Meryam Joobeur’s debut film Who Do I Belong To (Mé el Aïn), premiering in the main competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, is a poignant and haunting tale of the human cost of war. Set in an isolated Tunisian village, it follows a jihadist who returns to his home with a mysterious pregnant Syrian wife.
Montreal-based Tunisian filmmaker Meryam Joobeur’s first feature film, Where Do I Belong To, explores the fracture within a farming family when their two eldest sons leave them to join ISIS. This will likely remind us of last year’s Cannes-winning documentary Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania, where two Tunisian girls join ISIS, but rather than exploring the initial stage of the tragedy, Joobeur focuses on its aftermath, where grief and mystery intertwine upon one of them returning to his village.
An extension of her Oscar-nominated short film Brotherhood (2018), which delves into the sorrow of a father when his long-absent son returns home with a Syrian wife wearing a full niqab, sparking speculation that he has joined ISIS, Joobeur brings back most of her actors for this film. Joining them are two rising stars in the field: Cannes Un Certain Regard Best Performance winner Adam Bessa (Harka) and French writer-actress Dea Liane, who made her acting debut in Ben Hania’s Venice Prize-winning The Man Who Sold His Skin. Joobeur shifts the narrative perspective to focus on the feminine experiences of motherhood and the victimization of women.
Salsha Nasraoui plays Aïcha, the mother of three, gifted with prophetic dreams. Sometimes her neighbors ask her to interpret their dreams, including Fatma, who is distressed because her son joined ISIS, reflecting Tunisia’s high rate of ISIS foreign fighters. Despite this, Aïcha insists that “only God really knows.” She lives with her husband Brahim (Mohamed Hassine Grayaa, seen in Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation) and her sons on a farm in a remote village in northern Tunisia. Tensions arise within the family when her two eldest sons, Mehdi (Malek Mechergui) and Amine (Chaker Mechergui), run away to join ISIS. However, Aïcha tells her youngest, Adam (Rayen Mechergui), that his brothers are working in Italy, although he knows they have joined Daesh. “I know where they went. Mehdi and Amine. Does it mean they are terrorists now?”
While dealing with her loss, Mehdi unexpectedly returns with a pregnant wife who wears a purple niqab and hasn’t spoken a single word since she arrived at the house. The mysterious woman, played by Liane, comes from a non-Muslim family, all of whom are dead from an attack. ‘But why does a non-Muslim woman wear the full niqab?’ Aïcha asked her son. That’s probably one of the few questions that make Who Do I Belong To a riveting entry in this year’s competition. Bessa plays Bilal, the boys’ long-term friend who now works at the local police station and helps the villagers when their family members go missing after Mehdi’s arrival. Aïcha, on the other hand, tries to protect her son (and her husband is no exception; he tries to cast out Mehdi) because she knows that Mehdi and his wife will end up in prison if someone sees them around.
Structured in three chapters, and having a similar turning point to Palme d’Or winner Parasite, where it strays into horror territory (in a good way) in the final act, Joobeur crafts her screenplay with a bonny fantasy element to deliver the oddity of her story and the beauty of its place: a small village near a sea cliff with trees surrounding, in which, in Aïcha’s dreams, the color of its leaves turned into purple. As purple plays an important role in this film by creating fantastical (worse) imagery. But in contrast, the bright, ravishing yellow flower field will draw the contrary.
Another strong element of the film is its cinematography, captured by Joobeur’s collaborator from Brotherhood, Vincent Gonneville, whom he and Joobeur embark on a road trip to northern Tunisia to explore the idea of the short film. Gonneville’s ability to create a mysterious look by consistently using extreme close-up shots and split diopter, and sometimes it went completely blurry, sets up a chain of shiveringly precise parallels between reality and fantasy. These tiny details underline the inherent horror of its story and concur with the vision that Joobeur delivers. Who Do I Belong To finds a way to be visually stunning, impressively gripping, and horrifyingly tragic while still telling a deep and meaningful story, and of course, a searing, deeply affecting, and haunting debut that will linger long after the film has finished.
A co-production between Tunisia (Instinct Bleu), Canada (Midi La Nuit), and France (Tanit Films), and in collaboration with Norway, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, Joobeur’s debut film premiered in Competition at the Berlinale. Paris-based company Luxbox Films, which previously took on sales for Tunisian titles Under the Fig Trees, last year’s Venice entry Behind the Mountains, and Berlin double winner Hedi, is handling this film.
