Meryam Joobeur explores in The sourcein theaters on January 1, the inextinguishable pain of parents whose sons chose to join the ranks of the terrorist movement Daesh in Syria. The filmmaker is interested in those who remain, petrified by incomprehension and unanswered questions. The source is the long version of the short film Brotherhood(New window) by the Canadian-Tunisian director. She spoke of the mysterious return of a young jihadist to his family in Tunisia. The film had allowed Tunisian cinema to compete for the first time at the Oscars in 2020.
Of the three siblings, only the youngest remains in The source. The other two left, leaving Brahim (Mohamed Grayaa), their dad, and especially Aicha (Salha Nasraoui)their mother, as if dazed. The head of the family regularly goes to the police station to get news. If the jihadists returned, they would go straight to prison.
At home, the shepherd has a prime target: his partner has made, according to him, the boys into spoiled children. It’s always women’s fault. Listening to her husband’s latest round of reproaches, Aicha hurts herself. His dismay is now apparent. Like his wound, the pain does not really heal even when Mehdi, one of the jihadist sons, returns. It simply molts.
The prodigal son came home with a wife. Reem is completely veiled. We only see her eyes with purple reflections and Mehdi presents her as his companion. In this family of shepherds, this hoped-for return is not calming. Especially since the couple’s arrival coincides with suspicious events. Bilal (Adam Bessa), a police officer whom Brahim and Aicha consider as a son, will try to understand what is happening.
In this Tunisian countryside with a setting that is both green and lunar, Meryam Joobeur has brought together a gallery of taciturn characters, some of whom have a notable commonality and which inspired the filmmaker: magnificent red hair that the children inherited from their mother Aicha. These red spots are the rare points of light that cross the screen, along with the youngest child’s cries of joy when we play with him. The source is an emotionally dry film. And if women are not the only ones to be unhappy, their share of unhappiness remains the most important. From Aicha to Reem, the pain increases and none of them has the leisure or space to flaunt it.
In a Spartan staging where the camera lingers on the face and eyes, reflections of the soul, Joobeur delivers a chaptered but timeless story, haunting and dizzying like the pain it materializes. We get lost a little in Aicha’s visions, the dreams or rather the nightmares of some, the memories that would have been better erased… But all this foggy memory reinforces the feeling of being in a second state when the body and mind can no longer withstand the shocks. The source is precisely that of all traumas, the description of a mechanism of physical and emotional violence from which it is difficult to emerge unscathed or simply alive. Meryam Joobeur offers with sour first film is a heavy cinematic experience but one that is worth experiencing.
Genre :drama
Director: Meryam Joobeur
Distribution : Salha Nasraoui, Mohamed Graya, Malek Mechergui, Adam Bessa
Pays : Tunisia, France
Duration :1h46
Sortie :January 1, 2025
Distributer : KMBO
Synopsis : In a remote village in Tunisia, Aicha and Brahim are devastated by the unexplained departure of their sons, off to an unspeakable war. When one of them returns with a mysterious veiled and mute fiancée, the parents decide to keep this return quiet. But Bilal, a police officer and long-time friend, investigates disturbing events. His suspicions soon put him on the family’s trail.
