Identify this French 70's art film, please (partly shot in Morocco)
11-20-05, 10:58 AM
#1
Suspended
Thread Starter
Identify this French 70's art film, please (partly shot in Morocco)
I saw this extremely slow-moving French (?) colour production in an art house in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) in the 70's. The first part is set in contemporary France (Paris?) where a young man of Arab ancestry commits a crime (could be terrorism or gang related) and has to escape to the country of his ancestors (probably Morocco) in the hope of blending in and evading the police. The rest is a blur...
After a very impressive travelogue of stark desert landscapes, in a Moroccan village, the hero is introduced to an extremely slow tea (coffee? haschich?) ceremony which is very long and very contemplative and involves many delicate operations, the hidden meaning of this being (I presume) that the character is slowly getting in touch with his roots and forgetting about the maddening rhythm of modern life, as depicted in the first part of the film. The characters were in Arab dress and the music was arabic. Dialogue was sparse.
I was so impressed with the hypnotic quality of this film that I brought back a couple of friends to see it (it could have been a short subject, but it felt like hours). As luck would have it, there was something wrong with the projector that night and the film played something like 16 images per second which made the already-extremely slow-moving film excruciantingly slower (with toned-down sound) so that my friends and most of the audience walked out in disgust, in the middle of that tea/coffee/haschich ceremony, feeling they had been punked in a practical joke.
Any information on this film would be welcome. Thanks.
After a very impressive travelogue of stark desert landscapes, in a Moroccan village, the hero is introduced to an extremely slow tea (coffee? haschich?) ceremony which is very long and very contemplative and involves many delicate operations, the hidden meaning of this being (I presume) that the character is slowly getting in touch with his roots and forgetting about the maddening rhythm of modern life, as depicted in the first part of the film. The characters were in Arab dress and the music was arabic. Dialogue was sparse.
I was so impressed with the hypnotic quality of this film that I brought back a couple of friends to see it (it could have been a short subject, but it felt like hours). As luck would have it, there was something wrong with the projector that night and the film played something like 16 images per second which made the already-extremely slow-moving film excruciantingly slower (with toned-down sound) so that my friends and most of the audience walked out in disgust, in the middle of that tea/coffee/haschich ceremony, feeling they had been punked in a practical joke.
Any information on this film would be welcome. Thanks.
Last edited by baracine; 11-20-05 at 02:19 PM.
