Alphabet

Alphabet is the title of a family film set entirely in Egypt. A tale of two worlds. Based on an ancient saga. The time of the pharaohs and the present are linked by two children. Jamie Perkins and Stella Viola (of the same age), both with a distinct passion.

Jamie, the son of divorced parents, goes from Europe during the Christmas holidays to his father, an Egyptologist working in Cairo on behalf of the Ministry of Antiquities. Professor Perkins’job is to decipher a secret hieroglyphic script found in a temple excavation.

Jamie’s arrival is not at the best of times. His father is way behind schedule and faces a pile of work, and is struggling with deciphering the signs that have been discovered at the temple of Pharaoh Merenptha.

Thus Jamie has to keep to himself. Coincidence has it that one floor up in the apartment building his father uses a girl lives, Stella Viola. They soon become friends. Not long after they have met, Jamie meets Ramzi, a cheerful Egyptian in his early twenties who lures tourists into a camel ride around the pyramids or into the desert. A long time ago Ramzi worked for an uncle in London, which makes him in a funny way fluent in English to a certain extent. After a ‘free ride’ on his camel, friendship is born.

Besides the characters mentioned, father and son Longbottom play the role of antagonist. They are art dealers in a dubious way. They once managed to get hold of a page from the magic book of Thoth and after they heard the news of the discovery of a temple of Pharaoh Merenphta, they immediately took a plane to Egypt from the United Kingdom, to mingle in the world of charming art treasuries. Longbottom senior knows how to play the game, the unwritten version. Both father and son manipulate, cheat and lie whenever necessary and do not hesitate to take appropriate measures. The end justifies the means, seems to be their motto.

One morning when Jamie is buying his bread at a local bakery just around the corner in Gizeh, a neighbourhood at the outskirts of Cairo, Ramzi calls out to him: Jamie, listen. I have a secret. I have a brother and he’s got a friend whose sister has a friend who has a neighbour with an uncle and his daughter is married to a cousin of my aunt and her husband is called Azzouz. This all seems quite innocent, but a dazzling adventure takes place from that very moment. All is accelerating when Stella asks Jamie what kind of project his father is engaged in. When he tells her about the secret hieroglyphs, she shrugs and cannot see the problem.  Jamie loses his temper when Stella dares to state that she will fix it. Once she has explained that she is a real hacker, she earns the benefit of the doubt, so Jamie provides her in secret with the USB Stick with pictures of the secret hieroglyphs.  Within 24 hours Stella is back and proudly presents a sheet of paper which he then reads out loud: A soothsayer in Meremphta’s court has warned the pharaoh of a great natural disaster. Subsequently, the pharaoh ordered that all the valuables he possessed be taken to a safe place by ship. The magic book of Thoth also went in a chest.

Jamie is in doubt. He has to choose between his father’s expertise and a whizzkid named Stella. But after a discovery in the Egyptian museum, where they hid after closing time, he can no longer ignore the girl next door. The latest news that Stella comes up with, after deciphering a number of mysterious hieroglyphics, is the word Alphabet. In detail, he explains to her that there was no Alphabet in the time of the pharaohs. That is why the ancient Egyptians invented hieroglyphic writing, he emphatically informs her. Yet she stands her ground and emphasizes that the word is indeed Alphabet. In the end, Jamie decides to inform his father about their ‘secret’ efforts. Professor Perkins immediately comes up with the solution! You can not only read hieroglyphics from left to right, but also the other way around and then it doesn’t say Alphabet but Tebahpla! And let Tebahpla happen to be an ancient settlement somewhere deep in the desert, Professor Perkins strongly beliefs.

So Pharaoh Merenphta’s ship with all its treasures on board could just be lying there in the middle of the desert somewhere under the sand, they reason in all seriousness. After some talking back and forth, Jamie and Stella manage to persuade Professor Perkins to travel to Tebahpla with Ramzi in his elderly Peugeot 504. Jamie’s father sees the whole venture as a pleasant break from his stressful existence, but of course he does not show this to any of his fellow travelers. The journey is long and tiring. The euphoria is great when they reach Tebahpla at dusk after a long day of driving. Unfortunately, their search delivers nothing but an old oar hanging on the wall of a local tea house. Professor Perkins decides shortly afterwards that the adventure is over and they go back home the next day.

But Jamie and Stella think very differently, giving up is not an option for them. They take off. Together with Ramzi they take off in his old rattle. The oar is indeed a clue because the thing had only been found a few weeks earlier by Bedouins who had left the ‘piece of wood’ in the tea house for free food and drink, Ramzi had learned. Their best chance of pinpointing the exact spot of discovery was to get in touch with the desert nomads who were on their way to a camel market some 120 miles away to the southwest.

But less than a few hours on the road, the three adventurers are caught in a desert storm and their expedition seems to have come to an end. But salvation is at hand. They have been followed unnoticed for a few days by father and son Longbottom. With their immensely large and sturdy off-road vehicle, they are now continuing the journey together.

What follows is an exciting journey with numerous encounters, great discomfort and general confusion. In a sizzling environment, it is the clashing characters and mutual interests that constantly put things on edge. At a camel market, Jamie, Stella and Ramzi try to flee from the two so-called ‘art lovers’, but their attempt fails miserably, condemning them to each other again. Only after a spontaneous encounter with an eccentric desert lord they get on the trail of their ultimate goal: the treasure of Pharaoh Merenptha and the magic book of Thoth. It is also at that place that they deal with the two fortune seekers.

Fate is on their side when they end up in a cave that gives access to the hidden valuables. But the positive excitement is short-lived when the Longbottoms are back in their immediate vicinity.

In the end they get none of the treasure, the magic book of Thoth also remains an illusion and they have to make do with a unique experience that they can only share among themselves without having any proof of it.

But the story is not over yet. After all, they still have a long journey back home ahead of them and they are certainly not friends. Disaster strikes when they find themselves in the desert without a drop of gas. It takes them a long time to give up, but they know it’s over. But then Longbottom senior takes out his attaché case containing that one page from the magic book of Thoth. Stella grabs her laptop and starts deciphering the hieroglyphs like crazy, but it’s a race against time because her battery is almost empty. Everyone watches how quickly her fingers dart across the keyboard. Yet she manages to produce a readable spell just in time. She then memorizes the text aloud before her computer finally gives up the ghost. ‘Chem… remet je… nech achou adjeehoutie!’. Stella repeats it at least five more times. Then she runs to the top of a sand hill. She spreads her arms and legs and as the sun nearly sets, she speaks out the magic words.

And then, in the dim light, it happens. At first, only the sound of the dull drum, which is slowly approaching. Everyone is in the highest state of joy and excitement at the same time. What has Stella brought to life? It is now clear, though, that the book of Thoth, is not just a hocus pocus book, rather a resource of unknown powers, and of mystical secrets no man is yet aware of.  A ship of the pharaoh Merenptha emerges, propelled by at least thirty rowers in the middle of the desert. As soon as the ship is stationary, a gangway is pulled out and they they board the ship. Both father and son Longbottom are arrested, while Jamie, Stella, and Ramzi are invited on the ship with all due respect.

When during the night Cairo’s city lights approach, they leave the ship. Having to leave  the page of the book of Thoth behind, the two ‘artlovers’ are also permitted to leave the ship.

Alphabet has a unique story. The only problem: they cannot share it with anyone.. No human being will ever believe them. It is a secret that was always remain a secret. In this sense, no diiference with the great pyramids themselves. They have kept their secrets up to the present day.