Tribute to Naceur Khemir
RECONNECTING WITH WHAT FOUNDS US
The cinema of Nacer Khemir reflects that water surface in which the prince
of « Bab Aziz » looks to contemplate his soul. Through the mirror he hands
us, this native of Korba invites us to rethink our relationship to the world and
reconnect with what founds us. For Nacer Khemir, our return to the core of
History goes through the reappropriation of our stories. This point of view derives from the assessment of our incapacity to inhabit the present and to represent a future other than what has been decided for us. The Arabs failed through lack of anchorage, of rooting in a mythology. The posing of the problem with Khemir doesn't stem from a backward-looking nostalgia, but rather from the project of a hospitable civilization open to the world.
While quite a few Arab filmmakers have remained stuck in the contingencies of the present, Nacer Khemir as from his first film took the opposite direction, tackling the refounding of an Arab mythology. Khemir's cinema -through the meanderings of his stories, the omnipresence of the desert in his three feature films, « The wanderers of the desert », « The dove's lost necklace » and «Bab Aziz »- is the translation of his desire to reconstitute the keystones from which it would be possible to reconsider our being to the world.
If since « Bab Aziz » ( 2005), Nacer Khemir turned his back on fiction for the sake of essay films, this shift in his trajectory shouldn't be understood as a deviation in regard to a guideline never denied. The essay film, through the freedom of form it enables, constitutes another variation of his project of refoundation which can't be reduced to cinema. Film, storytelling, poetry and art constitute as many forms of expression for Nacer Khemir that render possible variations on a same theme. Through his cinema, the filmmaker offers us contemplation, experimentation, thought, enough for us to try and break out of the passivity that inhibits us.
Ikbal ZALILA
161 - PAR OÙ COMMENCER ? de Nacer Khemir - TUNISIA ( 2014 )
162 - LES BALISEURS DU DESERT de Nacer Khemir - TUNISIA ( 1984 )
163 - LE COLLIER PERDU DE LA COLOMBE de Nacer Khemir - TUNISIA ( 1990 )
164 - BAB AZIZ LE PRINCE QUI CONTEMPLAIT SON ÂME de Nacer Khemir - TUNISIA ( 2005 )
165 - LOOKING FOR MUHYIDDIN de Nacer Khemir - TUNISIA ( 2012 )
166 - Film surprise de - ( )
