It all started with M’barka’s ability to heal the broken leg of a man, followed by her extremely powerful and fearless dealing with all her other patients’ illnesses and troubles.
Rabat – Once upon a time, in a lost little village in the middle of Morocco, lived a strong woman who practiced magic and could perform very powerful and strange things. The woman was called M’barka, a healer.
“M’barka” is a movie by Mohamed Zinnedaine, released in December 2018 at the Marrakech Film Festival. The movie gathered multiple nominations at the Tangier National Film Festival, where in March 2019, it won four prizes, including the Special Jury Prize.
“M’barka” also garnered prizes in the categories of best director, best actress for Fatima Atif, and best actor.
Zinnedaine’s career includes four feature-length movies, including “Radab” and “Yakada,” and multiple short films.
M’barka’s story illustrates an interesting part of real Morocco, or the so-called “deep Morocco,” where many citizens do not accept science, modernity. or rational thinking. Instead, they believe in magic and the strength of spirits, taking a woman’s blessings so seriously they have given her the position of a healer or traditional doctor.
It all started with M’barka’s ability to heal the broken leg of a man, followed by her extremely powerful and fearless dealing with all her other patients’ illnesses and troubles.
The movie emphasizes the idea that if a woman lives a brilliant life without man, she must not be a normal human being.
But the movie also showed M’barka to be vulnerable. In one scene where M’barka’s playboy Chaayba, played by Ahmed Moustafid, leaves her and tells her how worthless she is to him, she stands staring at her mirror with tears in her eyes, pondering her life. The camera catches her face from the side to reveal a completely disturbed and confused woman.
How can such a person bring healing to others?
Even when the object on the screen is “ugly” or “disturbing,” M’barka’s cinematography is beautiful. Images from a fixed camera displaying the landscape show, in a strangely exquisite way, the huge difference between the concrete jungle of Moroccan phosphate factories and the nearly-destroyed houses of poor people.
As the plot develops, Zinnedaine captures details of a collective imagination and the childhood memories that most Moroccans have.
Many Moroccans will see themselves in scenes of M’barka’s adoptive son Abdou, played by Mehdi Elaroubi. We see Abdou meeting his girlfriend and trying to find meaning in their lives, learning to read, and running outside to gaze at the sky. They are living an impossible dream together, trying to catch stars they cannot attain in reality.
Abdou’s character develops slowly throughout the movie, but it was changing and unreliable. Abdou tries to kill his mother symbolically when he decides to pursue self-discovery.
The girl in Abdou’s life saves him from his ignorance by teaching him languages and reading him “One Thousand and One Nights.” The moviegoer must ask if she was giving him hope of another beautiful day to come or looking for a reward in the form of kisses, recognition, and love? Maybe she is trying to find herself as well.
There is also a mad woman in the movie, dancing along with the story. She may have represented the opposite of the wise woman and healer or what M’barka would become later.
M’barka’s tragic story ends when she kills her own adoptive son. She becomes mad and blames her mental illness on Chaayba.
In the end, M’barka is the unwise and foolish one; her magic could not heal her own self.
I cannot help but wonder why the movie tears down the strength of this woman? Why are women psycho-analyzed and inferiorized by society?
Read also: Morocco’s “Sofia” Wins at International Women’s Film Festival
