About Some Meaningless Events (1974)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

About Some Meaningless Events (1974) – M. Derkaoui

A “lost” Moroccan film that was recently found and restored (and streaming on Mubi.com) which blends reality and fiction in a way that was clearly ahead of its time.  We find ourselves in Casablanca, in a dockworkers’ pub, where the mostly male clientele grandstand and argue. The camera is clearly at a distance, using a telephoto lens, because various punters keep getting in the way of the shot.  It seems authentic cinema verité until the director strolls in and the actors break character.  The film eventually switches gears so that the director takes a part in the story, now interviewing average Moroccans (“not all young people, please”) to find out what they want from a Moroccan national cinema.  Most say they want movies to focus on social issues and the experiences of average people rather than commercial films made for entertainment purposes only (Egyptian cintema and Bruce Lee’s The Big Boss are mentioned as counterpoints).  One interviewee, a young man with a huge afro, seems evasive and soon we find him back in the original bar, where the director and his team soon set up their equipment.  When the young man attacks another patron, who turns out to be his employer, and accidentally kills him, the director realises that he has the chance to make a different film, a film about this young man and the murder (in other words, a film about social issues affecting real Moroccans).  However, none of this is really spelled out in so many words – the dialogue is all overheard and overlapping snippets. A lot of the footage provides ambiance and raises the question – is it staged, improvised, shot without permission, or what? Similar to the Iranian New Wave films (Kiarostami, Panahi) that also use amateurs to similar effect, inviting us to question not only what reality is but also the director’s motives and choices for artistic expression and the “message”. Enjoyable, too, for that Seventies feel (and the jazz/Moroccan music on the soundtrack).