Criticism of ‘A story of love and desire’: Between tradition and modernity

Six years after the remarkable ‘As I Open My Eyes’, in which the Arab Spring served as the backdrop for a story of female emancipation, the Tunisian director Leyla Bouzid returns, with the magnetic ‘A story of love and desire’ , in the study of the crossroads facing today’s Arab youth, caught between a conservative traditionalism and a dazzling rebellion.

With one foot in ancestral culture and the other in cosmopolitan Parisian life, Bouzid focuses on the complex experience of a young literature student of Algerian origin who, in love with a Tunisian classmate, finds his passion handcuffed because of a patriarchal reading of the Arab creed. Thus, appealing to the clash between Platonism and the eroticism of great Arab poets such as Nezämi and Nefzawi, ‘A Story of Love and Desire’ fluently interweaves the social portrait –the X-ray of the North African community in France– and the delicate dissection of the longings and fears that accompany all sexual and sentimental awakening.

For fans of romanticism that transcends the color pink

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DATA SHEET

Address: Leyla Bouzid Distribution: Sami Outalbali, Zbeida Belhajamor, Diong-Kéba Tacu, Aurélia Petit, Mahia Zrouki, Bellamine Abdelmalek Country: Tunisia Year: 2021 Release date: 6–09-2022 Gender: Drama Script: Leyla Bouzid Duration: 102 minutes

Synopsis: Ahmed, 18, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, grew up on the outskirts of Paris. At university he meets Farah, a young, energetic Tunisian who has just arrived in Paris. While discovering a collection of sensual and erotic Arabic literature that he never imagined existed, Ahmed falls madly in love with Farah and although he is literally overwhelmed with desire, he will try to resist it.