Casablanca. Say that word and the Bogart / Bergman movie comes to mind even though it was shot in the Warner Bros studio in Burbank.
My two favorite films seen recently were shot in Casablanca and directed by the Moroccan born Maryam Touzani. Adam (2019) and The Blue
Caftan (2022) are everything American filmmakers seem unable to achieve.
Without deafening noise, explosions or sci-fi confections, each touches the souls
of their characters. Nor is there any psychological probing on display.
It is through unspoken gestures that the camera, alone,
reveals moments of a life-changing dimension. In Adam we see a widow’s face carrying
the weight of the world, slowly melt as she rediscovers joy in her eyes while
her body moves to the rhythms of Moroccan music.
In another scene we witness her reawakening while kneading
dough. Her hands take on a sensuality. In its sweep, the camera transports us as
we align with Touzani’s close-ups and a spirited humanity emerges.
The power of these films is in its simplicity. In the Blue
Caftan, the complex heroic character of the husband is revealed wordlessly,
only through the language of cinema.
At the same time, each of these films is quietly subversive
as one challenges the conventions of the male domination which consign women into a circumscribed life.
American story-telling is most-often accompanied with bombast
appropriate for a pre-adolescent brain. The operative word is power. Violence is obligatory as befits a
nation out to police the planet, accompanied by high decibels as if to wake our
numbed senses whose attention must be wrested from their smartphones.
I found the two Moroccan movies on Kanopy, a free streaming
site offered by local libraries. Touzani's latest film, Calle Malaga, will soon be available on streaming.
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