„Elle et Lui"is all about limits. Limits of space, of the number of actors, and of time. A man and woman, both of them nameless, meet at night in an apartment in Tunis. They talk, the ignore each other, they fight. The woman leaves, the man takes her back, they talk again and then she leaves for the second time. Or so it seems…
This low budget film, the first long feature by Tunisian director Elyes Baccar (known for his theater work as well as his beautiful short „L'impasse du temps perdu") is much more than just a story about a relationship on the verge of breaking apart. It is a film in which the music (by young Tunisian composer/musician Sofyann Ben Youssef) as well as elements of theatre, dance, and painting blend into an intense analysis of a generation in free fall, the dialogue being largely out of context, but evoking the question of individual freedom in a supervised society. Rarely has Tunisian cinema seen such a radical approach to this topic, reminding one only of the Nouveau Théâtre's film „Arab".
When the woman, about twenty years old, with a leather jacket, wet hair and black circles underneath her eyes, rings the man's doorbell for the first time, he appears like a ghost, covered only in a white blanket. He seems half dead, probably not having seen a soul in ages, suspiciously asking what she wants. Being completely isolated in his microcosm, he has cut every link to the outside world and its inhabitants. This is the beginning of a very physical power game, a question of domination and subordination at times cruel and tender.
Throughout the film, „he"tries to prove his manliness, but fails when „she"takes over, making him bark, moan and do sit ups, challenging him mentally as well as physically, humiliating him in any possible way. Challenging also for the two brilliant actors, the young Anissa Daoud in her first role, and Mohamed Ali Ben Jemaa, well known from various film and theater works. Then, at the very end, one is made to believe that large parts of what just seemed to have happened on screen stem from the man's imagination. So have all the almost sadomasochistic games been nothing more than a male fantasy of domination?
It would be too easy to reduce „Elle et Lui"to a film about gender relations, as it is, underneath its surface, very rich in references to the outside world, to post-1987 Tunisia. While writing the script, he did not intend to turn his work into a political film, director Elyes Baccar said. Nonetheless, it turned out to be one. The society surrounding the two heroes is an off-space which only appears throughout the sounds coming from the street or from neighbouring apartments, all of them situated in what is ironically called the building „Joy"in the residence „New Era". The the male protagonist's psychosis is less the manifestation of sexual or, on a more general level, personal problems, than the incapacity to come to terms with the outside world, to dialogue, to discuss, and to express oneself openly. All the tension pent-up within „him"and „her"surfaces only rarely, being an implosion of violence (as found in the work of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder) rather than an openly erupting cry „Elle et Lui"manifests suffering from a world where space is only defined by its boundaries.
Sarah Mersch
