Despite the portentous title, Boulifa’s film is ultimately an affectionate portrait of a mother-son relationship and a clear-eyed take on the vicissitudes of Moroccan society. Selim and Fatima are down on their luck. Thrown out of their grandfather’s home, they return to Tangiers and try to fashion a viable future in an inviable society. Fatima is a flakey flirt and her handsome son soon realises that following in her footsteps is the way to get ahead, as he enters into an uneasy relationship with Sebastian, the French owner of a downtown riad. The narrative keeps moving as the characters lurch from salvation towards damnation and back again. The precarious nature of life in Morocco, as in any third world country, is acutely described. What marks Boulifa’s film out, beyond all of the above, is his refusal to convert his twin protagonists into heroic figures. Both Fatima and Selim are flawed survivors, getting by against the odds as they try to steer an independent path through a stratified society. Aicha Tebbae’s portrayal of Fatima, in particular, a middle aged ugly duckling convinced she’s actually a swan, is beautifully realised. In spite of her foolishness, Fatima is possessed of a survivor’s sly wisdom which keeps her both alive and sane, against the odds. If the film sometimes seems to skate over some elements of the harshness of the lives its characters endure (what is it really like to be a young man in a Moroccan prison?), it still succeeds in avoiding the trap of constructing a heroic or redemptive narrative of life in the third world, thereby offering a more convincing, less palliative depiction.
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