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Halle Berry to rule Egypt

File this under resurrected good news: Nefertiti, Halle Berry‘s collaboration with Monster’s Ball

director Marc Forster, may be emerging from development hell. The MTV Movies Blog posted a short (like, twenty-second) clip about the project from a recent interview with Berry (watch it here).

Let me highlight the phrases I like: “Battle scenes,” “love,” “woman coming into her own,” “woman ruler,” “that epic quality.” Now that’s a mantra I can get behind. I’m also excited that a woman of color will star. (I could totally see the cast of something like this being whitewashed (hi, Liz Taylor in Cleopatra!) and ending up with, say, Cate Blanchett in a skull cap.) But Berry has the looks, the style and the regal bearing to play Nefertiti and all of her adjectival phrases: Great of Favors, Possessed of Charm, Mistress of Sweetness, Beloved One, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt.

And this is how she compares to Nefertiti (or, more accurately, to an ancient bust). No word on yet on the epic plot. Actually, it’s up for a game of creative fill-in-the-blank, because the full story of Nefertiti and her sickly, artistic and reclusive husband, the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, is so shrouded in mystery. If you (like me) learned your Egyptian history from a combination of Disney and Trivial Pursuit, here’s a little juicy ancient gossip and wholly unsubstantiated rumor intro to the players.

After ascending to power, the Pharaoh formerly known as Amenhotep IV pulled a stunt I’m sure we’ve all fantasized about on an off day: He went and changed his name, founded a city and started a religious revolution. (Just me? Fine.) Ruling beside him was Nefertiti, who commanded unprecedented power for a woman in the ancient world. You can tell because she’s depicted as nearly the same size as her husband, which doesn’t often happen in ancient Egyptian art. I’m guessing the revolution would probably be the subject of Berry’s movie: War, religious fervor and the building of Really Big Things spell epic. Figuratively speaking.

But far more interesting – to me, anyway, because of the lesbianish potential – is what happens after Akhenaten’s death, when Nefertiti had to return her family to the ancient ways. Subsequent rulers almost obliterated the heretic Pharaoh from history, but in the last century images have surfaced of the incredibly beautiful Nefertiti and her strangely shaped (or, one might say, strangely shapely) husband. The curvy hips, small waist and hint of breasts in some reliefs have led to some wild speculation. One explanation is a genetic condition called Marfan Syndrome, but the theory I prefer is a genetic condition called womanhood. Is it possible that Akhenaten was a chick? Hey, women have marshaled revolutions before. (Although we all know how that turns out.) Another rumor I like is the possibility that Nefertiti herself filled the power void left by the death of her husband. Maybe the subsequent succession of shadowy Pharaohs after Akhenaten –

who shared some of her royal names – were all Nefertiti in drag.

That’s the movie I would like to see, anyway, but I’ll settle for just getting an epic made. I have fond memories of Ben Hur and Spartacus (although the Kraken monster in Clash of the Titans also gave four-year-old-me nightmares), so I would look forward to this project with an odd mix of little-kid glee and big-kid appreciation for women in period costumes. That’s right, Warner Brothers: Some of us will pay good money to see women on-screen.

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