George Fahmy, Egypt’s most adored actor, is pressured to star in a film commissioned by the highest authorities. He reluctantly accepts and finds himself thrown into the inner circle of power. Like moth drawn to flame, he begins an affair with the mysterious wife of the general overseeing the project.
The Garden Cinema View:
Tarik Saleh completes his loose ‘Cairo Trilogy’ - The Nile Hilton Incident (2017), Cairo Conspiracy (2022) - with this twisting, paranoid meta-concoction. Saleh’s regular leading man Fares Fares gives a weary and believable performance as a movie star forced to make propaganda. On one hand, Eagles of the Republic sits in the self-reflective and self-flagellating studies of industry ennui such as Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere and Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation. On the other, it operates as a paranoia inducing political thriller, riffing on the likes of The Conversation or The Ear. Saleh never pushes the boundary of artifice and performance as far as he might (or we might like), instead choosing to root the drama in grounded, but more formulaic territory.
