|
Frankly speaking, I expected
Buried Secrets to be one of
the winning movies of the 66th Venice Film Festival. And, actually, I’m
still truly surprised it is not.
First of all, I assure you it’s different from anything you’ve seen so far.
So, if you expect a tragic but realistic, brutal story, you won’t get it.
Though after reading a synopsis of
Buried Secrets this is exactly what you may be prepared for since the
movie talks about family imprisonment which is a frequent subject of
international press and a kind of common perversion in contemporary
societies.
But this film somehow manages to connect in a coherent story some elements
of drama and, on the other hand, of fairytale. The director, Raja Amari,
said that her movie was actually even meant to be “a modern fairytale”, but
she “wished to keep a certain sense of realism”. That’s why some sequences
seem a bit unrealistic and hard to understand, but I think this is exactly
what makes Buried Secrets an
outstanding, interesting and also, at the same time, terrifying movie.
In a few words, Amari’s movie talks about the necessity of emancipation and
freedom in a world that doesn’t allow it. Also I think it concerns the fear
and curiosity of the new and different. And, of course, it’s about female
secret desires that the closed society they live in denies constantly.
So, there are three women: a severe, conservative mother, an elder daughter
who’s filled with bitter frustration and lives in the shadow of personal
tragedy and humiliation and a younger one, Aicha, the main character of the
movie, whose senses are awaking and who’s eager to discover the world she
knows nothing about and desperately wants to separate from her mother and
sister.
They all live in a small basement of an abandoned house where the mother,
distorting religion and tradition, tries to keep her daughters together and
maintain a particular family order. Their pathetic, terrible life in
isolation and denial goes on with no possibility of change until the day a
young couple moves into the house. The confrontation of the two models of
living, the archaic and fanatic and the modern one will change the three
women’s world dramatically.
Hafsia Herzi who plays the main character, Aicha, is magnificent. There’s
some dose of innocence and madness in her behavior, there’s something
concerning as well as hypnotizing in her eyes. Herzi’s already highly
estimated and awarded actress in France but she definitely deserves world
fame.
I think Buried Secrets can be a great chance for Herzi as her performance is
outstanding. Also, I believe the movie is a great opportunity for Tunis
cinematography as the world isn’t yet familiar enough with it and Amari’s
movie is an extraordinary and interesting preview. Let’s keep on waiting
then.
12:09:2009
|