Man of Ashes

I was prepared for a somber, somewhat arty piece. I was afraid it would be over serious and slow. Well, it is very serious. But I was impressed how the dramatic tension stemming from the two main character's inner torture was so high that scenes of conflict tended to almost literally explode off the screen. This is most noticeable in the scene when Hachemi leaves the dinner table in a rage after finding out his parents invited the man who molested him and his friend Farfat to his wedding. Less than a minute after he storms up to his room a real storm wind comes along, knocks things around, breaks glass and whisks away most of the tents and so forth that they had prepared for the wedding. This scene is also notable for the editing. A lot more cuts than I had expected. A shot of the window shattering, kids rushing in doors, birds, etc. The editing does a lot throughout the film to not only create pacing but to also add a certain poetic quality. Another explosive scene is towards the end when Hachemi and Farfat are brought by their friends to a brothel of sorts. The way this scene turns back and forth dramatically is almost dizzying. Overall a very powerful film.

Unlike another reviewer here, I was not really disturbed by the human abuse. It was the animal abuse that revolted me. Well, slaughtering a chicken might not be considered abuse, but you get to watch it die under the opening credits. And there's worse further on. Just a heads up, y'all.

The plot was not entirely clear to me. I got the basics, but I didn't understand it as fully as another reviewer here. I think my experience might be more typical for Americans, even those of us with fairly eclectic taste.

And I think that would be partly because of the cultural differences, but also partly because of the way the film has been made. I understood that the main character was frequently thinking back to his childhood, but I found the transitions clumsy, and it was not always easy to immediately distinguish between the past and the present. Perhaps that was the director's point. If so, I found the technique distracted from the narrative.

I've no doubt this film would be far more meaningful for middle-eastern viewers. It was interesting for me, as a westerner, to see Tunisian family life from the inside. As a gay man, I'm always interested in the way men treat each other in other cultures, particularly if they are perceived to be gay. Which is the case here. But I didn't find the film interesting enough to recommend, if--like me--you are working your way through gay cinema. In fact I don't really think this film belongs in that category, though that's where Netflix has got it....