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Abdelinho, a young Moroccan trapped between a tyrannical mother and a bureaucratic job, dreams of an imaginary and sensual Brazil. His sole window onto this South American giant is through his telenovelas.
The fourth film by Moroccan director Hicham Ayouch, brother of renowned filmmaker Nabil Ayouch, will be released in theaters this Wednesday, having previously achieved success in his native country nearly two years prior.
Both quirky and dreamlike, the film stages a fantasized relationship between the protagonist Abdelinho (played by Abderrahim Tamimi) and the beautiful Maria (Inês Monteiro), the heroine of a soap opera whom Abdelinho gazes at devotedly from his refuge on the roof of his house, away from his mother’s disapproving gaze.
The director’s use of magical realism was inspired by South American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. Hicham Ayouch elucidates that his interest lies not so much in Brazil as a country, but rather in what Brazil symbolizes in the collective unconscious, especially in terms of bodily and sexual freedom. Ayouch contrasts this representation with the schizophrenic reality of Morocco, where one can feel like being in Ibiza one minute and Kabul the next. According to him, Brazil serves as a metaphorical escape from this reality.
The film also introduces an element of conflict with the arrival of Islamic televangelist Amr Taleb (Ali Suliman), who threatens Abdelinho and the samba classes he offers the women of his town. The inspiration for this character comes from Egypt, and in the film, the preacher reinterprets the famous gospel tune Happy Day with excerpts from the Quran, an unusual fusion of music and fundamentalism in the Muslim world. The film also addresses taboo subjects within Moroccan society, similar to the work of the director’s brother Nabil, particularly with Much Loved, a film about the prostitution of young women banned by the authorities.
Hicham Ayouch believes that making a film about Islamism and Moroccan society is not difficult today, as Islamists have shifted their strategy and no longer create scandals. After an eight-year hiatus behind the camera since Fever (2013), a darker film about a young man lost in the Parisian suburbs, Ayouch now returns with his perspective on the lives of Moroccan youth and the situations he finds challenging for young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods worldwide. Sometimes, as he observes in Morocco, the situation explodes, and the youth head towards Europe. Ayouch’s film, with its blend of humor, magic, and social realism, offers a unique and provocative insight into youth, culture, and religion in contemporary Morocco.
With AFP
