BIK ENEICH/ A SON/ UN FILS

Tunisia, 2019, 95 minutes, Colour.
Sami Bouajila, Najla Ben Abdallah, Youssef Khemiri.
Directed by Mehdi Barsaoui.

A simple title, direct, for a drama that might happen anywhere in the world, but a simple title for a treatment of its themes which is cultural and geographical specific.

In fact, the setting is Tunisia (with some sweeping location photography, especially in the mountains). The date is 2011. Audiences will appreciate that this is the period of the Arab Spring in North Africa. In the background of this story are references to strict Islamists wanting power, armed groups in road ambushes, and, especially, what was happening in neighbouring Libya, uprisings, the privy to the downfall of Colonel Gadaffi.

This is the background, but, centre-screen, is the story of a family. It starts with exuberance and joy, father, mother and son, friends and relatives, out at a picnic, hopeful, modern and contemporary, happy prospects. (As in other Tunisian films, the picture of Islamic Tunisian society is a mixture of tradition, especially in women’s dress, and a more “secular� lifestyle.) Within the first 15 minutes, A Son moves from this exhilaration, mother father and boy jubilantly singing in the car on the way home, to unexpected violence, to a crisis, hospital and surgery, the probing of family secrets.

A word to describe the experience of this film is “harrowing�. While we might say that, at times, life itself is harrowing enough, it seems very important to experience this kind of harrowing story, experience its beginning, complex developments, and ending within two hours of screen time. (This film has been compared to some Iranian films of recent years, in subject and in quietly dramatic style, like A Separation, a just comparison, a quietly intense sharing with characters, troubles, sadness, that touches both heart and mind in ways unanticipated.)

Sami Bouajila is a celebrated French actor with African background and has appeared in a number of films for two decades. Here he plays Fares, a successful businessman, devoted to his wife, Meriem, who is also a professional. They have an 11-year-old son, Aziz, who seems to have a zest for life. And it is he who is taken to hospital, requiring demanding surgery, hanging on for his life, much of his liver destroyed, in need of a liver transplant (but finding himself way down on the list for transplants, strict legal and religious traditions in Tunisia, permissions and documentation required).

While the focus is on Aziz and audience hopes for successful surgery, the drama takes us into unanticipated complications, emotional complications to be handled by Fares and Meriem. They are complications that audiences will recognise and appreciate how difficult it is to communicate them and deal with their consequences.

There is also a significant sub-plot, a sleazy entrepreneur who haunts hospital waiting areas and checks out anxious parents, offering them alternate (and expensive) ways for transplants – and a revelation about a black market in organ donors and a cruel exploitation of young children.

This is the first full-length feature of the Tunisian director, Mehdi Barsaoui. It is accomplished filmmaking, accomplish storytelling, an accomplished invitation for the audience to be willing to share harrowing experiences.

1. A moving and humane film? Harrowing?

2. Universal story? Audiences able to identify with characters and situations? Crises? Yet culturally and geographically specific? Tunisia? 2011, the Arab Spring? The background to this story, Islamist attempts at power, neighbouring Libya and uprisings?

3. Tunisia, the vistas of the countryside, the mountains? The city, hotels, hospitals? The organ exploitation, buildings, operation theatres? The musical score?

4. The exuberance of the opening, Fares a devoted father, Meriem a loving mother? Aziz, at 11? The picnic, celebration of work and promotions? The scoffing at the Islamists? The drive home, the music, everybody singing? The more “secular� Tunisian Muslims and their lifestyle?

5. The roadblock, the ambush, the bullets, Aziz being wounded? The blood, the rushed to the hospital, the nursing staff? The doctor? Fares and his bloodstained clothes, the waiting room, the anxiety, the sympathetic doctor? The medical and surgical explanations? The wounds, intensive care, possibilities for recovery, the deterioration of the liver and its excision, the need for a liver transplant?

6. The parents, the transplant, the tests, the fact that Fares was not the father, the doctor urging Meriem to tell her husband? Her hesitation? The issue of the past adultery and the law, denunciations, prison? Eventually telling him, the door shutting in the audience not hearing her? The dramatising of the impact, Fares and his shock, grief? Meriem and her dismay?

7. Fares not able to donate the liver? Meriem and the blood type? The danger for her donation? Aziz and the rejection? The search for the father, the phone calls, his disappearance? Eventually tracking him down, friends helping Meriem? His being unwilling?

8. The time passing, the desperation, the team from Tunis standing by?

9. Mr Chokri, friendly, going to the cafe, his knowing all about Fares, his suggestion for alternate treatment? Fares and his interest, checking out, Chokri and his staff, bringing the doctor with her reputation? The cost?

10. The organ transplant criminal activity, Chokri and his aide, getting through the border with Libya, paying off the police? The centre, the children, numbers not names, their playing, the uprising in Libya, their having to be transported? Fares, the phone call, the meeting with Chokri’s assistant, handing over the money, the handing over of the little boy, Fares and his dismay? In the car, the boy playing with all the knobs, seeing his scar? Taking him to an orphanage, leaving him to be cared for? The impact of this experience?

11. Deadlines, the return to the hospital, Meriem and her news of the father refusing? Her reaction to the organ transplant scheme?

12. The visit to the father, his secrecy, wife and family, the stipulation that Aziz should never know? His going to the hospital, preparing for the transplant?

13. The atmosphere and mood of the finale, Fares and Meriem sitting separately, their gaze at each other? The future for them? Possibilities for forgiveness? Aziz and recovery? His being a bond for them?