2023-08-26 17:43:17
In official competition at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival, Nadir Moknèche’s latest feature film, “L’air de la mer rend libre” (in theaters October 4), follows the journey of a young North African couple forced to a union arranged to preserve appearances. By confronting prohibitions, the director delivers a calm and intelligent film, with a saving sweetness.
Can an arranged marriage bury the past? This question, posed like an elephant in the middle of the living room of a young newly married couple, is at the heart of Nadir Moknèche’s new feature film (Le Harem de Madame Osmane (2000), Lola Pater (2017)) in which two young people accept a union they did not choose.
Their two families want to unite them to wash away a shame. She had a love affair with a delinquent, he likes boys.
Kenza Fortas (left) and Youssouf Abi-Ayad (right), at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival, August 26, 2023. They present in official competition “The air of the sea makes free” by Nadir Moknèche. • © Clément Massé – France Televisions
“I don’t have a barometer, I can’t tell you the number of couples who are faced with an arranged marriage, but I know these stories exist, explains Nadir Moknèche. I know that for some it is important not to break up with your family. Because breaking up with your family means loneliness, a moment of distress. And Said knows it.”
Neither he nor Hadjira is aware of the shame that leads the other to submit to this marriage. Nadir Moknèche soberly describes the relentless pressure, all smiles and “it’s-for-your-good” that is imposed on the young couple.
The film says the pressure on girls to be good girls, virtuous girls
Nadir Moknèche
Director of “The air of the sea makes free”
“I started from the idea that there would be no physical violence. Psychological violence, yes, but no physical violence”, continues Nadir Moknèche. We will just see the father, played by Zinedine Soualem, get up suddenly in anger, and the mother, played by Saadia Bentaïeb, launch an implacable “go away”.
The movie says “the pressure on girls to be good girls, virtuous girls, I’m talking regarding Arab girls. She makes a small mistake, not very serious, and we punish her”notes the director.
On screen, her actress, Kenza Fortas, brings to life a strong young woman, ready to go following what is expected of her. “I approached the subject with a certain benevolence, a certain gentleness. I wanted to show what is happening, but without generalizing it”, she explains. But faced with the inconsistencies of his mother, his character will have to evolve.
Saïd continues to live his sexuality in secret. In the evening, to live out his own desire for men, he goes running. In the image, we witness his transformation. The young groom swaps his model butcher’s clothes, employed in the family shop, for tight jogging, banana slung over his shoulder and cap screwed on his head. Saïd becomes a hypersexualized body. Nadir Moknèche then applies himself to deconstructing this caricatural image of a young Arab man from the suburbs.
“Nadir said that he got the idea for the film when he saw that if one day a young man types on the Internet ‘young, Arab and homosexual’, he will only come across porn and he said to himself that this was not possible, remembers Youssouf Abi-Ayad who plays Saïd. Whereas, if you type the same thing with the French word, there will be other representations, in love. He wanted to show other forms of storytelling.”
Divided into several parts, each dedicated to the perspective and journey of a character in the film, The sea air sets you free Calmly constructs a modern story in which a constrained young couple will learn through contact with each other to regain their freedom. It might be that it is in the desire of one of the characters to see the sea once more, the one that gives its title to the film.
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