A discovery: “Adam”, the directorial debut of the Moroccan Maryam Touzani, tells of the exile of a young pregnant woman in a bakery in Casablanca.
Two women in close-ups. In a small bakery in Casablanca, Samia has found refuge with the resolute owner. The young woman is heavily pregnant and hides from her family until she can put the child up for adoption. The baker picked them up on the doorstep, but only wants to tolerate them for a few days. Obviously, the single mother of a seven-year-old daughter herself has something on her mind.
Nobody makes a lot of words in the debut feature film of the Tangier-born filmmaker Maryam Touzani. The intimacy of her intimate play unfolds in the narrow settings of a hand-held camera, which appears to be fleeting, but leaves nothing to chance. In fact, it is the unobtrusive warmth of these impressionistic images with their short depths of field that conveys a very unusual closeness. The Polish-French visual designer Virginie Surdej is the master behind it.
It is a film that is told to a large extent in photographic portrait studies. The fascinating faces belong to the well-known Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal in the role of the closed bakery owner Abla, the young star Nisrin Erradi as Samia, who has already won several awards for this role, and the child actress Douae Belkhaouda.
Your character plays a central role in this story about motherhood, becoming and loss. If the child curiously touches the pregnant woman’s belly, she cannot completely hide the pain caused by this boundary violation. After all, the decision about what to do with the baby after it is born must remain your own.
“Little really belongs to us”
For a long time, one learns very little about the protagonist, about what preceded her pregnancy and about the family, to whom she does not reveal anything about her situation. In return, an almost metaphorical panorama opens up to her in the strange house about the impassability of a future life. The story of your hostess about the death of her husband is about the ongoing disenfranchisement of women. She was not even able to say goodbye at the patriarchally organized funeral service. “I couldn’t breathe its scent one last time. Death doesn’t belong to women. ”-“ Little really belongs to us, ”replies Samia.
The filmmaker, on the other hand, had made Casablanca appear modern in the first scenes when the camera briefly fixed a western-clad teenage girl with loose hair. In fact, the option of a self-determined life also belongs in the panorama that opens up for this exile from the village. She doesn’t hold back with a special talent: As it turns out, Samia knows far more about baking than her hostess.
In a sensual staging we experience a short lesson in dough kneading. This is not the first film to trace the path of love, which is known to be through the stomach, back to food preparation. But in the physical direction, which characterizes this story of self-discovery more than anything else, it doesn’t become a cliché.
However, moments of happiness cannot dispel the dramatic conflict. It’s practically on the calendar. Will the young woman really separate from her child after the birth and return to her village and marry any man? In a film in which men do not play a role, the film title should make one suspicious: “Adam”.
This is not the kind of film that makes a name for itself with surprising plot twists. The art of this grandiose debut lies in the perfect naturalness of the form. This is also a commitment to independence.
Adam. Morocco, France 2019. Director: Maryam Touzani. 98 min.
