Authentic Moroccan settings, uninvolving narrative

Spanish first-time feature director Daniel Hernández (co-authoring his screenplay with Babi Martinez) keeps his camera close to a non-actor cast and authentic settings as he depicts the lives of a few Moroccan twenty-somethings, some of whom are indirectly connected to Islamists behind the 2004 Madrid bombings. They live in Jamaa Mezwak, a poor outlying part of Tetouan. Unfortunately former documentarian Hernández's editing is rather random and the film is as meandering and confused as the lives of two of his three leads, causing the 85 minutes to seem like longer. The film opens with a funeral procession, then goes back in time to show how the death came about.

Rabia (Rabia Bouchfira) is a cheerful, independent-minded law graduate who starts a small sewing and tailoring business with a friend. She doesn't wear the hijab, though reserving the right to don it later when she feels like it. She turns down a young sexist religious teacher who asks to marry her. Her boyfriend has gone to live in Austria, and she decides to give up on him and forget about marriage. Views expressed by locals are disapproving of the terrorists, but speaking to a woman acquaintance, Rabia points out that in the case of the Palestinians, violent action is justified in self-defense.

Living in the same neighborhood, El-Khader (El-Khader Aoulasse) says his prayers and goes to mosque. He has no money but his aim is to work in theater. He sees that his life is hopeless and he contemplates emigrating to Spain, despite his lack of education or knowledge of Spanish. He's friends with Youseff (Youseff Belefki), who's illiterate, like El-Khader, and just out of prison. Brother of Mohammad, who's believed to have been involved in the Madrid bombings and is presumed dead, Youseff is crippled in one leg from a knife fight, lacks the money for proper treatment, seems stuck with being perpetually on crutches. He repeatedly comments that his brother studied hard all his life but came to a bad end: so why study? The terminally unmotivated Youseff's attempt at street vending is a flop and after doing a lot of alcohol and drugs at night on the street and feeling extensively sorry for himself, he takes up an offer and goes to work as an assistant for "Elegante," a local crook and drug trader, which enables him to buy an expensive Nike sweat suit.

The film is best in its naturalistic moments, women meeting in a home for tea, kids kneeling and chanting children's verses, or random street scenes, when the natural color and texture of contemporary Morocco come through. The filmmakers have a good visual eye. They're less good at editing or creating rhythms or interactions among their characters. The atmosphere may seem authentic, but how skin-deep it all is, is shown by the simplistic personalities: independent feminist, criminal type, doomed loser; and the other characters are all fatalistic about the benefits of emigration, though all young males desire it. The mothers are silent strivers who trust Fate and do not leave the kitchen (you wonder wehre Rabia sprang from). There is no element of complexity or surprise. It's all too obvious what directions Youseff's and El-Khader's lives will take. In any case, they remain ciphers.

Hernández deserves credit for gaining access to what for westerners is an exotic culture, but he doesn't do much with it. Since Rabia is an interesting character while Youseff and El-Khader are mindless clods, the opportunity missed was to make a fully-developed, three-dimensional film about Rabia's life, instead of looking at all three in a two-dimensional narrative that winds up being desultory and uninvolving. Festival blurbs may have misleadingly implied that the film sheds some light on terrorism, but it doesn't, except to show young males living in Arab semi-urban slums often have dead-end lives. But even that is not a main focus, given the more promising Rabia storyline.

Variety's Jonathan Holland comments that the camera is "down where National Geographic never goes." Pedro Ballesteros' cinematography is fresh and attractive, but National Geographic might actually use a lot of the images. The musical score by Jorge Mota is sparing and warm, if not particularly relevant.

Chicos normales is in Moroccan Arabic with English subtitles and has the alternate Arabic title Jamaa' Mazwaaq. It has been shown at a number of film festivals including San Sebastián, London, Cairo, Thessoliniki--and Cleveland. It's a festival film. It is part of the New Directors/New Films series at Lincoln Center, and MoMa, New York, March 30-April 3, 2009.

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Too bad this is the only ND/NF film I've gotten to see this year. I can't stay in NYC long enough to see both the RENDEZ-VOUS and ND/NF, but with some overlapping, I was able to see seven FILM COMMENT SELECTS titles this year, to provide a sampling.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.