Mom’s angry words battle with a face furrowed with worry. “Where were you? We were going to call the police!” She yells at her 18-year-old daughter, Farah. It’s the last hours before dawn and Farah is trying, unsuccessfully, to slip into her parents’ apartment unnoticed. Her excuses are lame and not believed—that bit about car trouble was old when Model Ts were on the road.
We’ve seen parent-teenage arguments many times in movies, but never in one set in Tunisia on the eve of the upheaval that triggered the otherwise failed Arab Spring. As I Open My Eyes, the award-winning film by Tunisian writer-director Leyla Bouzid, evokes a particular time and place while engaging with universal emotions and experiences. However, universality aside, mom (Ghalia Benali) has more to worry about than the usual concerns over teen pregnancy and social reputation. A bright girl who laughs easily, Farah (Baya Medhaffar) is also a bit of a rebel, socially and politically. She stays out late with her boyfriend in a society where parental supervision is no dead letter. And although Tunisia is relatively benign culturally, far from the dark-age Islam proffered by extremists, the nation’s kleptocratic ruler tolerates no rebuke to his authority. Farah sings in a band whose songs sometimes seek to rattle the powerful.
And yet, for much of the movie, the scenario could be unfolding anywhere where hip kids have embraced a version of alternative culture. The partying at clubs and homes, the beer and loud music, the tricky emotional and sexual navigation Farah must endure, will remind anyone who was ever young of their own experience.
Farah’s band brings distinctly local influences into droning minor key rock powered by oud as well as synthesizer, bass guitar and a drum set as simple as Mo Tucker’s kit for the Velvet Underground. Farah sings with the heart-rending passion of Umm Kulthum and other classic Arabic singers. The poetic lyrics with their images of closed doors and their call for “new troubles different from those I know” contain implied criticisms of the status quo. Gigs are cancelled abruptly and there’s always a chance that words expressed too fervently might lead to the regime’s blood-splattered interrogation rooms.
As I Open My Eyes is an unusual entry in this year’s Festival of Films in French given that most of the dialogue is in Arabic. But the Franco-Tunisian coproduction is an example of how France has continued its cultural engagement with the former protectorate on the North African coast.
21st Festival of Films in French
Feb. 16-25, UW-Milwaukee Union Cinema, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd. Admission is free.
Friday, Feb. 16
7 p.m. Visages Villages (Faces Places)
9 p.m. Tour de France
Saturday, Feb. 17
5 p.m. Tour de France
7 p.m. Montréal la Blanche (Montreal, White City)
9 p.m. Le Jeune Karl Marx (The Young Karl Marx)
Sunday, Feb. 18
1 p.m. Avril et le monde truqué (April and the Extraordinary World)
3 p.m. Montréal la Blanche (Montreal, White City)
5 p.m. Visages Villages (Faces Places)
7 p.m. Le Jeune Karl Marx (The Young Karl Marx)
Monday, Feb. 19
7 p.m. Je ne suis pas votre nègre (I Am Not Your Negro)
9 p.m. I Am Not Your Negro
Tuesday, Feb. 20
7 p.m. Arabesques followed by Finis Terrae
Wednesday, Feb. 21
7 p.m. La Glace et le Ciel (Antarctica: Ice and Sky)
Thursday, Feb. 22
7 p.m. Panique (Panic)
Friday, Feb. 23
7 p.m. Fatima
9 p.m. À peine j’ouvre les yeux (As I Open my Eyes)
Saturday, Feb. 24
5 p.m. Examen d’État (National Diploma)
7 p.m. Dernières nouvelles du Cosmos (Latest News from the Cosmos)
9 p.m. Fatima
Sunday, Feb. 25
1 p.m. Avril et le monde truqué (April and the Extraordinary World)
3 p.m. Examen d’État (National Diploma)
5 p.m. Dernières nouvelles du Cosmos (Latest News from the Cosmos)
7 p.m. À peine j’ouvre les yeux (As I Open my Eyes)
For more information, visit uwm.edu/french-film-festival.
