A Day in the Smoke

Maybe it's similar to the Dutch coffeshop, where drinking coffee isn't exactly the customers' number one priority. In any case, what's striking about the Egyptian coffee house where director Andreas Koefoed spent a day is that tea is the drink of choice. The major difference from a Dutch café is that you don't see any excessive use of alcohol and you can smoke a cigarette without anyone hassling you. Otherwise, it's essentially like any other café in the world. Sipping a cup of tea, the customers discuss the cost of a new pair of headlights, while at another table a tormented poet arranges and rearranges his thoughts. Further down, a man smoking a water pipe and three boys are talking about the headway they're making in the love department. Resignation reigns among two men who are dreaming of a new life outside of Egypt (preferably in a Western country where nobody cares if you want to trade in weapons of drugs), although we can't help but get the feeling that it's just talk. Although it seems as if Koefoed has focused his camera in a casual, invisible kind of way, the result provides a balanced cross-section of the male side of Egyptian society, represented by different generations, careers and social classes.