In Cairo, a religious student at the prestigious Al-Azhar Islamic University is recruited by secret police to infiltrate a Muslim Brotherhood cell. In Mashad, a holy city in Iran, a serial killer prowls a seedy suburb and strangles head-scarfed prostitutes. In the first film, bloodlust officials torture dissidents with abandon. In the second film, religion is evoked and the name of God is cited as a justification for murder. This begs the obvious question: Will Boy From Heaven be banned in Egypt, and Holy Spider Iran?
Cinema is still capable of asking hard questions at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. In the age of TikTok, which is in fact one of Cannes' official partners this year, cinema still strives to push boundaries and probe the variable parameters of its own definition -- its relevance, its politics, its duplicity, its paradox.
