2023-08-14 16:25:25
Abdelinho is a young Moroccan stuck between a tyrannical mother and a bureaucratic job, who dreams of a sensual and imaginary Brazil, with, as the only window on the South American giant, its telenovelas.
Directed by Hicham Ayouch, this fourth film by the Moroccan director – brother of the famous filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (Much loved, Haut et fort) – is released in cinemas in France on Wednesday, almost two years following having met with success in his country.
Everything in the film is both crazy and dreamlike, starting with the fantasized relationship between the protagonist (Aderrahim Tamimi) and the beautiful Maria (Inês Monteiro), heroine of a soap opera that Abdelinho follows faithfully from his refuge on the roof. from his house, away from his mother’s disapproving gaze.
This magical realism, the director claims, saying he was inspired by South American writers Gabriel García Márquez or Mario Vargas Llosa.
“I’ve been to Brazil two or three times in my life. It is not a country that represents something very powerful in my imagination. What interests me is what Brazil represents in the collective unconscious,” explains the 47-year-old director in an interview via Zoom.
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“In terms of freedom of the body and sexual freedom, when you are born in a country like Morocco, it is a country that is very schizophrenic. You can have the impression that you are in Ibiza and the next minute in Kabul, ”he continues.
“Brazil is a sort of metaphorical escape from this reality. »
“Sometimes it explodes”
But voila, the arrival of the Islamist tele-preacher Amr Taleb (Ali Suliman) poses a threat to Abdelinho, who has set up samba lessons for women in his town.
“The inspiration came from Egypt, where there is a preacher who is a star”, specifies Hicham Ayouch.
In the film, the preacher thus diverts the famous gospel hit Happy Day into a version sprinkled with extracts from the Koran.
A mixture of music and fundamentalism unknown in the Muslim world, but known in countries like Brazil, where the evangelical influence of North American origin is very strong.
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“We have all the contradiction of this character who does not stop criticizing the West during his speeches and, at the same time, who uses many Western references and referents”, underlines the director.
Tackling taboo subjects in Moroccan society – and more generally Arab society – is also what his brother Nabil did, notably with Much Loved (2015), a feature film on youth prostitution which had been banned by the authorities.
Making a film regarding Islamism and Moroccan society is not difficult because the Islamists have changed their strategy, says the director.
“Before, when people released films that were a little bit ‘sulphurous’ or ‘controversial’, they (the Islamists, editor’s note) campaigned in the media, on the internet and that was free publicity for the film”, he remarks.
“I think now, with experience, they’re a little smarter. They no longer make scandals, they target their troops, their sympathizers, they simply tell them not to go see the film. »
Hicham Ayouch took eight years to go back behind the camera following Fièvres (2013), much darker, regarding a young man lost in the Parisian suburbs, scene of riots.
“I don’t think there is more hope here than in France. I think the situation is very difficult for young people in poor neighborhoods around the world. And sometimes it explodes. In Morocco, sometimes young people explode. Sometimes they take the boat,” heading for Europe.
Source: AFP
Abdelinho is a young Moroccan stuck between a tyrannical mother and a bureaucratic job, who dreams of a sensual and imaginary Brazil, with, as the only window on the South American giant, its telenovelas.
Directed by Hicham Ayouch, this fourth film by the Moroccan director – brother of the famous filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (Much loved,…
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