At the 30th Cairo International Film Festival, Mohamed El-Assyouti watches two films exploring the complexity of North Africa's relationship with Europe Two European-North African co- productions at this year's Cairo International Film Festival reflected on the complex relationship between North Africa and European colonial powers. One film addresses the issue via the role played by colonised North Africans in liberating France from Nazi Germany, highlighting an all but forgotten chapter in 20th century history, while the second expresses a yearning for greater tolerance and cultural diversity. Both films foreground the discrimination inherent in the relationship between Europeans and Muslim Arabs, though the degree to which they critique that relationship differs. The title Indigenes (literally natives, though the English distribution title is Days of Glory ) refers the "indigenous code" which, in the words of actor Sami Bouajila, "was established in Algeria in 1881 defining a native as a person native of his country but not having the same rights as a normal citizen. He is in this sense a half- citizen, robbed of any real hopes for the future". The film, written, directed and co- produced by Rachid Bouchareb, which was in the official competition of this year's Cannes International Film Festival, focusses on the experiences of the 130,000 North Africans (mostly Algerians and Moroccans) who were the core of the French First Army that fought Axis forces first in Italy and then Provence, Vosges and Alsace. These soldiers, who had never seen Europe before, joined the army -- whether willingly or by force is a question that kept popping up in the discussion after the screening of the film -- to defend la maire patrie from a common enemy. In focussing on the characters of four such "indigenes" and their sergeant, who is a "pied noir" (expatriate of French origins), the film automatically makes a political statement, and while the fastidiousness and loyalty of the soldiers seems to be the principal point close attention is also paid to the constant discrimination and prejudice the soldiers face. Bouchareb, incidentally, is of French Algerian origins. Abdelkhader, Said, Messaoud and Yassir all have reasons to hold grievances against the French commanders. They are frequently humiliated, and then used as cannon fodder and human shields for the advancing French army. They are refused leave and are ineligible for promotion, unlike their French colleagues. They are given different food, and are banned from having girlfriends. And as the film's end credits announce, after the war, they were ineligible for compensation for injuries. If the soldiers face the same discrimination, each has a different reason for fighting. Abdelkader seeks recognition from the French that his country, though colonised and suffering, offered support in France's hour of need, and that that should be reciprocated through liberation. Said is running away from poverty, and though it is the first time he has touched French soil, he hopes to be assimilated and make a life in France. Messaoud is in love with a French girl, Irene, while Yassir seeks to protect his brother. Spectacle standards were respected and though the special effects were no match for Saving Private Ryan the film's emphasis on realism in depicting the daily life of the soldiers was complemented by a number of graphic battle scenes. The film's strength, though, remains its depiction of human relationships and the delineation of the weaknesses of each of the main characters, including the pied noir Martinez, who hides a photo of himself as a child with his Arab mother in the pocket of his jacket. When Said discovers the picture it causes a rift between them. Bouchareb co-wrote the screenplay with Olivier Lorelle over two and half years, going through 25 drafts, in all of which they endeavoured to keep historical events as a backdrop and foreground the individual characters. To a great extent they have succeeded in creating epic heroes, though some may find fault with their criticism of France's colonialist history. Farida Benliyazid's La vida perra de Juanita Narboni (The Wretched Life of Juanita Narboni, 2005), the screenplay of which was written by Gerardo Bellod based on the novel by Angel Vazquez, is a Moroccan-Spanish co-production that speaks about Morocco's colonial past by presenting the life story of the title character. Daughter of a British father from Gibraltar and an Andalusian mother, Juanita is born in Tangiers. It is, too, the city in which she dies. Her life parallels that of Tangiers for the greater part of the 20th century. She leads a solitary life and, for lack of any other company except her maid, whom she calls "Hamrouch", constantly talks to herself. Her soliloquies reflect her sense of isolation from the events unfolding around her in the culturally pluralistic city, as well as her loneliness. In one scene she watches beetles while visiting her parents' graves and notes that "not even beetles live alone". Her final words, though, are "they all die in silence... I'm always late. I'll make it late to my own funeral, maybe there will not be any place left for me". Juanita leads her life as if she was a ghost or a passing shadow. Dreaming of Spencer Tracey and Clark Gable, Juanita confesses to her father that sometimes she thinks the cinema harmed her because "sitting there it all seems real and possible". She cultivates this voyeuristic existence in which her relationship with the changes around her is that of an indifferent, often cynical, occasionally bitter, witness. The film focuses on Juanita, and like her takes little interest in the historical changes of the epoch in which she lived. The Spanish Civil War, World War II, the independence of Morocco, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, each are accorded only the briefest of mentions. Juanita went to a private school house. Her mother refused to allow her to mix with boys. Adolfi was her first and last boyfriend: when their engagement was broken so Juanita's romantic life ended. Later in life she befriends Dedé , an old family friend, only for her friend to die in mysterious circumstances. Juanita's younger sister Helena lived an altogether different life. She went to the Lycee, read romantic literature and did not have such problems with men. During World War II she falls in love with a French soldier and elopes with him, much to the chagrin of Juanita, to settle in Casablanca where they open a bistro and have two children. The two sisters never see each other again, Juanita believing her sister to be a lost cause since "life is no bed of roses". She is also surprised at the behavior of her Jewish friend who has a Muslim lover. Even when, as an old woman, Dedé sends her a dress that had been used in an operetta performance she loved as a young girl, Juanita cannot sleep while it is in her closet fearting that it has "mice". Juanita holds the moral high ground with respect to all other women, lamenting "lunatics and sluts always have the good luck". Her Moroccan Muslim maid Hamrouch tells her that since she never touched a man, nor let a man touch her, she will go to paradise, but Juanita is a non-believer and entertains no such hope. Her life is a futile getting-on day by day. She tells herself "I don't want pity... All my life I let myself flutter like a handkerchief in the wind. ....The world is yours. A shitty world, but it's yours". Tangiers is a city that is Moroccan, Spanish and French, with communities of Muslims, Christians and Jews: yet it is the very diversity of the city that makes it impossible for Juanita to escape the trap of her "wretched life". She is burdened with a sense of self-righteousness and residues of class superiority. Her darkest hour is when as an old woman she fails to recall a mental picture of her mother. She searches her drawers and behind the doors in her memory, but only finds film stills and images of her father and sister. Eventually, Juanita is reduced to being offered food in modest restaurants owned and run by a class of people she had once considered too inferior to associate with. After a lifetime of service, when her maid disappears, she fails to find her because she does not know her real name or where she lives. Mariola Fuentes gives an excellent performance as Juanita, her body language effectively showing Juanita's ageing and her facial expressions reflecting her increasing revulsion towards men. The cinematography of José Luis Alcaine remarkably conveys the mood of Juanita's life as she changes from being the entertained audience at the spectacle of life to solitary actor on an empty stage.
