Poupées d’argile

Omrane (40) earns a living by supplying maidservants to the nouveau riches in Tunis. He recruits the young children in the poverty?stricken and parched countryside and transports them on his motorised three-wheeler to the big city, guaranteeing their mothers he will guard their chastity. When he returns from a journey into the countryside with Fedhah (9), Rebeh, who may be the wildest and most beautiful of his recruits, has meanwhile fallen for the temptations of the big city. She has had enough of all the thankless polishing for the rich and smells the wind of freedom. But when she becomes pregnant, she doesn’t know what to do. Omrane tries to find her and in the meantime tries to find a job for Fedhah, who discovers the city from her niche in the back of the three-wheeler and makes clay dolls.The fate of the three characters is inescapably linked together and Bouzid provides a convincing glimpse of the city of Tunis seen from the three different perspectives. This yields a committed film – largely to exposing the fate of women – but does not prejudge. And, as we can expect from Bouzid (L’homme des cendres), the film is authentic, but not exotic, and shot beautifully, but without concealing anything.