Set in the coastal city of Sfax, Tunisia, this sensual portrait of Hachemi, a young apprentice carpenter coming to terms with his sexuality, allegorizes personal frustrations experienced in a society closed to explorations perceived as deviations. Hachemi, whose imminent marriage has been arranged by his parents, reminisces on his childhood. In particular he remembers the male rape of which he was the victim as a child of twelve, an event he is unable to discuss with anyone within his own family circle. Working in the tradition of North African directors of the 1980s, director Nouri Bouzid is successful in displacing conventional representations of the warm and loving Mediterranean family and shows no sympathy for deep-seated mechanisms of constraint. At the same time, he eschews a hasty dismissal of social relations in a Muslim country.-Tarek Elhaik