New Tunisian Cinema: Allegories of Resistance by Robert Lang (review)

filmique repose sur la synergie et la convergence de tous les corps de métier impliqués pendant le tournage et se fend même d’une critique sur le traitement des intermittents du spectacle qui, comme la costumière du film de Rovère, crient leur frustration quant au manque de moyens dont ils sont victimes. Fazer s’octroie également le droit de renverser le rôle de Céladon afin qu’Henri puisse séduire Gloria (Déborah François); une liberté en guise d’ultime hommage à Quirvin puisque ainsi Fazer lui offre une place d’honneur dans l’œuvre de Rovère en l’érigeant une dernière fois au rang de premier rôle. Franklin and Marshall College (PA) Marie-Line Brunet Lang, Robert. New Tunisian Cinema: Allegories of Resistance. New York: Columbia UP, 2014. ISBN 978-0-231-16506-8. Pp. 448. $35. Thought-provoking and broadly researched, Lang’s study probes complex allegorical representations of Tunisia’s contemporary postcolonial condition through seven films from the oppressive Ben Ali era: Man of Ashes (1986), Halfaouine (1990), Bezness (1992), The Silences of the Palace (1994), Essaïda (1996), Bedwin Hacker (2002), and The TV Is Coming (2006). Instead of rehashing the problematic concept of national cinema, Lang organizes his study according to six overarching themes or ‘constants’visible in contemporary Tunisian films by filmmaker Nouri Bouzid such as “the image of the body,”“pain as emotion,”and“the face and the veil”(36). Lang shows how each film articulates one or more facets of a nation struggling to reconcile its colonial past, hard-earned modernity, and autocratic regime with the many religious and political beliefs as well as cultural/social practices that encompass tunisianité. The first chapter offers a penetrating reflection on Tunisian national identity and portrays the social malaise created not only by the Ben Ali political regime but also the many international crises (notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) that have and continue to shape expressions of Tunisian nationalism as well as the country’s overall stability in the Middle East-North Africa region. Citing the theories of Fredric Jameson and other critics, Lang explains that it is by means of allegory that each filmmaker succeeds in narrativizing certain contested or repressed aspects of Tunisian society, such as its rigid neopatriarchal structures. Noting the boldness of contemporary Tunisian cinema with regard to the treatment of the body compared with the relative pudeur of its Maghrebi cinema counterparts, Lang offers a comprehensive treatment of each film in chapters 3–8 that presents a forward reading of sexuality(-ties) via two themes: incarceration and freedom. For instance, commenting on the“allegory of the logic of castration” (48), Lang gives an especially perceptive reading of masculinity and homosexuality of Bouzid’s Man of Ashes (ch. 2). Likewise, his reading of The Silences of the Palace (ch. 5)—a film which has garnered a great deal of attention among 252 FRENCH REVIEW 88.4 Reviews 253 feminists and film scholars alike—is especially noteworthy. It not only acknowledges previous analyses (such as those by Suzanne Gauch or Laura Mulvey) but also presents a renewed perspective on Tunisia’s social reality through an in-depth re-reading of Alia (the film’s main character) as an allegory and symbolic representation of independent Tunisia. Lang echoes Nouri Bouzid’s characterization of cinema as“the art of an era, of democratic and liberal ideas” which must be “free” to survive (35). And he articulates well the complexity and the perplexing contradictions that exist within postcolonial Tunisia in the selected films while underscoring the role of Tunisian cinema as a mirror of its time (261). Lang’s book opens the door to new questions and connections, making it a compelling reading for specialists and non-specialists of Maghrebi cinema. DePauw University (IN) Cheira Belguellaoui Lefebvre, Martin. Truffaut et ses doubles. Paris: Vrin, 2013. ISBN 978-2-7116-24454 . Pp. 148. 9,80 a. C’est au milieu des années 1950 que François Truffaut introduit la notion d’auteur/isme dans les Cahiers du cinéma et Arts (14). Le film d’auteur se caractérise par une“signature [...] qui selon lui...