Luxor
Ratings: 3.5/5
Duration: 1hr 25 min
Language: English, Arabic
Genre: Romantic Drama
Director: Zeina Durra
Writer: Zeina Durra
Producer: Hisham Alghanim, Ihab Ayoub, Gianluca Chakra, Zeina Durra, Mohamed Hefzy, Mamdouh Saba, Paul Webster, Daniel Ziskind
Music: Nascuy Linares
Cinematography: Zelmira Gainza
Editing: Andrea Chignoli, Matyas Fekete
Art Direction: Amr Shalaby
Release Date: 4 December 2020
Releasing In: Theatres
Star Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Michael Landes, Shirin Redha, Karim Saleh, Ahmed Talaat, Janie Aziz, Indigo Rønlov, Trude Reed, Nada Ahmed El-Dardir, Shahira Fahmy, Salima Ikram, Stephanie Sassen
Plot: When British aid worker Hana returns to the ancient city of Luxor, she meets former lover Sultan. As she wanders, haunted by the familiar place, she struggles to reconcile the choices of the past with the uncertainty of the present.
Review: Luxor is set in an Egyptian city, telling a journey involving love lost and found, trauma, hope, and nostalgia.
Luxor traces the arrival of Hana (Andrea Riseborough) in the 4,000-year-old Egyptian city, with its pharaonic tombs, stone walls, and vast cityscapes. Having freshly experienced the horror of the Syrian war as a warzone medic, Hana returns to Luxor with the hope of seeking emotional healing in the city.
By chance she bumps into Sultan (Karim Saleh), an archaeologist she knew from the past with whom she once had a relationship. “I didn’t think you were here,” she awkwardly says to Sultan, whose presence bore in her- a yearning for the past, in which the world had seemed gentler, and love, more hopeful.
The colours palette adds uniqueness to the film: pistachio walls, mustard armchairs, lemon coloured sheets and orange skies all builds up the film’s varying moods. Hana travels all over Egypt, eavesdropping guided tours and discovering the various historic ruins and falling in love with the place eventually.
Durra avoids stereotypes of the Arabs by showing normal everyday interactions, like those between Hana and Dunia (Shereen Reda). Influenced by the time she spent with noted Egyptologist Salima Ikram, making a small appearance in the film as basically herself, Durra delicately balances these different elements which are gentle at surface, doesn’t have much voice but would hit you hard with its inner hidden meanings.
Camerawork by Zelmira Gainza wasn’t much dramatic as required. The film has a quiet tone to it. It is supposed to be soulful, incorporating the great singer Asmahan’s “Ya Habibi Taala” to open and close the film.
