The Embassy's in the Building

Adel Imam's new comic film, The Embassy's in the Building (Al-Sifara fil-Imara), faithfully reflects the distaste of most Egyptians for the presence of an Israeli embassy in their midst, especially under terms which make it impossible for Egypt to expel the ambassador without provoking an international crisis by appearing to violate a peace treaty which has lasted 26 years. Their shock and dismay is evident, and plausible, whenever protagonist Sherif Kheiry, a deracinated petroleum engineer returning from more than 20 years in Dubai, reveals to them his misfortune in having the Israeli embassy entrenched in the apartment next to his own. For obvious reasons, Israeli diplomats have rarely been welcome in Cairo and, as is the case now with their U.S. and British colleagues, the security measures needed to keep them alive are an irritant and inconvenience for hundreds, if not thousands, of ordinary people. (How long will it be before the U.S. and British embassies do the decent thing and move to the desert where they can be pariahs in peace?) But the film errs towards anachronism when it suggests that Cairenes would take to the streets now in opposition merely to normalisation of relations with Israel, rather than in protest at some specific Israeli atrocity. Imam also evokes a distinctly nostalgic atmosphere when he shows old communists sitting under portraits of Karl Marx, or middle-aged and middle-class men gathering on a houseboat in Embaba getting stoned out of their minds with hagar after hagar of hashish. Perhaps that does still happen but it certainly isn't as prevalent as it used to be.

Imam's portrayal of the state security intelligence services is deliciously realistic. When the supreme interests of the state dictate it, they can arrange just about anything -- instant delivery of food from the take-away shop down the road, a reunion between a father and his children, now in the custody of an estranged wife, a flawless and complimentary repair job when a rocket aimed at the Israeli embassy does serious damage to Imam's apartment. But when you cross them, they can be devious and ruthless. The hapless Kheiry, a classic ingenu thrust into a drama beyond his control, sums up his dilemma neatly. "I've nothing against the supreme interests of the state," he says. "But we shouldn't overlook the lowest interests (al-masalih as-sufla) either."

In the end, Kheiry commits himself to the anti-Israeli cause, after he sees on television the funeral of a teen-aged Palestinian friend from Dubai, shot down by Israeli forces. He joins a protest, wholeheartedly this time rather than in pursuit of a pretty woman, and together they chant: "Down with the enemies of peace, down with the killers of children."

So is this a daring anti-government film by an actor who early in his career appeared to be serving state interests with films mocking the mindset of the militant Islamist? Is Imam trying to ingratiate himself with the public by giving voice to widespread disapproval of contacts with Israel? And what does the Israeli embassy really think of the film? I heard gossip that the Israeli ambassador thought that Imam does at least humanise the fictional ambassador, mitigating what must otherwise be a blow to Israel's hopes of 'popular' normalisation. Whatever the government thinks, it's clear that any attempt to obstruct the film would have backfired and that any embarrassment the film might cause is easily manageable.