Between love and social fracture, “Behind the Palms,” by Meryem Benm’Barek, explores the invisible tensions running through contemporary Tangier.
Mehdi, an architect forced to work on the construction sites of the Kasbah of Tangier, loves Selma, a saleswoman in a pastry shop. But everything wavers when he meets Marie, a French woman from a wealthy family, whose secondary Tangier residence he has just restored.
Obviously, Meryem Benm’Barek does not settle for a mere love triangle. For her second feature film, the director continues in the vein of an intimate and social cinema that characterized “Sofia,” where she addressed the taboo of unwed pregnancies.
In “Behind the Palms,” the romance shifts towards tragedy, revealing a relentless mechanism: that of class inequalities, post-colonial relations, and a diffuse racism that assigns everyone their place.
Mehdi finds himself caught between desire, social frustration, and the vertigo of possibilities. How far can he go to cross this “almost nothing” that separates him from his dreams? It is precisely here that the film unfolds all its power.
“Behind the Palms,” by Meryem Benm’Barek – in theaters since April 1st.
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