Cinema
Traces
وشمة
Hamid Bénani · 1970
Synopsis
Messaoud, an eight-year-old orphan, is adopted by Mekki, who cannot have a child with his wife and swears to raise him according to the rigorous principles of tradition. The child badly bears the authority of this adoptive father, who punishes him with extreme severity, and comes out of it marked. As an adolescent, he keeps company with a gang of delinquents and commits petty offences, while often leaving it to work, in the hope of acquiring something that justifies his existence; the second part breaks with the linear narrative to follow the dull revolt of a boy oppressed by his family and by society.
Context
The film was produced by Sigma 3, with the participation of the Moroccan Federation of Film Clubs; Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi did the cinematography, Ahmed Bouanani the editing. Awarded a Bronze Tanit at the Carthage Film Days in 1970, it was shown at the Berlinale Forum in 1971, then again in 2017. The Berlinale sees in it a new departure in Moroccan cinema, an experimental fiction that sets a Freudian symbolism against naturalism; it had only a short commercial release in Casablanca and lived mostly through the film clubs.
Who it is for
A feature film in Moroccan Arabic, in black and white, of about one hundred minutes; available on video on demand on LaCinetek.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the founding film of Moroccan cinema, and recommended by Nabil Ayouch.
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