There are so many good ideas in Leyla Bouzid’s second feature A Tale of Love and Desire, so many rarely-addressed issues deserving attention, that it’s especially frustrating how faintly the sparks fly between her two main characters, university classmates at the Sorbonne whose different experiences as Maghreb Arabs in France shape their approach to relationships. The problem lies in the way the male protagonist is delineated, refreshingly sexualized – Bouzid consciously foregrounds a female gaze – yet also so reserved and conflicted in how he expresses desire for his exuberant classmate that we never understand why she’s interested in drawing him out. While the director-writer’s vision is strong, the film is unlikely to make the same splash as her debut As I Open My Eyes.
That earlier film, set in Tunisia, also put a strong, independent young woman at the center, negotiating expectations from her more conformist mother and hypocritical peers as she set her sights on a future of her own making. In A Tale of Love and Desire, the female lead (a captivating Zbeida Belhajamor), also named Farah as in Bouzid’s first feature, is a Tunisian just arrived in France to study literature. With her broad cascade of curls and easy-going manner she’s a figure you notice in any room no matter how crowded, so no wonder Ahmed (Sami Outalbali) takes her in, timidly looking in her direction. Born in France, he’s from an Algerian family living in the banlieue, saddled with the oppositional tensions of many second-generation youth who uneasily straddle two worlds, trying to fit into one in public while appeasing the other at home.
It’s a big deal for Ahmed and his family that he’s at the Sorbonne studying literature, yet he’s unprepared for Professor Anne Morel (Aurélia Petit) and her class, in which they’re analyzing translated Arab erotic texts from the Abbasid era and later. His understanding of classical prose is more traditional, and he’s discomfited by the joyously carnal nature of the words they read aloud. In his mind, the acts described are for the porn videos he watches in private, not hallowed literature assigned in a university course. Farah has no such compunctions: she’s part of a freer generation of Tunisians more at ease with their sexuality, unburdened by expectations of conservative immigrant communities whose concept of morality remains trapped in an amber formed when they arrived in France. Ahmed flees when Farah tries to make out with him – he’s smitten, but for him love is pure, sacrosanct, and he can’t handle her openness.
The tension between the two would-be lovers is strongly linked to diasporic traditionalism, further underlined when the script offers insight into Ahmed’s father Hakim (Samir Elhakim), a journalist when still in Algeria who was crushed by the exile experience. Unwilling to weigh their children down with the stigma of the emigré, Hakim and his wife Faouzia (Khemissa Zarouel) didn’t speak to them in Arabic, and yet language couldn’t shield them from inevitable racism and the self-protected insularity of Maghreb communities on the Parisian outskirts. Bouzid has Ahmed connect to his desires once he connects more to his Arabness, which is a nice shift, yet the film is hampered by viewers’ difficulty in understanding why Farah is so invested in wanting a relationship with him. Sure he’s cute, but she’s not the type to zero in on a guy in order to change him, and clearly he requires a lot of work to get him to accept that desire is nothing to shy away from.
The fault doesn’t lie with Outalbali (Sex Education), who does a fine job conveying the opposing emotions that spring from the expectations of community as he tries to reconcile what he feels in his loins with what he feels in his heart. Bouzid makes a point of presenting Ahmed as an object of desire, from the first shots of his naked torso behind an opaque shower door to an extended love-making scene at the end, when she ensures his well-formed derrière remains in the frame for some time. It’s a liberating take on sensualizing the male body, though it remains somewhat at odds with our understanding of Ahmed’s character. The film’s visuals subtly bring out textures and a certain caressing softness that’s appropriate to the subject matter.
Director: Leyla Bouzid
Screenplay: Leyla Bouzid
Cast: Sami Outalbali, Zbeida Belhajamor, Diong-Kéba Tacu, Aurélia Petit, Mahia Zrouki, Bellamine Abdelmalek, Mathilde de la Musse, Samir Elhakim, Khemissa Zarouel, Sofia Lesaffre.
Producer: Sandra da Fonseca
Cinematography: Sébastien Goepfert
Production design: Léa Philippon
Costume design: Céline Brelaud
Editing: Lilian Corbeille
Music: Lucas Gaudin
Sound: Nassim el Mounabbih
Production companies: Blue Monday Productions (France), Arte France Cinéma
World sales: Pyramide International
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Semaine de la critique)
In French, Arabic
102 minutes
