2023-07-07 03:50:15
After a “documenter” on an urban legend (The Challat of Tunis2013), a long-term portrait of exiles (Zaineb doesn’t like snow2016), the return to a complaint of rape by the police (Beauty and the Pack2017) and a scathing fable regarding the price of art and freedom (The Man Who Sold His Skin, 2020), here is the filmmaker who returns as an asserted author to the genre of her debut. Except that the “pure documentary” was not enough for him to give birth to this story. Is the contract with the public broken? And what regarding the “real” characters, more than ever playthings in a production?
For us, the result is doubly interesting, as much for a staggering story in itself as for the artifices used to tell it, although handicapped by a certain visual monotony: a group of women among whom it is sometimes difficult to distinguish who is who, confined in a unique place (all this work of remembrance, even family therapy, took place in an empty hotel). Sufficient reasons to collect by telephone the words of the filmmaker, who will soon be in Switzerland to discuss with the public.
Le Temps: How did you come across the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, which seems to shed light on a certain failure of the Arab Spring in Tunisia?
Kaouther Ben Hania: What failure? It’s way too harsh! There is necessarily a time of transition, the patriarchy and its institutions cannot disappear all at once. As Antonio Gramsci once said of Europe: “The old world is dying, the new is slow to appear, and in this chiaroscuro monsters arise.” The formula applies perfectly to Tunisia today and to this history. In 2016, I heard an interview with Olfa on the radio and I was fascinated by this character full of contradictions. First of all, I saw it as an opportunity to explore the question of mother-daughter relationships. But this story brings together a whole series of other issues, namely the weight of a patriarchal society on women, the transmission of values, the emancipation of young people, the awakening to sexuality, the revolt and the idealism specific to at this age, etc. There was a formidable summary there, with very broad social reverberations.
And how did Olfa react to your film proposal?
When I approached her, she thought I was just another journalist. Highly publicized, his story found itself at the center of a great debate. She had become the target of a real witch hunt on social networks and wanted to stop it all. However, I didn’t have too much trouble convincing her that my approach would be quite different, in search of deep truths. And for her part, she always had this desire to share her story.
On Kaouther Ben Hania’s previous film: “The man who sold his skin” or the name “Freedom” written on the back of migrants
You didn’t immediately find the right shape…
Again in 2016, I started with the idea of a simple documentary. But I soon realized that I mightn’t. Olfa played a role, the complexity escaped me. So I dropped everything and made two fiction films, Beauty and the Pack et The Man Who Sold His Skin. But I mightn’t forget this project. Finally, I thought of this technique which has become common in the reenactment – having real scenes replayed by actors – but used as a genuine analysis tool. The intervention of actors would create additional interactions which would make it possible to go further. Just told by its protagonists, this story was indeed not cinematic enough. To evoke this past, it had to be replayed, to include body language. I was lucky to have a producer, Nadim Cheikhrouha, who following two films together trusted me completely as I groped!
Why a single actor to embody all the male characters, who don’t really have a say?
Between the members of the family and the actresses, I already had to worry regarding six portraits of women and I wanted to do justice to the individuality of each one. On the other hand, it seemed to me that the men in this story, essentially the father of the girls then Olfa’s lover, had an interchangeable nature, hence the idea of one and the same actor. But he still undertook to represent them very differently!
Two sisters and two actresses to recreate a broken family. — © Trigon-film
Does Olfa Hamrouni regret her own “revolution” as a woman, given the consequences?
Let’s say that Olfa has made a lot of mistakes and she is well aware of them. Some are very excusable. When you fall in love, you inevitably become partly blind. The worst, in fact, is the violence she has exercised once morest her own daughters, which reproduces her own trauma. She is both victim and executioner, to the point of becoming the embodiment of patriarchy herself, which is unfortunately very common! The idea of hiring a star, Hend Sabri, to embody her in certain scenes – in fact, she was dangled with the project of a fiction film in which she would hold her role – made it possible to unlock things, bringing Olfa back to reality!
A broader picture of the family or so including the outside influence of radical imams was not really desirable at the present time?
There is of course an extended family, but this case has really isolated them. Olfa has become a “bad mother”, as it appears at the time of the intervention of the State, which takes away her younger daughters. As for the role of these preachers, it is a debate that agitates our society on a daily basis and I would have strayed from the subject. It’s not out of any fear: the whole country is trying to understand how it might have become the one that provided the largest number of jihadists! There is no longer any censorship in our country today and freedom of expression is a reality. This film, which was supported by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, will be released in Tunisia in September and I look forward to the debate it will generate!
And even: “Beauty and the pack”: Mariam, victim but guilty
In its form, I imagine that it was absolutely necessary to go beyond these television unpackings which have become commonplace…
Yes. On the one hand, I knew that we were going to explore intimate, sensitive and painful subjects together, and to create a reassuring framework I tried as much to escape the constraints of a classic shoot as the rawness of TV sets. On the other, it was necessary to bring a form of distancing that would allow us to go further in understanding. Playing with the limits between documentary and fiction has always fascinated me, but I think it remains a documentary despite everything. The actresses also intervene there as people, because it is the reality. In fact, the documentary is a much richer and more malleable genre than we would like to believe!
Daughters of Olfa, by Kaouther Ben Hania (Tunisia, France, Germany, 2023), with Olfa Hamrouni, Tayssir Chikhaoui, Eya Chikhaoui, Hend Sabri, 1h47. In theaters in Geneva (Cinémas Scala and du Grütli), elsewhere in French-speaking Switzerland from July 12.
Special screenings in the presence of the filmmaker, Wednesday July 19 in Geneva (Scala, 7.45 p.m.) and Thursday July 20 in Neuchâtel (Rex, 8.15 p.m.).
1688707598
#Kaouther #Ben #Hania #worst #violence #exercised #mother #daughters
