À peine j'ouvre les yeux

Another passionately made movie on Mubi. It's the story of the teenaged rock singer who cries for freedom through her music, of the youth rebelling against a totalitarian regime, of a once firebrand mother who is torn between love and care for her daughter, and a country seeking self-determination in the build up towards the Arab spring. The lyrics and music are impactful and the acting, especially from the main two actresses, moving. Such movies help one acquaint with the world culture, and become a bit more human in the process.

'As I Open My Eyes' by Leyla Bouzid.

"As I Open My Eyes" is a story about tense political situation (before Arab Spring) without a political message. It would have been too easy to dramatize this coming-of-age -story with extreme episodes of resistance against Tunisian totalitarianism, just before Jasmine Revolution in 2011. Instead, we follow quite familiar narrative that could happen' anywhere in Europe: young multi-talented woman, Farah has to decide if she wants to become a rock singer or to agree with her mother and go to medial school.

Most of the conflicts in this narrative are inside the family. Only lately do we understand, as well as Farah, that her career as a rock-singer has been protected by a family friend. When the real political situation is exposed and the band has to stop performing, the bigger conflict with the totalitarian police forces is even too familiar from many similar movies. It seems to be very difficult to find the right tone for this kind of situation: to show the psychological effects without exploitation of the subject and female characters. This film is trying to find a compromise between psychological and political realism, but there are too many characters in the way.

The last third part of the film is kind of lame considering what we have seen before, and there are some loose strings in the background story of Farah's parents, but still it's a film that will widen your cultural horizon a lot. The wild and beautiful songs that Farah sings are reason enough to see this movie.