“Under the fig trees” (“Sous les figues”): Film review | skin 2022

The camera is an astute interlocutor in Erige Sehir’s narrative debut under a fig tree, representing the work of a summer day for a group of Tunisian fig pickers. Directed by cinematographer Frida Marzouk, the camera looks up to the swaying branches of the fig tree in the garden, following the overwhelmed characters as they delicately pick soft fruit and engage in gossip sessions and heated fights. She is a curious but rarely seen carrier – a position that allows the viewer a unique entry into these women’s lives.

Sehir’s film opens in the Cannes directors’ two-day sidebar, a tapestry of elegant and complex interactions. The leads, played by an intergenerational group of non-professional actors, argue over audience expectations and narrow sexual morals, whisper secrets, share food and shed tears. Their conversations are like fiery chats where they tell the past and falsify visions of the future.

The film begins at dawn, with a group of women wandering down the road to a village in northwest Tunisia. They are waiting for the owner of the fig tree, where everyone is working to catch them. This is the quietest moment in the film, sounding like an old woman moaning low, dogs barking in the distance and birds chirping in the morning bells. “He took everything and left,” said the older woman. Who is he referring to and what have they avoided? They are a kind of inaccessible fragments of dialogue that bloom under a fig treeThis adds to the feeling that we, the viewers, are listening.

But a stable camera goes against those initial feelings of spying. Sehir stays close to the women, focusing on their faces and the back of their heads, giving us the feeling that we are among them. The first emotional moment arrives when Fide (Fide Fdhili), a young woman who wears a blue jeans button and a red bouffant dressed in her hair, sits on the side of the car pass instead of the truck, where they are sitting The others. . Preferential treatment of her – a result of the professor’s increasing riding – is the subject of rumors behind the scenes. It is also the basis of a rift between her and other workers her age, with more conservative views among young women.

Fide is the central figure in the film. Her relationships with other women serve as a connective tissue, her more progressive views on gender and patriarchy eventually leading to drama. Sehir met Fdhil, who is performing her version, during an open call audition. According to the press, the young Tunisian was not initially interested in the audience, but invited Sehir to assist him in a summer job picking fruit. That day he inspired the film’s narrative with Fdhill and his associates.

Also, I doubt it, he helped with the finer details, which creates under a fig tree Such an enjoyable and immersive experience. The tense and relaxed body language, the clipped cadences of shared stories, and the love with which the women speak to each other even in moments of tension, enhance the film’s realism and the sense of its soul.

Arriving at the farm, the women (and some men) collect the boxes and head to the vegetable garden, where they spend the rest of the day picking figs from the branches. The fruit must be picked with ginger; Pull too hard and you risk breaking the soft bulbs or worse, breaking the branch, a break that will result in release.

Sehir, with the help of editors Galia Lacroix, Hafeed Laarid and Malek Kamun, performs a delicate dance between conversation and work, paying equal attention to each. At one point we are with Fides and he warns his friend that he cares a lot about what men think; In the second we see an old fig picker carefully wrapping the ripe fruit from his branch.

Temporary transitions, somewhat ironically, reinforce conversational stakes. Trust fluctuates between the branches that hide the workers from the sober gaze of the leader. Tips were also exchanged. The most emotional scenes are between Fide and her friends, such as Sana (Ameni Fdhili), where they fiercely discuss their fate as women in Tunisia (Fide thinks she has to end her boyfriend’s love for her boyfriend first). These moments fulfill the film’s thesis in such a way that the lives of these women, especially the young ones, do not become uninspired messages from PSA.

ᲡActually, under the fig trees It’s a very optimistic film. The relationships between the characters contain critical elements of controversy: jokes are broken, comments are made with derision. There are also excuses and corrections. Ultimately, it is a brother in which each woman understands that her fate is linked to the fate of others. Since the day I saw the movie, I’ve been thinking about one scene in particular: at lunch, all the girls gather in a circle and put the contents of their lunchboxes in the middle to form a buffet. They surprise the schedule, deliver dishes, joke, and it’s clear that behind the small complaints and misunderstandings there is a strong and important connection.