Arab Blues (Un divan à Tunis)

Arab Blues (2019) follows the story of Selma (Golshifteh Farahani) as she returns to Tunisia to open a psychiatry practice after years spent abroad in France. Written by French-Tunisian director, Manele Labidi, the film generates a partial survey of Tunisian society through the struggles, conversations, and relationships between Selma, her patients, and government officials. Throughout the film, issues of religion, cultural taboos, ethnic tensions, and identity all come into question.

The interactions between a psychiatrist and her patients creates an ideal dynamic for those craving a voyeuristic view into the inner workings and secret musings of others’ minds. There are fleeting moments in which this potential is realized, and the patient’s time on the couch (divan) unveils unspoken truths and the reasoning behind seemingly incomprehensible actions. However, in trying to inspect and reflect a large array of characters and their unique challenges in a mere eighty-eight minutes, the film veers unfortunately into caricature-like representations. When one of Selma’s most frequent clients — a local baker who was born male-identified at birth — is reported to the police for using a women’s bathhouse, a Three Stooges-like chase scene unfolds. By the end of the film, when the audience sees the “happy” baker handing out bread with a bright pink thong peeking out of their pants, the matter of questioning gender identity, especially in a religiously pious culture like that of Northern Africa, appears more like a punchline than a sincere attempt at offering insight into a matter of personal and societal complexity. While the underlying premise and characters are compelling and leave audience members wanting to know more, it is in trying to tell too many stories in a modest timespan that the creator fails to do justice to the many intersecting storylines.

— Laika (Pollock) Dadoun, Sackville, New Brunswick, 2020