Couscous: Seeds of Dignity dir. by Habib Ayeb (review)

"Tunisians have the right to eat well; Tunisians—children from Ben Guerdane to Bizerte," exclaims one of Habib Ayeb's interlocutors in his new documentary Couscous: Seeds of Dignity, lamenting that schoolchildren eat plastic-wrapped industrial food while educated elites seek out heirloom wheat flour. Taken out of context, this reflection, alongside the film's title, implies that the film, like so many recent documentaries that tackle the corporatization and globalization of food, also aims to move consumers to make more nutritious or ethical food choices. By the time the farmer Nabil makes this statement, however, it is already apparent that this documentary stands apart in its presentation of small farmers as guardians of a vital heritage facing down structural barriers to Tunisia's food sovereignty, barriers that cannot be resolved simply through marketing or consumer education. Upending long-held assumptions about the direction of knowledge and progress, Couscous: Seeds of Dignity showcases Tunisian farmers working to reintroduce nearly lost heirloom wheat varietals and other grains in the wake of failing harvests of the pesticide-dependent GMO grains long promoted by Western-based agrochemical corporations. Visually stunning, the documentary traverses Tunisian agricultural zones from remote villages without running water, where small plots of land are worked largely by hand, to more fertile regions, where farmers have access to various forms of mechanical farm equipment. Long shots of sweeping vistas alternate with scenes of farmers speaking against arresting views of their land, intimate scenes of women harvesting, processing grain, and working dough, and extreme close-ups of the natural world, such as ants swarming or a cat napping by a hearth. Seemingly loose in structure, the film cultivates an exploratory feel, not in the sense of delivering novel scenic views for touristic consumption, but as if attempting to approach the significance these sights hold for the film's interviewees.

The absence of voiceover and extradiegetic sound apart from a spare soundtrack consisting of a woman's grain-grinding song, along with Ayeb's own positioning in the film, intensifies this posture of exploration over exposition. Off-as well as on-screen, Ayeb, a geographer, professor at the University of Paris 8, and director of Gabes Labess (2014) and Fellahin (with Ray Bush, 2015), appears as an attentive listener rather than as a directorial authority. In a series of long takes, farmers expound upon their relationship to land, farming, history, and nation, their words ultimately carrying this film as much if not more than its images. Occasionally, off-screen questions reveal how the director draws out the incisive knowledge and humor of his subjects. In an early scene, he is heard telling a man identified as Monji that he wants to buy his land. Dismissing his offer with a knowing smile, Monji launches into an emphatic, poetic speech that details his indefatigable love for land that brings him not only sustenance and purpose, but peace. His words are followed by the speech of another man, Eisenhower, who details and condemns the monetization of land as a zero-sum approach that has sacrificed the well-being of Tunisians to the business interests of a few, often foreign, investors. Many of the farmers interviewed reflect a keen awareness of the social prejudices of eventual audiences, and accordingly adapt their words, as when the farmer Lassad describes small farmers as land engineers with highly specific scientific knowledge. Collectively their words parallel those of activists for food sovereignty the world over, bringing issues of food imperialism and food justice to life in a way that underscores just how much remains to be told.

What emerges from the collection of these interviews, images, and snatches of songs and stories is a rare documentary that listens as much as it shows, offering hopeful, yet provisional, images. While more nationally or regionally specific features of the struggles of small farmers in Tunisia may require additional elucidation for some audiences, Couscous: Seeds of Dignity offers a compelling examination of neocolonial food policies...