One of the most beautiful films of the year 2024, which has just ended, is called “All we imagine as light”. We wrote it right here, this first Indian film, signed by a young woman from documentary (Payal Kapadia), is a treasure of poetry and sensitivity. He also won the grand prize at the last Cannes festival and was a hit everywhere… Except in India, his own country! There, at home, the film displeased local right-thinking who accuse it of having aestheticized poverty and of having sought to please the West.
Pleasing the West: this is something that greatly displeases “ours”, whether they are Indians or Moroccans. But what does that mean, exactly?
Very often, this means a well-written film, careful production, crude dialogues and above all what our people describe as clichés. That is to say the desire to address issues that are annoying and that good society prefers to hide from the eyes of outsiders.
Whether they come from Africa or the Orient, the best films from the South very often suffer from this strange illness. They are celebrated in others and ignored or dismissed at home. They are accused of wanting to please the West, which amounts to selling one’s soul to the devil.
Note that filmmakers are not the only ones to suffer from this curse: writers too and, more generally, all those who shine or who (really) have something to say…
To stay in cinema, we have Nabyl Ayouch in Morocco. Each of his films is massacred on the spot, with eyes closed or almost, as if it were a national duty.
The latest is called “Everybody loves Touda”, which has just been released in theaters. A very above average film, which tells the story of the struggle of a cabaret singer who fights to be recognized as an artist in her own right. But nothing helps, in the countryside and in the city, among the poor and the rich, men only see her as an entertainer and an easy woman…
Touda (Nisrine Erradi, once again impeccable), who also fights for her disabled child, is a beautiful character who recalls the struggles of the Moroccan woman today and of those who try to rise to the surface and keep their heads above water, while everything leads them to the bottom…
As with “Much Loved”, another success that ours had the pleasure of killing, sex is one of the main driving forces of this new film. Sex, therefore, but both in its carnal and violent dimension. Touda is not only the victim of men’s bestiality, she also burns with desire. This is what makes it complex and artistically interesting.
And this is what troubles our people, of course, accustomed to Manichean stereotypes. Touda, in the film, is so unclassifiable that ours have no understanding of what makes her move, smile, jump for joy or cry.
Among the recurring criticisms that have been made of the film, the most naive are indignant: but why not film resistant sheikhates (against the Franco-Spanish occupation)? In addition to making sheikhates asexual beings, these critics do not understand that a Touda, in fact, is also a resistance fighter in her own way…
In short, go see this very good Moroccan film, make up your own mind, and forget about the noise pollution caused by ours.
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