Fabricated richness

Monday, two days before the closing of the 22nd Cairo International Film Festival, and I decided to melt into the crowd and watch a film alongside that enigmatic generalisation, the general public.

And so off I headed to Cinema Odeon, where I knew I had two choices. I happened to be there at 2.15pm and since I would have had to wait there another hour and a half, at the very least, I thought I might as well go of and secure companions.

I managed to bring two friends along. Their decision to come, however, was based on the belief that we were going to watch An Awfully Big Adventure (UK). And honestly, it really was no trick of mine. It was simply that I had misread the schedule, looking under the 9.30pm shows, where the other option was My Brother and I (Greece). (It's amazing how much excitement and confusion precede watching a festival film.) My friends were both terribly enthusiastic for An Awfully Big Adventure, and Rita Tushingham, an actress in the film, was the talk of the room for the next half hour.

We rushed to one of Cairo's not-quite-so-fast fast food franchises for a quick bite and were in front of the Odeon Cinema Complex in time for the film. It was then that the lady at the ticket booth shattered all our misinformed expectations by informing us that MuMu (Russia) and Close Up (Iran) were the shows coming up. MuMu? We cursed those cinemas that show whatever they like regardless of schedules.

According to Cinema Odeon, Close Up was "The Surprise of the Festival", but I knew from experience what that meant and had no inclination to be surprised at all. So it had to be MuMu. There were very few people in the hall and that, I'm afraid to say, is usually a good sign.

The film started with a long shot of a man rowing a boat to the kind of music that usually precedes the end of the world. As he got further and further the camera moved slowly downwards until it seemed to go under the water. The music sounded more like the opening of a horror film and the following close ups confirmed this impression: a plough turning the soil, a large chunk of meat covered in flies, a hand sticking out of a window to catch a feather, drag it in the dark interior and blow it out again. But then things lightened up. The feather fell on a cat lounging in the shade, the chunk of meat was inspected by a large man who picked off the flies, peasant men and women began to crawl out of the houses and the whole scene took a rather lively turn. The hunk of flesh turned out to be veal, and we were all relieved.

There was much talk of a mistress who had dismissed a yard keeper and hired a new one. Why? The young girls' giggling as they whispered in each others' ears gave us a hint, especially as they did so leaning over a barrel full of whole, thick, pickled cucumbers, which they fished out and nibbled. The sexual metaphors came thick and fast, some more subtle and elegant than others.

At first we only see the mistress' languid arm dangling out of her bed and Justine, whose function escapes me -- all we know is that she's the only one the mistress can trust -- strokes her gently with an ostrich feather. Justine is actually rather enigmatic. She is a young, good-looking brunette with a very modern haircut who is first seen wearing men's clothes (something resembling a riding outfit) then dressed à la turque while reading stories from The One Thousand and One Nights to her mistress. She hardly says anything throughout the film and yet the mistress constantly reproaches her for talking too much and asks her to "Leave!" on quite a few occasions.

The aging mistress owns the estate and the serfs suffer from terrible ennui. "I'm melting away like a candle," she says to Justine. Her malaise pushes her to theatrical extremes such as pretending to be dead -- and not just once as is made evident in the dialogue -- demanding a display of communal grief. She lies on her bed, clad in white flowers with her hands folded, evaluating the tears and wails of her peasants. Everyone knows she will be back on her feet later in the day.

The new yard keeper, brooding, deaf and dumb, knows only what he sees and is therefore more affected by the mistress' death than the others, which is exactly what she wants. From then on the whole plot -- if one can use such a word with MuMu -- revolves around the mistress turning the yard keeper's life into a nightmare in revenge for his falling in love with Tatyana, a young, beautiful peasant girl. She orders the girl's marriage to another man and watches the yard keeper wallow in his pathetic misery.

After he's shaved his hair and beard in a display of utter dejection he finds a puppy which he names MuMu, and this becomes the subject matter for the second half of the film: the mistress orders the destruction of the puppy. Cast as the stereotypical village idiot (the film crawls with stereotypes as Cold Comfort Farm, and they are often equally funny, if not intentionally so) the yard keeper -- now promoted to water-man -- is aloof, emotional, often ridiculed but respected, and endowed with the wisdom that all the others lack: "He will do it himself [killing the dog]. When he says something he does it, not like the rest of us." Even the mistress knows it. In one of her rare convincing monologues, she reaches out to him and explains how unloved and lonely she is only to understand his gesticulated request to marry Tatyana.

The cinematography is beautiful. In fact, on the technical level it is an impressive film. Director Yuri Grynov was also lucky in his art director as each and every scene testifies. The decor and the costumes were sumptuous, but maybe too much so. Another lingering shot over the dramatic folds of impossibly rich brocade, or of a bejewelled turban, or silk gown, and one might have left the cinema to be sick. The content, however, was disappointing, and the intense reliance on atmospherics was not sustained by a coherent plot. The richness of the icing could not conceal the half-baked cake. And so out in the streets again. There were few people at the beginning of the film, fewer still when we left.