El Houb

Really unique and amazing story, I love how they portray the homophobia in karim's family as sort of like a soft core homophobia where its not from a place of hate but from a place of anxiety brought on by lack of communication and fear. We can actually achieve a lot with open communication if only we can get through the initial difficulty of starting said communication.

I'm personally from a African background not morrocan though but enough to relate with the story especially with the communication bit and how Africans try their best to avoid certain discussions that are uncomfortable, and in my opinion it would do us a lot of good to change this rather than just sticking with a status quo.

Karim uses the nobility and mischievousness he used in relating to his parents as a child as a last resort to deal with difficult issues in adulthood. It may seem desperate, and it is, but it is a brave thing to try. And that's what I find to be the differentiator in the film. The process of teaching the parents through a game where now they are all children and share their joys, nostalgia, whims and roles. Karim's persistence and patience are admirable because setting limits and teaching the family to love without prejudice can be one of the most difficult things to do.

It is also important to underline the complexity of the domestic sphere, where every open or closed door can drastically change the perception of family members and community life. Beyond the metaphors of coming out of the closet, it is relevant to show that not only the person has to go through this process of showing himself to the world as they are, but this affects everyone he knows and everyone has to live this process, which the film connects this personal journey and translates it also to the domestic physical space.

This is a poorly executed story about being gay in a different culture. The story is told in an unnecessarily complicated fashion, using lots of flashbacks to provide context. At times, the flashbacks just add confusion, other times they just seem irrelevant. The dialog is sparse and the camera work jerking and nausea inducing. The pace of the narrative as it unfolds is excruciatingly slow and after a while one has to bring the fast forward button into frequent use. The ending is very much of a letdown as it really adds little in the way of a payoff to the story. The audio is poor and one can only assume that the film is low budget. The film seems to focus on being art house rather than just telling a story clearly and succinctly. Overall, a disappointing experience.

While watching this, I got a phone call that I needed to answer so I paused. After the call, I had a look at the timings and 40 minutes had elapsed. I remember thinking to myself that I might not make it to the end - I had thought we were way past halfway. As it happens, I got to the end but it was hard.

Let me deal with the device of Karim sitting in a storage closet as a metaphor for his own closeted life. Critics and commentators have marvelled at this as a neat way to explain and mirror his existence. To me it was about the crassest and clunkiest imagery possible. No subtlety at all. I had to giggle to myself when I wondered how and where he would have gone to the loo.

Then there was the verisimilitude of the plot. Why was he caught in that way? Why a ring on the doorbell that day?

And if anyone believes that a Moroccan family as traditional as this one would tolerate their gay son sitting in the closet switching utilities off while trying to get them to accept he's gay, they ought to have another think coming. He'd be out, shunned, dead to them.

What was authentic in the film was the utter intolerance (engendered by religion) of overt difference. Living in each others pockets amongst nosey neighbours was true to life as well. Also the utter hypocrisy of this microcosm of Moroccan society within which man on man action is far more prevalent than in Western societies as long as it's hush hush.

However, the agonising of Karim, whom I found not to be a sympathetic character, was not plausible at all. Remember he was only coming out because he'd been caught. He'd have stayed in the closet for good had Kofi not answered the door. He'd have betrayed more people like Sofiane in his utter and profound need not to rock the boat.

As I said, I got to the end of the film. But I'd been bored. I know I'm going to get a load of down votes - I'm sure people rate on the simple fact that a film has a gay theme and not on its objective excellence. But this is my honest opinion. It's a pretty poor film.

What happens when enough is enough? For a closeted gay Moroccan man living in Amsterdam, spending his life constantly looking over his shoulder and dodging questions about marriage from his family and community have truly tried his patience. And, when his father accidently discovers him with his Ghanaian boyfriend, the incident sets off a firestorm with his parents and younger brother. But it also represents an opportunity to finally get things out in the open once and for all, a process where he symbolically locks himself in a closet in his family home and refuses to leave until the matter is resolved. Events unfold along thematic lines during the lockdown, told through tense conversations and augmented with flashbacks, surrealistic sequences and interactions with the protagonist's younger self, encounters that benefit both the elder self and his 10-year-old counterpart. This inventive storytelling approach unearths revelations that apply not only to the beleaguered son, but also to his other family members and his loving partner, who sets a courageous example by severing relations with his relatives when those relationships no longer work. Writer-director Shariff Nasr's debut narrative feature makes an impressive, albeit controversial, statement about knowing when to hold on and when to let go to tradition, culture and even ties to kindreds where those toxic bonds no longer serve us, regardless of the cause behind such dissolutions, but especially among those forced to endure intolerable conditions related to one's sexuality and lifestyle. The sequence of events may come across as somewhat meandering at times, but, given the confusion and frustration in play here, who's to say that one could remain completely rational when undergoing such as analysis. Any deficiencies in this are skillfully concealed by the picture's excellent cinematography and production design, as well as the superb performances of its fine ensemble cast. "El Houb" represents a noteworthy start for a filmmaker who obviously has much to offer, a career that I can't wait to see develop and unfold.