A reference to the title of a stage vehicle of the late 1990s, the Zaim (Leader) is a nickname well suited to Adel Imam, who has occupied the throne of comedy for over three decades since the early 1970s. His career has seen many important transformations: in the mid-1960s he played numerous bit parts in films ( Merati Mudir 'Am - 1966; Afrit Merati - 1968; Nisf Sa'a Gawaz - 1969) in which he portrayed the frail young man to pleasant comic effect -- a technique he mastered in the 1964 play Ana wa Huwa wa Hiya (I, He and She) -- starring Fouad El-Mohandess and Shwikar and directed by Abdel-Moneim Madbouli. Before too long Imam's parts grew bigger, however, after he starred in Ibrahim Lotfi's Lussouss lakin zurafa' (Funny Thieves) in 1969. In the 1973 landmark play Madraset el mushaghibin (Troublemaker School), he made his grandest leap to date, becoming a household name. Afterwards he co-starred in some films and starred exclusively in others, e.g., respectively, El shayatin wel kora (Football Demons, 1973) and Al bahth 'an mata'ib (Looking for Trouble, 1975), both directed by Mahmoud Farid. Since rising to prominence, at this point, Imam has occasionally co-starred in a film like Mohammad Radi's Umahat fil manfa (Mothers in Exile, 1981) and Marwan Hamid's The Yaqoubian Building (2006). Intellectually, all through the 1980s and 1990s, Imam's roles conveyed an evident socio-political message. He came to be identified with the working-class (anti)hero victimised by society's double standards and dispossessed by the government or the businessmen who made a strong political appearance after Sadat's Open-Door Policy during the second half of the 1970s. Yet a radical transformation was yet to occur in the 21st century, when Imam started playing upper-class characters like a businessman, a minister or an heir, in such films as Ali Edriss's At tagruba ad danimarkeya (The Danish Experience), 'Ariss min giha amniyyah (A Bridegroom from State Security), Morgan Ahmad Morgan or Wael Ihssan's Bobboss. The transformation may be accounted for by Imam growing too old to play a struggling young man, but it is still strange that he should so suddenly begin to portray the very opposite of what, socio-politically, he had come to stand for. Throughout these developments, and until the present, interesting film, Zahaimar (Alzheimer's) by Amr Arafa -- Imam's latest -- the Za'im has been periodically subject to harsh criticism. A weaker film like Bobboss would undermine his "leadership", only to be followed by a remarkable feature like Zahaimar that would erase that painful memory. The screenwriter and director built Zahaimar around common knowledge of Azheimer's disease -- the protein buildup that causes gradual loss of memory in older people. It opens with a rich man named Mahmoud (Imam) waking up to realise that he no longer recognises those who work in his villa, including his nurse for two years, Mona (Nelly Karim). It gradually transpires that it is the failure of attempts to persuade Mahmoud of abiding by the diet and medical regiment required for his illness that has resulted in such confusion. No doubt the consequent suspense at the opening is in the benefit of the film, which despite the comedy recalls Kamal El-Sheikh's fantastical masterpiece Al lailah al akhirah (The Last Night, 1963), starring Mahmoud Morsi, Ahmad Mazhar and Faten Hamama. Like the heroine of that film, Mahmoud feels there is something ambiguous and is incredulous. The principal difference in the opening sequence of each film is the dramatic focus, which here relies on comic paradox and laughter-inducing irony -- when in a series of sketches, among Imam's trademark approaches -- the help attempt to convince Mahmoud that he suffers from Alzeihmer's. Mahmoud recognises no one with the exception of the doorman (Diaa El-Merghany), who has also served as servant and gardener for years. Yet the tension that besets Mahmoud does not subside, and it drives him to call one of his two sons, Sameh (Fathi Abdelwahab) and Karim (Ahmad Rizq), or one of his old friends. The screenplay is divided into two parts, with the first based on a trick that is soon unveiled to the viewer, somewhere before the midpoint of the film. Yet the script writer continues to conceal the point of the trick to the end. Yet the film's only fault is the moralising discourse it adopts towards the end. The best scene, dramatically speaking, is the one in which Imam's once fellow star Said Saleh participates as an old friend of Mahmoud's, when Mahmoud visits him in an old people's home and the resident doctor (Iss'ad Younis) explains that the friend is suffering from the later stages of Alzeihmer's. It is moving when Mahmoud discovers just how fragmentary his friend's memory has become, eventually realising that the illness has also precipitated incontinence. But the funniest scene is the one in which Mahmoud forgets his two sons' age and sets about to give them a bath. There is nothing remarkable about the acting: Adel Imam is Adel Imam, and he deploys all the expressions and techniques that made him famous. Likewise Fathi Abdelwahab: he portrays a conventional character that he has previously played in many films, the young womaniser. Karim's case is even worse: it seems to be an exact replay of the character Rizq played in the television serial Al-'Ar last Ramadan, especially since he is married to Naglaa (Rania Youssef), who controls his business and forces him into evil. Imam starred in Hassan wa Morqoss in 2008, and though he was acting opposite Omar Sharif, his performance was mediocre and unconvincing to the point where it seemed this was Imam's worst film in the previous ten years. Bobboss was even worse. Zahaimar brings Adel Imam back to a place of prominence now that he has given up many a repetitive detail, some of which may not be appropriate for a 70-year-old man. He no longer chases women all through the film, for example, and it has been said that Zahaimar is Imam's bid for "a clean cinema". Yet it seems to me that Imam, who has consistently struggled against backwardness and conservatism, will never be coopted in such contexts. The myth of the phoenix is well-known. It is a symbol of regeneration. The bird whose life cycle is 500 years burns up of its own accord and reemerges from the dust. Adel Imam is like the phoenix, and once again he has reemerged from the dust.
