Cairo Time 300In a season that has seen a spate of women's films in which Western (mostly North American) women have inflicted themselves on the unsuspecting "other"—and yes, for you Eat, Pray, Love fans, Italy counts as an "other"—it is a relief be able to sink into a film like Cairo Time. This second feature from Syrian-Canadian director Ruba Nadda features a Western female protagonist who seeks neither to civilize nor to revamp the unfamiliar culture she has wandered into. Finally, a film shot in the Middle East whose director I do not feel a need to shoot. It is a moving experience to come across something that so closely parallels my experiences as a journalist living in North Africa and which captures the essence of the North African spirit—earthy yet genteel, funny and richly layered at the same time.

Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) is a Canadian magazine editor flying into Cairo to meet her husband Mark, who is involved in UN work in Gaza. An unexpected flare-up at a refugee camp causes him to be delayed, so he sends a friend and former colleague, Tareq (Alexander Siddiq), to pick up Juliette at the airport. As Mark is further delayed day after day, Julia slowly reaches out to Tareq to help her navigate this city. Tareq takes her in hand and soon has her exploring the Cairo he wants to show her: genteel, beautifully appointed, yet clearly timeless in the promiscuous juxtaposition of ancient and modern. As they move around the city, their appreciation for each other grows, moving into a deepening attraction. The depth of Juliette's feelings becomes apparent when she allows Tareq to show her the pyramids, something she had been reserving for her still-absent husband. And yet, both stop short, Juliette because she deeply loves her husband, and Tareq because he cannot betray both an old friend and this woman, preferring to betray himself.

When Mark does finally show up, it is with deep regret that Tareq relinquishes Juliette. As for Juliette, life now has a deeper, more complicated resonance as she once again becomes Mark's wife, and a married Western woman in a world that does not know her.

Nadda's achingly lovely, extended moment in Cairo is a gorgeous slow burn, an understated, and therefore more sensuous exploration of a passion for a place and for another person. It is both an insider and an outsider perspective, an urbane exchange of observations and quips that lays bare how little and how much Tareq and Juliette know about each other and each other's worlds.

This approach is hardly surprising, given Nadda's background and preoccupation with exploring dual cultures and identities. One of a handful of Arab-American/Canadian women occupying the director's chair, Nadda leaves no room in her cinematic world for the simpering, wandering Western Woman—lost, lusftful, lonely, ready to buy and or bed whatever takes her fancy. Comparisons with Lost in Translation and Eat, Pray, Love are both inapt and inept. No one is angstily alienated here, nor is anyone desperately mining more exotic cultures in search of a self they might not actually have had. And please, let's not get started on Sex and the City—what was Dubai thinking?

Instead, under Nadda's direction, Cairo Time takes on the texture and pleasure of just-ripening fruit. Its pace is slower than most English-language films, its lensing allows the emotions of the faces to unfold. The soundtrack is lush and nuanced, giving Cairo its own voice and timber. Oum Khaltoum's smoky voice runs parallel to that of the city, a brilliant tribute to a woman whose voice was Egypt. And the light, the gorgeous, filtered North African light finally gets its due.

Patricia Clarkson is at once perfect and generous as the well-meaning but slightly off-balance Juliette. Her face looks lovely, but lived-in, hinting at a life richly experienced. Juliette clearly loves her absent husband, mostly represented by one-sided phone calls, a wonderful gesture of intimacy. Her somewhat liberal magazine world leaves her unprepared for the realities of Cairo. She can see and editorialize the street children, but she cannot read the streets. Nadda captures beautifully the quintessential Western woman in North Africa moment as Juliette tries to walk through Cairo, pursued by ever more aggressive men. Juliette bumbles even further when she breaches Tareq's traditional men -only café. "Why didn't anyone say anything?" she asks. "Because it would be rude," is his amused reply.

Nadda apparently wrote the role of Tareq for Alexander Siddiq, who captures Tareq's rather complicated, nuanced character. Although not Egyptian, Siddiq (who is English and Sudanese) plays Tareq as a slightly weary, educated man, used to disappointment. He is not the musician he had hoped he would be, his heart broken by a fellow music student. He never did save the world working for the UN, and now his beloved Cairo is wasting away into crassness And yet, Tareq also has the charm and regard for women that North African men of a certain age have, and as he begins to appreciate Juliette for the intelligent, deep woman that she is, one can see that he is ready to brave another disappointment in order to feel something again.

Nadda's love story has its emotional roots not so much in the Hideous Kinky genre, but more in the flip side of Paul Bowles' stories. Her characters are here to learn, willing to invest in their surroundings. They have little moments of revelations, as when Tareq and Juliette are traveling by train and Juliette fantasizes about settling down in Cairo: "What would you do?" asks Tareq. "Open a woman's café!" Juliette replies.

Nadda's is a cinematic eye that loves both detail and panorama. In fact, her shots are at times a little disconcerting. Her attention to quotidian detail is striking-touches of the Cairo street creep in, and yet, like Tareq, her vistas harken back to an earlier time. The wide panoramas and the bird's eye view shots of Cairo have a strongly nostalgic feel-one might even say a pre-Nasser feel—in their 1950's-ish sweep of the buildings and streets.

Cairo Time is possibly one of the most subtle films to come out in a long time—it might even be too subtle for its own good. Certain scenes lack general explanation, such as Juliette's bus trip to Gaza, which is cut short by an Israeli checkpoint, something neither Juliette nor an uninitiated audience seems to get. However, those familiar with North Africa and the Don Quixote quality of NGOs will immediately be at home here. Those looking for The Arab World as ciphered by a Western Woman are going to miss a very elegant, understatedly funny film. But then, maybe they're at the wrong film anyway. There are days when I miss North Africa terribly. To paraphrase Rick in Casablanca, I lost North Africa, but in Cairo Time, I got it back.

Rebecca Romani is a freelance journalist and documentary maker currently at large in Southern California She has worked as a journalist in France and Moroco and is currently working on a set of documentary shorts.