Bab El Arch Or The Quest For Truth

Bab El Arch (Summer Wedding), is Mokhtar Ladjimi's latest feature. Mr. Ladjimi, a tunisian movie director, described his work during a recent TV program, as the saga of a young tunisian journalist who is caught between "intellectual castration" and " sexual castration" and his struggle against a stifling family and social context. I have not seen the movie yet but the following is an abstract:

Thirty years old and still-unmarried, Hamid ( played by Mohamed Ali Ben Jemaâ) struggles in Tunis to find a way to himself. Working for a local newspaper, he yearns to do great work as a journalist, but struggles under the yoke of censorship by the authorities. At home, he's caught between one tyrannical brother who lords over the family's money and honor, and a flashy younger brother who's everyone's favorite. All his sick father and doting mother want is for him to settle down and get married to his neighbor, Rim. But marital bliss is the last thing on Hamid’s mind. Mokhtar Ladjimi's elegant and complex narrative explores the plight of a man straining against the boundary of what society and family proscribe for him. In Hamid's world, men have all the power—except the power to be, want or do something different. When Hamid crosses the line, there's no going back.

After an international tour, Bab El Arch returns back to movie theaters in Tunisia, where it has already received mixed criticism mainly for its daring "sexual scenes" and references to issues, considered as taboos, like homosexuality and impotence.

PS: Bab El Arch, literally means in arabic, the door to the throne. El Arch is cited in several sourats in the Quran and it is still considered as a matter of the Invisible world, the unknown realm of Allah. In tunisian dialect we say " thellou bab el arach", ( the door of the throne has been opened for someone), ie, when someone achieves all of his or her most cheriched dreams and aspirations.