Ancient Egypt, 1100 BC. Two scarabs walk strangely in the sand, and the high priests interpret this as a divine sign that the Egyptian army should walk around an area. Consequently, they have to bury a canal to cross over it, causing a farmer to commit suicide. Prince Ramses XIII, who led the military exercise, is annoyed by the priests, led by Herhor, who control the country too much, even influencing and advising Ramses' father, the Pharaoh. Ramses wants to attack the Assyrians to get more money for Egypt's failing economy, but the priests press for a peace agreement. Dagon, a Phoenician merchant, designs a plan to persuade Ramses to attack the Assyrians, employing Phoenician Kama who becomes Ramses' mistress, replacing his wife, Sara, a Jew. When his father dies, Ramses becomes the new Pharaoh and plans to get rid of the priests. He incites people to attack their temple, containing the labyrinth with gold, but the priests use a Sun eclipse to feign the intervention of the gods, thereby dispersing the rebellion. Ramses is killed by his double, Lykon.
One of the most untypical movies from the Polish cinema, both by its scale and setting, Jerzy Kawalerowicz's "Pharaoh" is a set up almost as some sort of a lesson towards American monumental epics, since it is an intimate essay on politology and the struggle for power, much closer to Machiavelli's "The Prince" or the animosity between the High Sparrow and Cersei in "Game of Thrones" than "The Ten Commandments". Kawalerowicz also has an aesthetic visual style which helps him stand out sharply from the stiff shot compositions of the above mentioned monumental epics: the film starts off with a long camera drive as it follows a priest running through hundreds of Egyptian soldiers standing in a line in the desert, from his front. The fact that he insists that the entire military should walk around a whole area because of the movement of two scarabs, already neatly sums up the motivation of the protagonist, Ramses XIII, considers them a superstitious 'parasite' caste that almost has more power than the Pharaoh himself.
Other great visual moments include a tracking shot of soldiers walking up and down across sand dunes as they approach their enemies from afar, while dozens of them fall when hit by spears, in the end even switching to a POV shot of a soldier who is hit, when the entire screen is filled with red blood. In another creative set piece, a line of thousands people march across the horizon, over the dune, but constantly stop to kneel down, almost as a set of dominoes. The tricks, ploys and intrigues with which Ramses and the priests try to outsmart each other are fascinating, albeit a little dry and dialogue driven, and one never knows who will prevail, especially when there is also a third party, the Phoenician merchants, who want to weaken them both. The highlight is probably the storming of the temple, incited by Ramses: upon hearing of the plan, the high priest actually encourages the rioting people to attack as soon as possible. One soon finds out why: the priests have knowledge of astronomy, and thus use a Sun eclipse to scare off the ignorant masses by claiming it is a divine punishment. "Pharaoh" is a dark allegory on the reign of autocracy, where the only way of reform or change is through bloodshed and violence, and an essay on atavistic class trying to cling on to power, assembling an overlong, but clever little exotic film with great details, unknown to the most of moviegoers. Krystyna Mikołajewska is excellent as Ramses' "forbidden" Jewish mistress, Sara.
Grade:+++
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