy of political thrillers with a story set in the highest echelons of government and floating the most shocking of conspiracies, one that involves the current president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi himself.
Once again, the star is Swedish actor Fares Fares, here playing a movie star who gets conscripted into a government propaganda film, where he plays the president and his glorious rise to power. There is certainly room for dark humor here, yet most of the story is deadly serious and even quite frightening, given the rapidly changing world order that makes almost anything seem possible from state surveillance of the creative process and media control to a violent coup. The film has a bold, stripped-down look in places and a retro feel in others that can be interpreted as weirdly campy, but it is hard to look away from the well-developed storyline as it circles around corrupt ministers, overt spies and honey traps, without counting a major plot twist three-quarters through the film.
Given the delicate balance filmmakers have to strike in Egypt to get financing and avoid censorship, the question arises how Saleh managed to shoot such a script in the first place. The answer is he is a Swedish director of Egyptian origin, backed by Swedish production companies linked to France’s Memento and Germany’s Films Boutique. The film was shot in Istanbul with Swedish and French actors and produced on a hefty budget of €9 million. Outside of France and Scandinavia, it could find interest among adventurous viewers.
As can be seen in the first two films of the trilogy, the filmmakers get a lot right about the atmosphere of Cairo’s political, military and religious elites. The Nile Hilton Incident from 2017 is set during Egypt’s freedom revolution and the collapse of the Mubarek regime. Fares appears in the main role as a detective. Walad Min Al Janna (aka Cairo Conspiracy and Boy from Heaven), released in 2022, is highly critical of the religious establishment, uncovering corruption hidden among the faithful. In this one Fares plays a state security agent spying on a famous mosque. The film won best screenplay at Cannes.
In Eagles, Fares is every inch a star as George Fahmy, whose striking face and mellow cool has earned him enormous popularity. His personal life is a colorful mess: he has divorced Rula, an actress who is the mother of his teenage son, and is living with a rising star half his age, played with calculated glamour by Lyna Khourdi. They both seem aware their relationship is not fated to last, and when George meets the alluring intellectual sophisticate Suzanne (Zineb Triki), he doesn’t hesitate to flirt. This, in spite of the fact dhe is the wife of an army general, the Minister of Defense. Things get complicated quickly.
It’s a tough career moment, too, when George finds his personal trailer removed from the studio lot. As his agent explains, he has received an offer he can’t afford to refuse: to play the current president in a fawning biopic, even though George is tall, handsome, and has a full head of hair and so bears zero resemblance to Al-Sisi. Additionally humiliating is the presence of the president’s right-hand man on the set, Dr. Mansour (Amr Waked), whose role extends to rewriting scenes he doesn’t like and demanding fresh takes.
Fares brings not only true professionalism but measured reactions that keep him sympathetic no matter how many compromises he is forced to make on the farcical movie. Driving around town in his beat-up old car is a sign of defiance, showing that beneath the movie star veneer lies a real person. Even in the key scene at a military academy, where George is scheduled to give an adulatory address in the presence of the president and his chiefs of staff, and where all hell breaks loose, he is never trite or predictable. From this moment on the story changes register and coasts to a startling but realistic finale.
Cinematographer Pierre Aim concludes his work on the trilogy making a strong statement with stark images of military might that could be inspired by Leni Riefenstahl. In the more glamorous scenes of swanky parties and 5-star hotels, there is a pointed over-abundance that characterizes the ostentatious rich. Kudos to editor Theis Schmidt for the edge-of-seat pacing and the clever insertion of Al-Sisi’s familiar figure into the fictional scenes.
Director, screenplay: Tarik Saleh
Producers: Linus Stohr Torell, Linda Mutawi, Johan Lindstrom, Alexandre Mallet-Guy.
Cast: Fares Fares, Zineb Triki, Lyna Khourdi, Amr Waked, Cherien Dabis, Sherwan Haji, Suhaib Nashwan
Cinematography: Pierre Aim
Editing: Theis Schmidt
Production design: Roger Rosenberg
Costume design: Virginie Montel
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Sound: Hans Moeller
Production companies: Unlimited Stories (Sweden), Apparaten (Sweden), Memento Production (France) in association with Strom Pictures (Denmark), Bufo (Finland), Films Boutique (Germany)
World Sales: Playtime
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In Arabic
127 minutes
