Sexuality and The Police State (Halfaouine)

Like  most films for this class I like to go in with a blank palate and an open mind so I try my hardest to resist the ever nagging temptation to just go ahead and look up all of the spoilers a girl would ever need, and in this case I am especially glad that I was able to resist that temptation because I feel like going into this film blindly really opened me up to not passing an early judgement on it. Halfaouine is an onion of a film if there ever was one, layers upon layers of different meanings, the film is still quite enjoyable on the superficial end of things, more risque on the innuendo level, and a serious allegory in the subtext, but overall I think that any open minded audience (generally the same population of viewers that don't mind subtitles) could find a good lens to see things through that helps relate the movie to their own life. Now granted without Dr. Lang's lecture I will be the first to admit that I would have missed out on the entire allegorical subtext that alludes to the change of power in contemporary Tunisia which was an incredibly powerful realization for me and it gave the film so much more of an impact. At first it came off as a slightly risque and goofy coming of age film with undertones of civil unrest. The undertones of civil unrest I felt were mirroring the unrest that adolescent Noura was feeling with his place in society, being too old to be privy to the secret lives of women yet too young to be able to run with the bulls so to speak. At that point in life Noura faces the challenges of gaining recognition in the eyes of male society while at the same time having to betray the trust that the female society puts in him as an innocent young boy, we see this when he steals his aunts bras and trades them to a local teenager, when he infiltrates the bath house to spy on the local girls, and when he tricks the young beautiful housemaid into some suggestive situations. Noura feels uncomfortable being in between these two worlds as we can see when he seeks maternal comfort after getting in trouble, yet I cant help but wonder is the maternal world being too coddling for Noura? Being the first born son in any culture sort of puts you at an automatic predisposition to be spoiled beyond all belief and from my view point his mother was too protective and too babying, while on the other hand his father was nowhere near the father figure that he needed. In a society where a young man can only prove himself as a man by being defiant and acting out sexually there is no real place for a 12 year old and Noura was forced to grow up too early in my eyes, however when portrayed by the film its clear that he didn't mind at all. To bring it all together Nouras coming of age reminded me oddly enough of the story of creation and the banishment of Adam and Eve. Where we can see God and the garden of Eden as the fruitful maternal nurturing private sphere of women where young Noura was safe, and then once tempted by thought of growing up and knowing the world of men Noura subsequently banishes himself from the women's world by gaining knowledge he was not yet meant to have and is therefore doomed to spend the rest of his young life toiling for the things he once had such free access too.