Palace of Silence

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Movie
German title Palace of Silence
Original title صمت القصور / Ṣamt al-quṣūr
Country of production France ,
Tunisia
original language Arabic
Publishing year 1994
length 127 minutes
Rod
Director Moufida Tlatli
script Nouri Bouzid ,
Moufida Tlatli
production Ahmed Bahaeddine Attia ,
Richard Magnien
music Anouar Brahem
camera Youssef Ben Youssef
cut Camille Cotte ,
Karim Hammouda ,
Moufida Tlatli
occupation

Palace of Silence is a Franco-Tunisian film from 1994 directed by Moufida Tlatli , who co- wrote the script with Nouri Bouzid . The drama , about the fate of women in the Tunisian ruling houses in the 50s and 60s, is the debut and the first film to be directed by a woman from the Arab world and was won with the Tanit at the Carthage Film Festival (JCC) in Tunisia in 1994 d'Or , where Hend Sabri was also honored as Best Actress for the role of young Alia . At the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 1994 the film was honored with the FIPRESCI award , took part in various worldwide festivals and in 1995 received the award for best film at the Festival del Cinema Africano, d'Asia e America Latina in Milan .

action

In the mid-1960s, Alia sang in bars to make a living. She is 25 and lives unmarried with Lotfi, who was her teacher in her youth and with whom she fled to the city to escape the life in the palace of the Bey. Alia is pregnant by Lotfi, who does not want to have a child or marry, and urges Alia to have an abortion performed. In this situation he tells Alia that Sid Ali has died and after 10 years she goes to the place where she grew up as the illegitimate child of a servant in the palace.

Once there, Alia is haunted by memories of her youth while she sits by the bed of the old servant Khalti Hadda. She, meanwhile blind and confined to bed, talks to her about the past. Alia roams the rooms, not much is left of the former splendor. Alias ​​youth took place at a time when Tunisia was striving for independence from France and thus the rule of the Bey was ended in 1957. Her mother Khedija, like the other servants in the house, is a slave without a say in her body with which she is also sexually available. In flashbacks , Alia looks at the child whose father will never acknowledge them. See how her mother was sexually abused by Sid Ali and Si Bechir when she was called under the pretext of serving tea, giving massages or giving footbaths and Alia kept secretly spying on her mother. Alia relived the trauma she went through as an adolescent when the mother had one of the servants aborted after an unwanted pregnancy and died while Alia sings for the guests in the house. In the end she makes a decision, she will have her child, not knowing whether the father will be present or whether she may have to raise the child on her own.

main characters

Khedija , Alia's mother, was sold to the Bey at the age of 10 and has worked as a servant in the palace ever since. In addition to her household chores, she is called to dance in front of the Bey and its guests for their entertainment. She raises Alia alone and keeps to herself who the father could be. Both of Bey's sons expect sexual services from her, and Si Bechir brutally rapes her. When she notices that she is unintentionally pregnant again, she asks to send the medicine woman to terminate the pregnancy. Khedija knows, like all the other women, that if her next child were to be a girl, it would face the same sexual exploitation that she was experiencing. As Alia gets older, Khedija fears for her safety from the men of the palace. She would like to spare Alia her fate.

Alia , the daughter of Khedija, was mostly surrounded by the servants of the palace during her childhood, stayed between the palace kitchen and the servants' rooms and tried since childhood to find out who her father was. She speaks little, observes a lot. She witnesses the rape of her mother by Si Bechir. Although men are present in the Bey's house, there is no strong male father figure for them. Exceptions are some scenes from her childhood in which Sid Ali takes on a kind of father figure. During her childhood she longed to learn to play the lute, the oud , the instrument of the upper class. Even as an adult, Alia's relationship with her partner Lotfi is burdened with the conflict of unwanted pregnancy.

Si Bechir , one of Bey's sons, is inconsiderate with the maidservants. He knows very well that they have no way of opposing him. Alia, too, clearly becomes the object of his desire. He asks Khedija to send Alia to his room "to serve tea," a gloss over the fact of serving him sexually. Khedija, not in a position to rigorously fend off the desire, tells him that her daughter doesn't know how to properly serve tea to protect her. Alia has a friendship with his daughter Sarra, they play and make music together. So Alia has a little more access to the world of rulers.

Sid Ali , another son of the Bey, only has a few paternal gestures left for Alia in a few scenes. He could be Alias ​​father. He seems to have a particular fondness for Khedija, eyed jealously by his wife. One day Alia surprises him in bed with her mother, the scene seems almost consensual, in contrast to the subsequent rape of her mother by Si Bechir. The death of Sid Ali is the reason why Alia will return to the palace of her childhood.

The Bey is the father of Si Bechir and Sid Ali. He set an example for his sons how to deal with the maidservants.

Lotfi taught young Alia the lute, teaches her to read and write, brings her closer to music and tells her about the nationalist movement that takes place outside the palace walls. This awakens Alias ​​desire for independence and she later flees with him to the city, where he becomes her lover. He is unwilling to marry her. When she becomes pregnant, he demands the child's abortion, apparently not the first time. Alia is not a sex slave for him, but with his attitude he subjects her to a life that is beyond Alia's control.

Cherifa is called by the servants of the palace when it is necessary to treat illnesses or to depilate the women. It is sent after her in order to terminate the unwanted renewed pregnancy of Khedija.

Khalti Hadda , another servant, is a kind of confidante for Khedija. Alia loves her. She comes to check on her when Khedija bends over the sink in pain and quietly speaks to her, trying to keep a secret, about her pregnancy. She tries to give Khedija consolation. Together with Khedija, she saves a little money to buy a lute for Alia. She initially hides Lotfi in the palace, who is a supporter of the revolution and is therefore wanted.

background

The servants

The servants of the family can only be seen in the kitchen, their quarters or doing activities in the house. They are never to be found outside the palace, which underlines their imprisonment. There is a radio over which the servants listen to what is going on on the streets of Tunisia as the upheaval in the country takes place. Occasionally male servants bring news with them when they come from the market with purchases. The servants are depicted in oppressive situations, framed by their cultural practices and the male dominance of the superiors. You do not have the right to speak out. There are significant scenes in the film in which Khedija breaks this taboo. Once when she found out she was pregnant again and went to the kitchen to meet the women with the decision to end this pregnancy. She suffers, sits a little apart, almost overwhelmed by her burden and shame. In this scene her suffering breaks out of her. She screams into the silence of the palace kitchen while she holds her stomach and demands that she be left alone. She expresses her hatred of herself, her outrage about what has happened, the hatred of her body. After that, the silence of the palace kitchen is only broken by the painful sobbing of Khedija. The women present are shown in a large picture. There is no music, nobody speaks. Two of the women are washing clothes as if symbolically washing the shame of Khedija. Another is kneading dough, seemingly looking straight ahead into the future. With their silence they offer Khedija the protection to endure their situation. The servants have learned to show solidarity, even if they cannot change their situation.

Alias ​​flashbacks

Alia is played by the then 14-year-old Hend Sabri, for whom the Palace of Silence was her first role in front of the camera. For Alia there are several scenes that are very crucial. As she grows up she keeps asking who her father is, also directly whether Sid Ali is her father. Alia has a few scenes where Sid Ali is almost paternal. Sent away beforehand when the whole ruling family positioned themselves in front of a photographer and Alia wanted to follow Sarra to take position, after this scene Sid Ali and Sarra called her to take a single photo. He also applauds when Alia begins to learn to play the lute or begins to sing. Light gestures of appreciation make Alia shine until she discovers what drives Bey's sons into the servants' quarters and with it Sid Ali into her mother's room, which Alia shares with her. Alia can often be seen following her mother quietly to see what she was called to do. She watches Sid Ali and her mother in bed through the window of her room. She storms away, reaches the palace garden and begins to run in large circles on the lawn until she collapses and faints. There she is found by Si Bechir, who, pushing up her skirt with his hand, discovers her awakening beauty, picks her up, carries her to her room and lays it on the bed. When her mother arrives, he tells her what beauty Alia would be, but then turns to the mother in the course of the conversation and rapes her in the presence of Alias ​​- meanwhile awakened - in the room. Alia runs away to the exit of the palace, the closed gates press into her face and she screams out her pain. Quiet in this scene, no music, alias scream not heard.

Cherifa, called to end Khedija's pregnancy, also takes care of Alia when she is sick in bed after the trauma of being raped. That Cherifa is called to terminate pregnancies must be something that has also happened in the past so that she has acquired knowledge in it. For Alia, the mother's suffering is very present when she meets her in the room, beating herself violently on her stomach in her misery over the unwanted pregnancy. After Cherifa's mother got a means to break the deadlock, the servants had prepared Sarra's party and Alia was asked by Sarra to sing for the guests present, the drama began. The mother collapses, is brought to her bed by the other servants, and there writhes in pain from the consequences of the demolition, drowned out by Alias ​​singing for the superiors. Her rebellion at this moment may be that she also starts the song of the revolution, the women leave the hall and the men interrupt their card game before Alia runs to check on her mother. Finding this dead in the room. All of this contributed to her decision to run away from the palace and seek her luck as a singer in the city, deceptive as it turns out. Both in her relationship with Lotfi, who does not consider himself to be responsible, or in front of the neighbors in her residential area or guests of the bar in which she sings, whose contempt for her lifestyle Alia feels.

History of origin

In 2008, Tlatli was invited to participate in a panel discussion with the directors Ingrid Sinclair and Nadine Labaki on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Quinzaine des réalisateurs , a parallel event of the Cannes Film Festival. There she spoke, among other things, about the history of the making of her film. She told how she came to study at the French film school, IDHEC , and what difficulties she had in advance of getting permission from her father to study in this field and abroad at that. She also reported on the difficulties in obtaining the necessary scholarship. According to his own statement, Tlatli does not come from a wealthy family. Her father had other career aspirations for her, such as becoming a nurse. Working in a film, especially for a woman, was not something that was considered common and respected for a girl at the time. She learned film editing at the university in Paris . Later, back in Tunisia, Tlatli had meanwhile gained a foothold as a film editor and had small children herself, she gave up this job for some time because her mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease and Tlatli, the oldest daughter, took care of it. One day she bought a notepad and pen and began to write down her memories of the mother and childhood while looking at her mother, talking to her, the mother could no longer express herself. She went to neighbors, aunts and cousins ​​and asked them about their past, making a note of everything and later processing it. Slowly they trusted her and many stories came together. This resulted in 90 pages that she hid.

Tlatli, meanwhile back at work after her mother's death, found this notebook one day, read it and, moved by the stories, she had the idea that they could be made into a film. When she went to a director with it, she asked him to read this story and if he thought it would be good he should make a film out of it. Tlatli only asked for one thing: the film should be dedicated to her mother. He read and advised her not to offer the script to anyone because it was too personal. He made it clear to her that it was her story and that she should implement it as a director herself. Until then, Tlatli had worked on scripts and film montage, learned something about camera work through observation, but never directed. She doubted if she could. The director encouraged her to direct and so she accepted the challenge. Suddenly everything was easy, she got help, the French producer said immediately after reading the script to produce her film. She started filming in Tunisia and was confronted on the first day with how a woman wanted to direct, the women close but at a distance from the men, almost afraid of them. It succeeded, she finished directing, and then planned to return to film editing. At the time, Tlatli firmly believed it would be her only film. She talked about how her mother was not a servant in the palace like the women in her film, but her mother was a servant at home. She served Tlatli's father, her brothers, and had been in the service of everyone without ever complaining about it. That worried Tlatli, this mother's silence seemed to be the high point of a life without expressing itself at all.

By choosing to make her film with flashbacks, Tlatli tells her story. She lets the adult Alia look at life in the palace through the eyes of the young Alia in the form of these flashbacks. It is the story of servants who lived through the last days of French colonial rule in Tunisia. Tlatli said during an interview that the film was created out of an obligation to tell the story of her mother's generation, who lived without the freedoms that came with Tunisia's independence from France. According to Tlatli, the film was made more provocative than inspired at a time when she asked a lot of questions about herself, her mother and her daughter and said: “The aspect that hits me the hardest is the silence Imposed on women in the Arab-Muslim world. They grow up with doubts about their own existence and their own past. ”She also wanted to do research for her daughter about this time. The result is a “rich, emotional look at life in the kitchens and bedrooms where these working women played their dramas,” as author Peter F. Sisler wrote in May 1995 for United Press International . In this conversation, Tlatli admitted that the film was melancholy. She wanted to show the sadness in the palace and the work of the servants on the belly level. She wanted to show the society at that time, in which one did not talk about how one felt, because there were many secret, hidden dramas and taboo topics.

reception

At the beginning of the film there is Tlatli's dedication to her mother. The film was sponsored by Canal Horizon, Cinétéléfilms & Mag Films (Tunisia) and Mat Films (France) with the support of the Tunisian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection, the French Ministry of Culture , the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs , the French Center National du Cinema (CNC) , Channel Four Films (a British film production company of Channel Four Television Corporation), the Hubert Bals Fund (a fund to support filmmakers from developing countries) and the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (ACCI) and distributed worldwide by various film distributors. For Germany, for example, from Absolut Medien when the VHS of the film was released in May 1999. The original version of the film with German subtitles is also available on DVD and Blu-ray Disc .

music

The soundtrack for the film was released in 1994 by Virgin France , distributed by Caroline Records Inc. , under the arrangement of Anouar Brahem . The CD comprises 15 tracks, 6 of which were composed by Brahem alone, and two more tracks he wrote with Ali Louati. For the first track “Amal Hayati” the composer Mohamed Abdelwahab worked with Ahmed Hassan Kamel, who contributed the lyrics. Another collaboration can be found on the album for the piece "Lessa Faker" by the composer Riadh Sombati and for the lyrics Abdelfattah Mustapha, and the piece "Ghanili Cheoui Cheoui" is a joint work by the composer Zakaria Ahmed and Beirem Tounsi for the lyrics. Four other tracks on the album are compositions of traditional music, the origin of which was not given any further information on Discogs . The recordings were made in Studio Bouchnak in Tunis. This recording studio is run by Lotfi Bouchnak , a singer, composer and actor. Bouchnak is known as “ Pavarotti ” of Tunisia and is considered one of the best tenors in the Middle East , North Africa and the Arab world .

Books

In 2004, the Paris publisher L'Avant Scene Cinéma Moufida Tlatli published a book for the screenplay of the film. On 80 pages you can also find press reviews, illustrations and their filmography. Another book edition under the title Les Silences du palais - Scénario du film (French Edition) was published in 2013, the same publisher, with 197 pages, authors are Bouzid and Tlatli. Also in 2013, the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) published a book on Arab cinema called Cinema of Passion . The work has been compiled with contributions from 475 world-famous film critics, academics, writers and published with the support of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (DCAA). Each of the well-known personalities was invited in advance to select the 10 most important films in Arab cinema, from which a top 100 film list was later compiled, which by DIFF and film critic Ziad Abdullah “was based on a critical and historical approach to Arab cinema and an analytical study for the list according to the Arabic epistemological, sociological and political order ”. Each film on this list was scientifically and critically examined by 20 Arab film critics in English and Arabic and provided with historical data, information about the productions as well as background information on the most important creatives who made the films possible. On this list, Palace of Silence is number 5. Internally, compared to other listed films from Tunisia, the film heads the list with number 1. After publication, the book was distributed to international and regional libraries "as an indispensable reference to studying Arabic cinema".

The film, including the original title, has been released under 16 titles so far:

  • Les Silences du Palais - Tunisia (French title)
  • The Silences of the Palace - worldwide English title
  • Los silencios del palacio - Spain
  • Os Silêncios do Palácio - Brazil
  • Fortielsernes palads - Denmark
  • Palatsin hiljaisuus - Finland
  • Οι σιωπές του παλατιού - Greece
  • A palota csendje - Hungary
  • Shtikat ha'armon - Israel (Hebrew title)
  • Palassets stillhet - Norway
  • Palac milczenia - Poland
  • Дворцовые молчания - Russia
  • Palatsets tystnad - Sweden (theater title)

In 1997 the film was shown in German cinemas. The taz wrote in her viewing the film in late April 1998 that, although already prices in Cannes, San Francisco and Toronto won and was still shown at the time as one of the most successful films of Tunisia, Tlatlis film until then only once in Tunisia.

Reviews

Received numerous reviews around the world, the lexicon of international films considers the film to be “possibly sometimes irritating” for “Western viewers”, but points out “the abundance of bitter truths” with which, despite “dramaturgical restraint”, it took a “clear position” becomes.

When the film was shown at the 1994 New York Film Festival, Caryn James published a review for The New York Times on September 30, 1994, in which she described the film as a "universal coming-of-age story with a feminist twist". On the occasion of further performances in Greenwich Village in 1996, the New York Times again published excerpts from the review in which James described Tlatli's production as a "fascinating and successful first work".

In early September 1995, Barbara Shulgasser published a summary of the film for the San Francisco Chronicle , in which she highlighted the role of women as "slaves".

For the Los Angeles Times , film critic Kevin Thomas highlighted Tlatli's “self-confident and distinctive directorial debut” in March 1996, with cameraman Ben Youssef and Tlatli alternating “brutal” and “tender” the “most intimate and” delicately nuanced film ”. He went on to say that Tlatli had struck “a blow for women's rights” with her film.

When the film was shown in German cinemas, Wilfried Hippen devoted himself to a performance for the taz and pointed out that the film was “not a depressing social charge”, which would be due to the “poetic view of the filmmaker”. The film would also be far from “cheap exoticism”, but “every shot” would be “flawlessly beautiful”.

Awards (selection)

Festivals (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Author: Nathanael Hood The Silences of the Palace (en). - In: Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear , February 16, 2010, accessed September 20, 2019
  2. ↑ Author: Basant Ahmed Hend Sabri stuns in her latest photo session (en). - In: Sada Elbalad , May 26, 2019, accessed September 24, 2019
  3. ↑ Transcript: Lorraine Balon - Article No. 7790 Parcours de femmes: Moufida Tlatli, Ingrid Sinclair et Nadine Labaki (fr). - In: Africultures , July 1, 2008, accessed September 22, 2019
  4. ↑ Together with al-qusur (en). - Middle East Library Cornell and furthermore Author: Peter F. Sisler For Tunisian filmmaker Moufida Tlatli living in silence is ... (en). - In: UPI , May 9, 1995, accessed September 23, 2019
  5. ↑ Les Silences du palais (fr). - Encyclo – Ciné , accessed September 20, 2019
  6. ↑ Les silences du palais: bande originale du film de Moufida Tlatli (fr). - WorldCat , accessed September 21, 2019
  7. ↑ Les silences du palais: a film script (fr). - WorldCat , ISBN 978-2847-250-32-9 and also Les Silences du palais - Scénario du film (French Edition). - Kissly and further on Dubai International Film Festival Releases The 100 Greatest Arab Films In The First Ever Arabic-English Cinematic Book - "Cinema Of Passion" With The Support Of Dubai Culture And Arts Authority (en). - Dubai City Guide , November 6, 2013 and further Author: Marwa Hamad Dubai International Film Festival picks top 100 Arab films (en). - In: Gulf News , November 6, 2013, accessed September 21, 2019
  8. ↑ Theatrical release: Palace of Silence. - Cinema and more about it Author: Wilfried Hippen The slowness of service. - taz archive , April 23, 1998, accessed September 22, 2019
  9. ↑ Palace of Silence. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 20, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  10. ^ Film Review: The Silences of the Palace (en). - In: The New York Times , April 12, 1996, accessed October 12, 2019
  11. ^ Author: Barbara Shulgasser Beneath the veil of servitude (en). - In: San Francisco Chronicle , September 1, 1995, accessed October 12, 2019
  12. ↑ Author: Kevin Thomas Movie Review: 'Silences' Speaks of Women's Struggles (en). - In: Los Angeles Times March 22, 1996, accessed October 12, 2019
  13. ↑ Author: Wilfried Hippen The slowness of service. - In: taz archive , April 23, 1998, accessed on September 20, 2019