“Le Bleu du caftan”: gay love in the Medina of Salles

The meaning of “the world” – should not be missed

A fighting spirit and a fairy’s grace. This can be defined as Meriam Tousani, considering the two feature films that her filmography now has. Პirveli, Adam, Released in 2020, it has already been revealed in this way, through a delicate film about the status of women in Morocco and the stigma attached to young girls who, out of wedlock, find themselves pregnant. his second film, Kaftan blue (Selected at Cannes in the “From an Uncertain Point of View” category and crowned with the International Critics’ Prize in 2022) It highlights the filmmaker’s same sensitive and slow approach to another difficult topic: homosexuality. Which, in the Moroccan penal code, is considered a crime punishable by six months to three years in prison.

Born in Tangier, she settled in Casablanca for a long time with her husband, the film director Nabil Ayuch (God’s horses2013; very cute2015 year; Raid2018, in which she was both a screenwriter and an actress), 42-year-old Maryam Touzani is committed to opening minds and changing mentalities, especially regarding women’s rights. While working as a writer, actor and director, he has fulfilled this obligation by not pushing or talking loudly. On the contrary, he works with infinite modesty, stands as close as possible to people, takes care never to speak suddenly, respects the objections and silence of those he listens to. This applies to his documentaries as well as his feature, short and feature films.

Intimate filmmaker Maryam Touzani thus most often limits her observation to a few square meters of a house, a shop where traditional embroidered clothes are made. In adam These two places created only one, the two heroines were subjected to the camera, which forced them to get closer, to understand each other and to be born again. In kaftan blue, The house and the shop appear clearly this time, a distance separated from each other, the task of reducing which the staging gradually performs, thus, depending on the form, the reconciliation, even the union, of the two spaces, private and social, is effected.

Patience of an angel

The store is located in the Medina of Saleh, Morocco. It belongs to Halim (Saleh Bakri) and Mina (Lubna Azabal), married for a long time, united by respect and an uninterrupted life in which everyone has their place. he, the master craftsman (soon, in Arabic), cuts and embroiders kaftans by hand in the back room. He confidently assesses their quality in the store and does not hesitate to re-form the bourgeois clientele who object to the slowness of the deadlines. For pieces like this, you need to know how to wait. They are not done in a day, unlike those that are most often done by car. Just watch the human hand drag, weigh, stroke the fabric, embroider and measure the symmetry in each point of the patterns to ensure the necessary precision of craftsmanship.