Cinema
44 or Tales of the Night
44 أو أسطورة الليل
Moumen Smihi · 1985
Synopsis
From 1912 to 1956, during the forty-four years of the protectorate, the film follows the chronicle of two Moroccan families: one from Fez, pious and lavish, the other from Chefchaouen, poor, in a society that struggles for its independence and enters modernity. According to the Tate Modern, the narrative draws on both the Thousand and One Nights and the picaresque tales of James Joyce to offer several points of view on a complex and shifting national history.
Context
Made in 1981, the film was released in France only on 8 May 1985. This Franco-Moroccan co-production was photographed by Pierre Lhomme and Abdelkrim Derkaoui, and brought together Moroccan performers, Mohamed Habachi, Abdeslam Faraoui and Naïma Lamcharki, and French actors, Pierre Clémenti, Marie-France Pisier and Christine Pascal; the music is by Benjamin Yarmolinsky and Guido Baggiani. For the Tate Modern, which screened it in 2014, Lhomme's widescreen images give it the sweep of Miklós Jancsó's historical frescoes, and its direction owes much to Visconti's Il Gattopardo.
Who it is for
A feature film of 110 to 116 minutes depending on the prints, shot on 35 mm; no video copy is known.
Prizes and reception
A fresco of the colonial period, screened again in 2014 by Tate Modern in a cycle devoted to its director.