Unlike another reviewer here, I was not really disturbed by the human abuse. It was the animal abuse that revolted me. Well, slaughtering a chicken might not be considered abuse, but you get to watch it die under the opening credits. And there's worse further on. Just a heads up, y'all.
The plot was not entirely clear to me. I got the basics, but I didn't understand it as fully as another reviewer here. I think my experience might be more typical for Americans, even those of us with fairly eclectic taste.
And I think that would be partly because of the cultural differences, but also partly because of the way the film has been made. I understood that the main character was frequently thinking back to his childhood, but I found the transitions clumsy, and it was not always easy to immediately distinguish between the past and the present. Perhaps that was the director's point. If so, I found the technique distracted from the narrative.
I've no doubt this film would be far more meaningful for middle-eastern viewers. It was interesting for me, as a westerner, to see Tunisian family life from the inside. As a gay man, I'm always interested in the way men treat each other in other cultures, particularly if they are perceived to be gay. Which is the case here. But I didn't find the film interesting enough to recommend, if--like me--you are working your way through gay cinema. In fact I don't really think this film belongs in that category, though that's where Netflix has got it....
