Al-mummia

This film should be more important than it is, but the director (and editor) makes the fatal error of assuming that if a film is slow it is automatically artistic. No, sometimes a film that is slow is nothing but, and all the great things in your picture quickly fade from memory when you leave the theater or rewind the tape.

This is the conflict of the film: the chief of the Horabbat tribe has just died and his sons are in line to take order, but they object to the tribe's way of making a living: tomb robbing and selling ancient relics to foreigners. This has been their way of doing things for a couple of millennia, and the tribe elders try to get rid of the two brothers. At the same time, archeologists from Cairo have come down to excavate and save the relics from being sold to foreigners, while at the same time stealing the relics to take back to Cairo. To tell you the truth, I can't remember too much after that, though I just stopped watching it two hours ago. It is very ambiguous about who is in the right, and the ending is, if I understood it, lacking any sort of climax.

The best things about this film are its cinematography and its score, both of which are exemplary. It's too bad the narrative is so confusing and, well, frankly, boring. It's worth seeing, but, since it's not on video, it's certainly not worth going to great lengths to see it. 7/10.