I place Al Ôrs by the Nouveau Théâtre at the pinnacle of Tunisian cinema. The 1978 film, directed by Fadhel Jaïbi, Fadhel Jaziri, Jalila Baccar, Mohamed Driss and Habib Masrouki originated from a play of the same name, staged and performed by the same ensemble in 1976. The work – which plunges us into the tragicomic world of petits-bourgeois newlyweds, shattered and defeated – has appeared and reappeared on the Tunisian cinematographic landscape as a motion picture so distant and remote, unlike anything else, claiming no clear lineage, made with very limited means. Amid the Cinema within the theatre and the Theatre within the cinema – mirrored arts, organically linked – the members of the Nouveau Théâtre go forth like sleepwalkers, suspended between nightmare and reality, angelism and satanism, along a path of resolute solitude. Upon recently rewatching Al Ôrs, my attachment to the film was more strongly affirmed than ever. What is immediately – and eternally – striking about this film, is the richness of its signifiers, its formal complexity of the oeuvre, and the thoughtfully-crafted beauty of each shot. Al Ôrs is a rhapsody of scattered material that merge into a unified whole, where all its facets seamlessly fit together. There is continuity in the movement, continuity in the duration, continuity in the analogy, cycles and returning cycles. Never before in Tunisian cinema has there existed such a hyper-presence of bodies, enhanced by the lighting that diffracts and divides more than it brings together or unites. The lighting is not orchestrated shot by shot, but rather set once and for all, in different spaces, ready to accommodate the shooting of each scene. Al Ôrs is a film that was conceived, experienced and worked on as homage to Habib Masrouki, co-founder of the Nouveau Théâtre and the work’s cinematographer, an artist who tragically took his own life. If the image enthrals, it is thanks to him. If the tone is so disillusioned and incisive, terribly lucid and prescient, it is because it is also his own.

Hédi Khélil