Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Erige Sehiri
Starring: Fide Fdhili, Feten Fdhili, Ameni Fdhili, Samar Sifi, Leila Ouhebi, Hneya
Ben Elhedi Sbahi, Gaith Mendassi, Abdelhak Mrabti, Fedi Ben Achour, Firas
Amri
How do you find your work colleagues? Great bunch of lads, or grating
dolts whom you view with extreme and imposed prejudice, grinning through
gritted teeth as you repress every one of your infuriated instincts in the
hopeful pursuit of just getting through the week and surviving until pay
day? I would imagine for most of us the answer falls somewhere between the
two. As the cliché goes, we spend more time with colleagues, in a
situation so diametrically opposed to comfort and enjoyment that we refer
to it as "work," than we do the friends we’ve cultivated or the families
we love (an abiding work pet hate: when a boss refers to the staff as "a
family." Do fuck off.) Unless we're lucky enough to be in highly specific
employment which attracts the like-minded - working in the city, say, or
being a teacher - then the rest of us have to make do with who we're stuck
with.
In Erige Sehiri's (who also shares writing duties with
Peggy Hamann and Ghalya Lacroix) unique
Under the Fig Trees, similar economic necessity duly drives a group of fruit pickers
together, meeting at first light to be bundled onto flatbed vans and
driven off to scrubland, where they spend the waking hours together
culling the figs just come into season.
The film follows the ensuing day of work for the team of Tunisian workers,
and we witness their social interplay as they fall out, fall back in and
find the most freshly fuchsia of fruits. Sehiri apparently happened upon
the idea of the film while casting a completely different project: she met
one of the actors who would end up in
Under the Fig Trees and, inspired by the girl's background
in picking fruit, developed the film around the livelihood. Problem is
that in order to fully enjoy Under the Fig Trees, you too would have to harbour an especial interest in the vicissitudes
of a day-to-day fruit picker, such is the carefully constructed
verisimilitude of this honest but dramatically underwhelming activity.
I'm sure that this is not the intent of this sweet natured and well
accomplished film, but the driving concept of
Under the Fig Trees ultimately comes off as a little
patronising: a portrayal of farm hands who are apparently presented purely
upon the perceived appeal of their proletarian novelty. Diverse groups of
people allocated cinematic space - wherein we can witness different
lifestyles and interactions in vivid motion - is a quality which is both
inherent and important to film, however, for a long while
Under the Fig Trees does very little with its authentically
captured portrayals, and there is the sense that poor people are just a
curio in and of themselves. At one point in the first third, a worker
drops a bucket, and the figs fall out ruined (yikes!), and you sort of
have the suspicion that this only happens because something has to in
order to arrange even the most minor sense of conflict.
Nonetheless, following this sequence, and heralded by a doomy score, the
film henceforth takes on the febrile atmosphere of an office the day after
a Christmas party, where awkward secrets have leaked and tentative
relationships flared up to just as suddenly fizzle out. We see the teen
girls argue over boys, decide not to wear religious headdress, and
interact with the older women of the crew, the adolescent vaguely aware
that these ladies represent a likely future.
Under the Fig Trees goes on to suggest ideologies of
exploitation which have wider relevance than this picturesque Tunisian
grove. A key theme as the film develops is that of patriarchal oppression,
with the boss being a right prick who reserves his most strident actions
for the younger female members of the crew.
Nonetheless, we do see the team have a nice little paddle in the stream,
and an even lovelier picnic lunch, and lots of chatting about off-screen
events. Even though at some point a kid faints in the heat, I have to say,
I think I've had worse looking jobs. While I'm certain that IRL the
situation is not quite as idyllic, Under the Fig Trees makes
hard labour look for the most part like a gentle, sun kissed activity. It
is filmed beautifully, with Frida Marzouk's camera moving from wide
shot general spectacles of the workers in their grove context to close up
specifics of the work, and there is certainly a painstaking sense of the
traditional communicated. Initially, the film faithfully conveys the
vicissitudes of a working day but eventually reaches for heavier themes
and dramatic contrivances which challenge the credibility of its first
half. Like that ill-fated bucket of earlier,
Under the Fig Trees ends up somewhat imbalanced.
Under the Fig Trees is in UK/ROI
cinemas from May 19th.
