The Nile Hilton Incident

Fares Fares

Tarik Saleh's The Nile Hilton Incident is an engrossing crime thriller with political overtones. Set in Cairo in 2011 amidst the fall of the Mubarak regime, the film chiefly follows the investigation by police officer Mostafa Noredin of the murder of a would be singer named Lalena. The film, an original screenplay by Saleh, is based on the real life murder of Suzanne Tamim in Dubai. As in that case, the murderer, who has Lalena executed by a professional, is a wealthy businessman with important connections amoung the powers that be in Cairo. The widespread corruption under Mubarak is stressed, even Noredin (Fares Fares), the film's ostensible hero, is not above filching cash from a stiff. As counterpoint to Noredin's investigation, the film chronicles the struggles of the case's star witness, a maid at the Hilton named Salwa (Mari Malek). Salwa lives with a group of Sudanese refugees lorded over by the cruel man who brought them to Cairo. The hovel Salwa lives in is in marked contrast to the funky bachelor pad that widower Noredin uses to watch TV while he drinks.    

A number of American critics compared this to Chinatown and LA Confidential, but it reminded me more of the crime films based in New York that were directed by Sidney Lumet. Like Lumet, Saleh is a socially conscious director who chooses to expose institutional corruption in his films. Both directors utilize an array of supporting performers in an effort to paint a broad portrait of a city's populace. One of the joys found in The Nile Hilton Incident is the gamut of memorable supporting performances that evoke the variety of characters one finds in a vast metropolis, from an opium smoking pimp and extortionist to a stone faced secret police officer. Hania Amar has a wonderful turn as a singer who seduces Noredin into a honey trap. Salwa is the only two dimensional character, verging on a damsel in distress. Noredin is not always the most sympathetic protagonist, but Saleh is able to humanize him with deft touches like having Noredin share a smoke with a picture of his late wife. I recommend The Nile Hilton Incident which is currently streaming on Netflix and has been issued on a handsome disc by Strand Releasing.

Razzia sur la chnouf

Lila Kedrova and Jean Gabin

Henri Decoin's Razzia sur la chnouf (roughly "Dope Raid") is an effective, if unspectacular French crime melodrama. The film was adapted from a novel by Auguste Le Breton whose canon includes novels which were the basis for the films Rififi and The Sicilian Clan. Jean Gabin plays Henri Ferré, who we meet returning from the United States where he has been reputably working for a narcotics ring. Ferré is recruited by a local crime boss named Liski (the always welcome Marcel Dalio) who needs a steady hand to run his drug operation. Liski arranges for Ferré to manage a club which serves as a front for the cartel. When Ferré needs to rub out weak or untrustworthy links in the organization, he calls upon Liski's gunsel, Roger the Catalan, embodied by the ever dependable Lino Ventura. A comely and very young barmaid (Magali Noël) does what women do in Jean Gabin pictures and tucks herself into his trench coat. Lila Kedrova, most famous for her role in Zorba the Greek, is featured as an unreliable dealer who has been dipping too regularly into her own stash. 

Kedrova is the only one in the cast who chews the scenery a little too much, but given the lurid nature of her role that may not be entirely her fault. Her character is so off the rails that she, after having a few puffs on a reefer, pulls a train in an "Arab" club. The whole film veers close to exploitation, reveling in a display of sexual proclivities and drug use not possible for a Hollywood film in 1955. Decoin's direction is workmanlike and efficient. There is little use for flashy stylistics in a piece of pulp like this. Decoin resorts to a whip pan at one point, but just to disguise the fact that his louche club set is a partial one. Gabin hold together the film with his unflappable presence. After the success of Touchez pas au grisbi gave his career a second wind, Gabin would spend the rest of his career gliding serenely through the gangster haunts of nightclubs and working class cafes. His stoic demeanor barely masks a macho vigor that puts the beta males in their place and proves to be catnip for the ladies. I particularly like the finale of Razzia sur la chnouf in which a lineup of the usual suspects serves as a fitting curtain call for the players. 

Train Dreams

Joel Edgerton

The duo of Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, the team behind Sing Sing, should be congratulated for having the good taste and gumption to adapt Denis Johnson's Train Dreams.

Johnson's novella, which chronicles the life of logger and homesteader Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) in the Idaho panhandle during the early years of the twentieth century, is his most beautifully written book, a landmark of 21st century American fiction. The film adaption is handsomely mounted, boasting gorgeous cinematography by Adolpho Veloso. I also enjoyed the narration by Will Patton which hews closely to Johnson's prose. Edgerton is well cast and effective as the taciturn Grainier. John Diehl and Paul Schneider contribute effective supporting turns. However, on the whole, I found this adaptation to be overly decorous. The changes made by Bentley and Kwedar to the material domesticates and softens it, neutering the film's impact.

I do not believe a film adaptation has to hew exactly to its source. However, in judging a film adaptation, comparing a film to its source displays the filmmakers choices for good and ill. The film virtually eliminate the book's vein of black humor. The film expands the roles of Grainier's wife Gladys, Claire Thompson, and storekeeper Ignatius Jack. This greatly increases the interactions Robert has with humans, but defeats one of the chief purposes of the book: to portray the life of a hermit who largely turns his back on mankind to live both within and against nature. However, nature in the film is not as fierce as that in the book. The hardships and loneliness of frontier life are watered down in the film. The costumes and sets are too tidy and clean. The homestead that Edgerton and his missus (a wan Felicity Jones) live in resembles a glamping cabin in a Magnolia magazine photo shoot. Likewise, the physical toll that logging takes on Grainier is deemphasized. The book goes into greater detail in picturing the dangers of logging. When the film shows the tragic mishaps that befall loggers, one resulting in the death of a key supporting character, the results are so tossed off that they have little visceral effect.

The film suffers from contemporary virtue signaling. In both the book and film, Grainier is haunted by the murder of a Chinese rail worker. However, in the book, Grainier is much more culpable for his role in the crime. Likewise, the book truncates the scene where Grainier, as a boy, encounters a dying man named William Coswell Haley. Haley's monologue is one of the novella's highlights, but I can understand excising it in an adaptation. However, the version the film provides eliminates the reason the moment haunts Grainier for the rest of his life. In the book, Grainier is so stunned by his predicament that he ignores the dying man's last request for a drink of water, a request he honors in the movie. These changes make Grainier more of a heroic protagonist, but less of an interesting and believable character. Finally, I thought the adaptation loses something by lessening the presence of wolves in the film. This not only eliminates the theme of an atavistic bond between the protagonist and nature, but renders the reappearance of a major character late in the film nonsensical. If you've never read Train Dreams, the film retains enough of the book's qualities to please the uninitiated, but I was disappointed.