Berlin Film Review: Hedi

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]edi (Majd Mastoura) is having a rough time at the moment. He works in a soul-crushing job, where he has to drive around and sell Peugeots to small businesses, and his mother keeps nagging him and patronising him about every little detail of his upcoming marriage. Yet he has dreams – of travelling outside Tunisia, and of drawing comics.

When he checks into a beachside hotel, he decides to have a little downtime – and to nobody’s surprise he meets another woman, hotel worker Rim (Rym Ben Messaoud).  Faced between two women he realises that he has to make a choice. The resulting drama of the film rests upon him trying to make up his mind, which is further complicated by his dreamy, conflicted personality.

Hedi rails against the absurdities of convention, having little time to think about the details of his marriage, and is frustrated by his mother’s preference for his older brother Ahmed (Hakim Boumsaoudi) despite the fact he doesn’t even bring his wife home from France because he knows she would disapprove. A lot of the films charm rests upon the performance of the lead. He is an exasperatingly indecisive person, but Mastoura manages to generate genuine empathy for him, mostly through light applications of comic relief. In fact it is in the more comic scenes that the film feels more comfortable. When it strains for profundity – deep widescreen pans on the beach and in the desert – it reaches for symbols not connected to the film itself, lessening the dramatic effect.

Frederic Noirhomme © NOMADIS IMAGES-LES FILMS DU FLEUVE–TANIT FILMS

Yet first-time director Mohamed Ben Attia has a good eye for detail – whether its the local cafes and terraces, or the tacky interiors of tourist-catering hotels. The hotel itself – with its schlager music and diverse clientele – seems to be a portal to a much different world, and by extension a much different life. Implicit here is a critique of conservative Islam over liberal Islam.

Sadly, with such surety in character construction and eye for detail, Attia has trouble ending the film on the right note, so that the final scene doesn’t hit as hard as it should

We see he is a practicing Muslim – in one scene he is seen praying – yet he seems to strain against the prevalent ideologies in his native Tunisia. His liberalism is exemplified in one telling scene where he waxes lyrical about the Arab Spring. What attracts Hedi to someone like Rim is the nature of her job, where she can travel around Europe to be posted to work at different hotels. Their relationship is passionate and fiery, moments of intimacy broken up with playful affection.

Yet she is not seen as just some kind of “dream” girl for him to pin his ambitions on but also a fully realised  thirty year old woman with her own hopes and aspirations. What truly distinguishes her from Khedija (Omnia Ben Ghali) – his arranged finance – is that they have built up this attraction mutually, as opposed to it being arranged bureaucratically by relatives.

By the end Hedi – always hesitant, conflicted Hedi – has to make up his mind between one life and the other. Sadly, with such surety in character construction and eye for detail, Attia has trouble ending the film on the right note, so that the final scene doesn’t hit as hard as it should. Nevertheless, it is a touching portrait of a life in constant confusion.

Director: Mohamed Ben Attia

Cast: Majd Mastoura, Rym Ben Messaoud, Sabah Bouzouita, Omnia Ben Ghali, Hakim Boumessaoudi, Arwa Ben Smail. 

Running Time: 89 minutes

Country: Tunisia