Rock the Casbah

Tangier marks the intersection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean sea, what a fitting metaphor for a country caught between the tumultuous waves of modernity and the stillness of traditions. Rock the Casbah... I guess.

In a luxurious Ryad (Moroccan villa), Moulay Hassan died and in one of the film's nicest touches, it's his very voice that starts the narration: the voice is unmistakable, it belongs to Omar Sharif... in his swan song. Funerals last three days in the Islamic tradition, allowing all family members, friends and distant ones to come pay their respects, honor the dead and meditate about life and death. Hassan left behind him a wife and four daughters, one who actually died before him. A new version of Dr. March.

Laila Marrakchi's second feature starts so well that you wish the film could live up to its poetic premise. But storytelling has its conventions and following the unity of time, place and action, the first act establishes the characters. The widow Aicha (Hiam Abbas) wants Yacout, the maid (Raouia, best actress in the cast) to leave the house after the funerals. The hostility suggests that the old man she so idealizes wasn't exactly the straight-laced type. We get it, there's a secret to be unveiled and Yacout will NOT leave the house.

Marrakchi is a competent director but ever since "Marock", subtlety has never been her strongest suit. To her defense, that's a symptom of Moroccan cinema where a by-the-book directing makes interactions look staged and even the best acting of the world sounds unnatural: characters talk in turn, with a one-second lapse between each line or reaction shot. Even a good scene feels 'forced' or clichéd. The actresses who play the three sisters are good but it's precisely because they are limited to archetypes that we never feel a genuine bond beyond the prewritten complicity between them, not in joy, nor in anger.

Only the badass grandma (of course, she's smoking) (Assia Bentria) emerges from the cast, along with the maid. By the way, I'm sure she was inspired by the grandmother in "Persepolis". But let's get back to the film.

The three sisters are privileged and modern women who question their life accomplishments. Morjana Alaoui (the heroine of "Marock" at 30) is Sofia, an actress who made it to Hollywood... to play terrorists. She married an American and comes home with her English-speaking son. She's still the closest to a success in the family. I wanted to like her but then she had that condescending tone with the passport controller. Was is the grief or just the typical arrogance of the spoiled Moroccans who know they can get away with everything because they have the connections.

Lubna Azabal is the nicest one, she's a teacher, married, with children, she's more of a tampon between Sofia and Miriam, the rebel one, played by Nadine Labaki. Miriam's establishing moment shows her examining her 'new' breasts and get a beer on the fridge. That's feminism reduced to its lowest denominator and I'm not sure it serves the cause, anyway, once the three sisters get together, no interaction goes beyond soap-opera level, each line designed to blame each other or throw a cool quip that will shock the prude ears at the risk of sounding totally unnatural during the first day of the funeral.

Even in this unlikability contest, a plot is much needed but instead, the story is merely a skewer to hold every piece of social commentary like so many pieces of kebab. Girls can only smoke and drink in privacy (or specific areas), marital laws have passed; a woman must give her consent if her husband wants to marry a second woman, prohibiting poligamy would infuritate religious organizations, but a woman still inherits half of her brother's share... Laila Marralchi's film provides an update to one who wants to know the situation of women in 2013.

And since 2013, I resisted watching the film. Maybe because I felt I watched it already with the trailer, the premise, the title and the scene with the three sisters talking about sex in a grocery store. That scene, obviously the shocker like the praying scene in "Marock", turned me off. First, it wasn't plausible, even guys wouldn't dare talk like that and even if they did, I'm a kind of 'Walt Kowalski' on that matter, I don't find any exhilaration in the liberty of talking about sex and breasts whether in a market or a funeral, Tangier or Cophenagen. Maybe there could have been a context to make this acceptable but there wasn't. The nice touch was the female veiled cashier scolding them. Marrakchi is good sport and show that women can be their worst enemies. I wish she could also show that a rich girl isn't entitled to speak about her own freedom since in the very context of Morocco, money can buy freedom.

But Marrakchi was so eager to to break as many taboos as possible the script feels overwritten and underwritten at the same time. Noticing an erection on a dead body was a funny bit, having grandchildren discovering erotic pictures had nothing to do there. Making the uncle a greedy man who wants his share of the heritage was enough, but implying that he physically abused Miryam and letting him go away with it at the end, made no sense. Then there's a subplot about Yacout's son (Adel bencherif) caling back our intiial suspicion, and a romance with the sister who died. Finally, there's the Grandpa quitely talking with his grandson. But then why is his ghost present but not his daughter?

Still, as imperfect as it is, the film gives the perfect epitaph to Omar Sharif who leaves us one of his best peformances. Telling us not to make a woman cry because God counts tears. Thanks, Laila Marrakchi... for allowing one man's perspective to shine above the mess (although he's the one behind).

From the opening introduction by Omar Sharif, I knew I was going to love this film, it was simply a matter of how deep that love would be.

Well, it's 9/10 deep.

The story is that patriarch Moulay Hassan Bel Amor, (played by Sharif) has passed away and his family and friends are gathering to mourn him, remember him and, as it turns out, occasionally curse him.

Beyond that, I'll give no spoilers here but this family, like all families, has long-buried secrets and pain that it ignores as best it can.

The central role is that of Sofia (Morjana Alaoui), one of the daughters who has not been home in years. She's now a successful Hollywood actress and has her own reasons for estrangement from the wider family. Now, she's back in the family home, accompanied by her young son.

Through the frame of the loss of their father, the remaining three sisters and mother examine both his and their lives. This could be clunky and awkward but it all unfolds elegantly and believably: no lumpy exposition dumps here. Writer/director Laïla Marrakchi balances the interweaving narratives perfectly.

Some of the plots are slyly humorous, some of them tragic but they balance and in that balance they feel real, they connect. It would have been easy to gallop into shouty family revelation drama or overdose on whimsy and farce. Rock The Casbah does neither and though all the cast are fabulous in their portrayals, the lion's share of the credit must go to Marrakchi - her command of the art form of cinema shines in every scene, in every frame.

The cast also mesh without a hiccup, the three central sisters' relationship in particular is detailed and rich, one second they're screaming at each other, the next crying on each other's shoulders. And it all makes emotional sense. But, truly, the entire ensemble are all on 100% here, there's not a single actor who isn't in the same vibe as the rest of them.

I really love this film and I know I'll be thinking of scenes from it years from now. It's funny, sad, and leaves you thinking about more than you think the film explicitly addressed.

I came across this movie and was taken into this beautiful depiction of life. and death, and love and everything what is to be human. Strong women, funny and real, where we learn that being human is a path of growth and learning..

Rock the Casbah starts out like a comedy. Sofia (Morjana Alaoui) returns home to Morocco for the funeral of her father, a wealthy but controlling entrepreneur who, despite dying, appears as a ghost commenting on the proceedings for much of the film. Sofia left claustrophobic Morocco years ago to be an actress in America where her only roles have been as terrorists and generic villains much to her family's shame.

Her sisters are wealthy and judgmental, but they have their own problems and are married to men they don't love but who their father approved of. Furthering the tension in this family reunion is the fact that Sofia was close to her eldest sister who died years ago and who's death she blames on her father.

There is lots of fun cultural and family commentary but when the secrets are revealed they are actually quite dark and disturbing and the last minute shift in tone is so abrupt it's quite jarring in context with the rest of the film.

The actors are great and Laïla Marrakchi has a keen eye for the lifestyle of the rich in Morocco but ultimately the film doesn't make a great impression.

Moulay Hassan Ben Amor, a wealthy industrialist and father of 4 daughters has died.For his funeral all the family will be together.Sofia ,who went to United States for her carreer of actress and her sisters with her husbands.All remember then the story of the patriarch and some family secrets are revealed. I enjoyed very much this film : a dramatic but also pleasant comedy about a rich family with it's mutual reproaches and tremendous secrets. Laïla Marrakchi is a Moroccan director (I have seen some months ago "Marock", a very good comedy) and she is married to Alexandre Aja, a famous horror movies director (Haute tension). The performance of Omar Sharif as the patriarch is very good., as the performances of Morjana Alaoui, Hiam Abbass and the other actresses in this film.