Cairo Conspiracy, directed by a Swedish-Egyptian film-maker Tarik Saleh – started out life under the more cryptic title Boy from Heaven.
Saleh was inspired by Umberto Eco’s novel and later movie The Name of the Rose, in which he smuggled philosophic questions about power and religion into a medieval whodunit.
Photo: Tri Art Film
Cairo Conspiracy tackles similar subjects from a Muslim angle, but in the guise of a John Le Carre spy thriller.
The story opens in a poor fishing village, where young Adam works for his father. But fate has plans for him.
His local imam, impressed by his hard work at school, has put his name forward to the Al-Azhar university – the centre of Sunni Islam. Adam gets the good news - a scholarship.
Devout, literate and humble, Adam seems to be an ideal student at such a place. But no sooner has he arrived in Cairo when events take a dramatic turn.
The Grand Imam suddenly dies, and all attention turns on who will replace him.
The Government takes a very keen interest. In fact, the President For Life has already made it clear who he wants to take that role.
His chief Secret Service operative, Colonel Ibrahim, is ordered to fix the election.
Ibrahim already has spies in high places, but his best placed one - Zizo at Al-Azhar - is nervous. Zizo wants out before his cover is blown, and he thinks he’s found the “angel” to replace him. He’s young, he’s religious, he’s only just arrived from the sticks – Adam’s your man.
Zizo’s paranoia proves justified. No sooner has he struck up a friendship with young Adam than he’s brutally murdered in the street.
But for Colonel Ibrahim, there’s no point crying over murdered spies. He’s got an election to fiddle, and rival candidates to discredit. He bullies Adam into providing him with information.
But what lifts Cairo Conspiracy above the usual Netflix thriller is the characters of Ibrahim and Adam.
The former – scruffy, good at his job, ruthless - is also not as corrupt as he appears. And Adam, the virtuous boy who’s literally worn the Shoes of the Fisherman - if I can mix my religious metaphors – may be naïve, but he’s no idiot.
The spy-masters, the cynical politicians, and the sinister Muslim Brotherhood all try to get him to toe the various lines.
But Adam proves he’s a hard man to corrupt, for the simple reason that he’s not after anything. He’s not seeking power, or even advancement at Al-Azhar. He just wants to do the right thing, and as they say, you can’t cheat an honest man.
In other words, he’s the Boy from Heaven, Cairo Conspiracy’s original title, and we spend the movie hoping such a man will get out in one piece for a change.
The question his father asks him is “what have you learned?” But this is a story of how a student becomes a teacher. The message seems to be don’t underestimate someone just because they’re virtuous.
Goodness knows that’s something we wish were true in real life.
