![]() ![]() ![]() Halim is a quiet man, calm, and tender, focused on his work. Youssef understands that they are in the heirloom production business and the gazes between the two men intensify. “A caftan must be able to survive the one who wears it” says Halim to Youssef, it is to be passed on from mother to daughter and to stand the test of time. You can almost smell the place, so far is it from the antiseptic quirky production design seen in so many series these days. Touzani could have let the camera (cinematography by Virginie Surdej) linger even longer on the messy shelves and strands of left-over ribbon. The shop has a legacy, inherited from Halim’s father, and is full of fascinating, worn tools of the trade. We get to witness the process of building one garment throughout and it is mesmerizing to see how gold thread is braided, made into cords with a wooden spindle in the shop’s backyard, and the fingers embroidering delicate loops to form traditional ornaments. It is an old, dying-out profession that produces not simply clothes, but precious objects that take a long time and much expertise to make. His name is Halim (a superb Saleh Bakri), a maalem, a traditional caftan maker who sells his magnificent, hand-embroidered wares in the Medina in his shop which he runs with wife Mina (Lubna Azabal, fiercely intense).Ī new apprentice, Youssef (smouldering Ayoub Missioui), seems to be more interested, more eager to learn the craft than the many who came and went before him. A male hand strokes the silk we see a yellow measuring tape dangling around the man’s neck. ![]() Maryam Touzani’s handsome The Blue Caftan ( Oscar shortlisted from Morocco in the International Feature Film category) begins with the petrol blue cloth that will become the titular garment. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |