Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces

Film critic-turned-filmmaker Férid Boughedir goes home to Tunisia to tell the story of 13-year-old Noura (played by the director's nephew Selim), a boy suspended in the limbo that exists between boyhood and the adult world of men. With Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces, director and screenwriter Boughedir chooses a familiar coming-of-age narrative for his first feature film and personalizes it through a depiction of the culture of Tunis -- the city in which the neighborhood of Halfaouine is located -- that both celebrates and questions issues of family and gender. Small for his age, Noura is able to accompany his mother Djamila (Ben Abdallah) to the Turkish baths, which are segregated by sex for adults. Using his privileged position as a way to ingratiate himself with the neighborhood's older boys, Noura exploits the trust of his mother and visits the baths in order to report back in detail about the women's bodies. Noura's interest in women stems in part from his desire to be accepted by the older boys. Feeling babied by his mother and his female relatives who have arrived in Halfaouine to celebrate the impending circumcision of his younger brother, Noura seeks friendship with Salih (Driss), the kind-hearted women's shoemaker-cum-poet who has a weakness for women and alcohol. Interestingly enough, as the main character of this story, Noura has very few lines of dialogue. Instead, we learn about his thoughts and desires by watching his face, which still retains a sense of childish openness. Boughedir's acting works well to elicit tenderness. The continual presence of adults who do not understand or even notice Noura's lonely struggle toward manhood enhances this effect. And yet some of the film's narrative moves slowly, dragging out the climactic moments in order to introduce subplots involving political subversives and the hypocritical behavior of many of the male figures in the film, such as Noura's overbearing father Si Azzouz (Adouani). While these scenes are meant to provide context and tension within the film's narrative, they do not prove as engaging as when Noura is the focus of the action. White subtitles, at times indecipherable against a white background, complicate the viewing process. Additionally, the actual circumcision of Noura's brother is somewhat graphic and may offend delicate sensibilities. As a coming-of-age film, Halfaouine works because of the characterization of Noura by Selim Boughedir, but the film does not succeed equally on a larger scale.