2023-07-09 07:00:00
Fyzal Boulifa signs the double portrait of a mother and her son in a Morocco that is as harsh as it is dangerous. Powerful.
The Morocco. Fatima-Zahra (Aïcha Tebbae), fifties, 17 years old (Abdellah El Hajjouji, extraordinary young actor), form a close-knit duo: mother and son sleep in the same bed, glued to each other. Broke, the pair wanders from furnished to furnished, from city to city, without ever crying or complaining. Without anything being said or really shown, we understand that Fatima-Zahra is maintained by men, sometimes has to prostitute herself and leave a city as soon as everything goes wrong.
Selim, he will discover love in Tangier, with a Frenchman (Antoine Reinartz), a “Christian” who restores riads. While his mother seems to have found a “reliable” man, a good believer, hardworking, who is looking for a woman to “supplement” his own who has sunk into depression…
An amazing softness
What is beautiful, in this first feature directed by a Briton of Moroccan origin (Fyzal Boulifa, short filmmaker several times rewarded), is that he does not judge his characters. He does not caricature them, illuminates them in different ways, both figuratively and literally, so much the photo and the perfect frames embellish these protagonists and make them multiple. Without hatred, with astonishing gentleness, Boulifa describes a very harsh Morocco for women who dreamed of freedom. And where Westerners play with impunity with the feelings and bodies of the damned. A very good first film.
The damned don’t cry no Fyzal Boulifa, with Aïcha Tebbae, Abdellah El Hajjouji, Antoine Reinartz (Fr., Bel., Mar., 2022, 1h51). In theaters July 12.
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