Uma Porta para o Céu

Door to the Sky is about a young woman, Nadia, who lives in France but returns to Morocco to be with her father as he dies. She is beautiful and we follow her search for honesty and authenticity in the way she lives her life. Rejecting the cultural inauthenticity of the time, she searches for that in Islam which is intemporal. We follow her as she runs a project to aid the misfortunate, and as she undergoes mystic experiences. The movie is calm and kind, and its rivers of lights, colours and patterns beguile and entrance.

Passes the Bechdel test very easily, however an animal is restrained for a few moments, and a carnist statement is made by a sympathetic character. Forgive them for what they do not know. Edifying and ravishingly beautiful for the vast majority of the runtime.

A fascinating view of a contemporary woman who returns to Morocco from France and re-discovers the Islamic heritage of her father. This isn't a tightly plotted film and some of the episodes may not work for the healthily skeptical or cynical, but there are some very nice images and views of the central character and the people she encounters as she opens a women's shelter and struggles to find the essence of Islam. This is a world and an image of the Muslim world that many Western viewers would benefit from seeing.

There is nothing original in the "plot" about the sophisticated émigré who returns to a traditional society only to "find" himself, his real place and beliefs. Fina Torres' ORIANA and Ferzan Ozpetek' s HAMAM have basically similar themes.

What is unique about this film is the rich set of images on screen, the wonderful feeling of Morocco and its life that those images impart. I could not get the ambiance of that traditional Fez house out of my mind for YEARS after I watched this movie! It's as if some atavistic Mediterranean window had been opened in my psyche.

A powerfully evocative picture narrative, never mind what the "characters" do.