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UPON ITS RELEASE IN MOROCCAN cinemas in 2005, Laila Marrakchi's film Marock1 generated passionate and conflicting reactions from its audiences. Morocco had been undergoing substantive social, economic and political reforms, and the government was in the process of organizing legislative elections for 2007. Political parties representing various ideologies were gearing up to define their platforms to attract potential voters. In this context, Marock added a new dimension to debates that had been taking place since the enthronement of King Mohammed VI in 1999 over issues that continue to preoccupy Moroccans today.
The film's exploration of certain "taboo" practices of the Moroccan bourgeois youth was certainly a catalyst for many conflicting reactions from its viewers. Despite its wide appeal to young and urban viewers, Marock was attacked by numerous media outlets as well as by prominent individuals in the political and the cultural arenas. The reception of the movie was obviously determined by the ideological positions of its critics. It generated a political debate that reflected the tendencies of divergent political constituencies during an important historical conjuncture. Secularists and liberals praised the filmmaker's courage to embrace freedom of expression while conservatives, especially political parties, exploited the film to promote their ideological stances, castigating Marrakchi for using profanity and for showing disrespect for Islamic values that allegedly bind Moroccans together.
In this essay, I posit that Marrakchi's Marock contributes to the development of discourses about religion, gender and class in contemporary Morocco. Visual images serve strategically to undermine the legitimacy of conservative discourses about interpersonal relations in a society struggling to bridge between tradition and modernity. I argue that the political moment shaped by the nation's preparation for a national election played a crucial role in the way the film was publicly critiqued.
Although the film has been characterized as "frivolous" and "overly simplistic," and journalists such as Et-Tayeb Houdaïfa wonder how the film could have been the subject of such vehement attacks,2 certain themes and messages of the film were obviously provocative. While some people felt the provocation was gratuitous, others were grateful that the film provided a needed outlet for discussion on sensitive topics. The controversy associated with the film reflects the demographics of Morocco, a society undergoing rapid development and modernization, a society where...