A Tale of Love and Desire
It’s been a while since words have been this carnal in a movie. A Tale of Love and Desire depicts how two students find each other via language and literature.
Ahmed, a 18-year old and passionate about literature, French of Algerian origin, meets Farah, a young Tunisian girl. He discovers a collection of sensual and erotic Arab literature and falls in love with Farah – but he tries to resist the desire.
Through a simple and intelligent story, Leyla Bouzid succeeds in A Tale of Love and Desire to address all the complexity of the turbulences animating bodies and minds.
A portrait of the hunger of youth that echoes with great resonance, as it mirrors the self-censored aspirations of people living in the margins, where the question of sexuality is also based on unspoken rules. Carried by a duo of actors who are very well cast because full of character, the film hides under its appearances as a classical coming-of-age story a great originality and several levels of social readings, at the intersection of instinct and reflection, repression and liberation. Because to the question of the poet, “Can pure love be consumed? Should it?”, life naturally offers its own answers. – Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa.org
Trailer
