Arab Blues

11/27/2020

Arab Blues (A Couch in Tunis) is an instantly likeable film. Its opening shot - about an old man's description of who Sigmund Freud might be from his looks - is charming and so is the story that succeeds it of a young woman (Golshifteh Farahani) coming back to her homeland, Tunisia, from Paris to start a psychoanalysis practice. She knows she will be looked down for it, a testament that she immediately gets from her uncle. But she is independent, courageous, and gritty, and so the film begins. I absolutely loved all the characters and their performances here, especially Farahani, Feryel Chammari, and Aïsha Ben Miled. Each actor is better than the other and I had a sweet time looking at them, delivering beautiful dialogues and acting like it's real life. The social critique is pregnant here