Good Looking

Tea in the Harem

Directed by Mehdi Charef

At Copley Place Cinema

What is Tea in the Harem about? There isn't really a plot. There isn't much witty dialogue. You just watch two boys live. It's beautiful. And it makes you wonder why Americans need lots of flashy color, bitchy one-liners and stereotyped characters to make a movie, when Medhi Charef can make a film this powerful from a series of sensitive pictures and lifelike conversation.

Tea in the Harem paints a poignant picture of two boys, Pat and Madjid (Remi Martin and Kader Boukhanef), who commit aimless acts of delinquency, wandering through the streets of a French village with nothing to depend on except their friendship. Through this portrait, the film also addresses some essential questions in society, from racism to poverty to the meaning of life.

The striking thing about this film is that it is so visual. Characters take on life, not through taking part in elaborately twisted plots or even through lengthy dialogue. Instead, the camera follows them carefully through the daily routines of their lives, from the streets to the cafes to their homes.

The incredible naturalness of both Martin and Boukhanef makes their characters, quite simply, really enjoyable to watch. They swagger down the streets sporting matching leather jackets; they exult when they play a successful trick--like feeding a dog an entire bowl of sugar from a cafe--and they hurt when a friend of theirs is in trouble.

It is in their homes that Charef succeeds in creating the most human and moving scenes. A picture of bustling, cheerful life on the surface of dire poverty and sickness invents completely the characters of Madjid's family and makes the audience care about them. Madjid's mother, Maika, bubbles over with the life-force that feeds and clothes her five young children, Madjid and the neighbor's child, as well as taking care of her husband, who has apparently had a stroke that has rendered him helpless. The contrast between Maika's helathy cheer and her husband's thin and trembling weakness portrays the conflict within the family more effectively than any verbal explanation of their condition.

The societal problem at the focus, and in the background of this film is poverty, rendered with realistic ambiguity, by means of shots of grey streets, shabby clothing, and simple clowning of street kids. The film makes no didactic statement about the evils of poverty, but shows us its results, good and bad, through the actions of Pat and Madjid.

The most chilling aspect of poverty, according to this film, is not Pat and Madjid's cheerful delinquency, ripping off wealthy tennis club locker rooms or stealing chocolate from the local store. Instead, Charef conveys the desperate permanence of poverty through a series of minor female characters who see prostitution as the only escape from their condition.

Pat and Madjid help out a starving, sobbing woman by taking her to a camper park and finding her pathetic customers, while she leaves her toddler son alone to play. Although at first the boys do this for their own profit, they end up giving her all of the money for her child. The sight of the ravaged, ordinary, decent woman is horrifying enough even without any in-depth development of her character.

Later in the film, after the audience has become more accustomed to prostitution, Madjid makes the shocking discovery that Pat's sister, who says she's been working in an office, is actually working as a hooker in one of the more expensive streets. Madjid never tells Pat, but the sadness of his discovery hangs over him throughout the movie.

But the film makes sure that the audience goes away appreciating basic human feelings, like friendship. As in Truffaut's 400 Blows, we do not condemn the boys for stealing or cheating. Rather, we appreciate their ability to bring energy and fun to the routine of poverty which renders so many people helpless and lifeless.

Like My Beautiful Laundrette minus the homosexuality, the bond between the two boys is the bond that holds the viewer to the screen. Their interaction, the fun and the sadness they have together makes you happy as you watch the movie. Tea in the Harem manages to convey a lot of things, from poverty to alienation, by seeing them reflected through the boys' relationship instead of confronting them directly.

In the final scene, the gang is at the beach. The police are coming, and everyone runs. Everyone but Madjid who sits, depressed, thinking of the helplessness he sees surrounding him. Pat looks at him, screams his name, but then frightened, he runs off with the rest. The police pick up Madjid and he stares out the window, listlessly. Adopting Madjid's point of view, the camera travels down the road. Ahead, it spots Pat. Freeze-frame. The final photograph of this film--Pat leaning back and waving, his hair blown back by the salt breeze--is worth sitting through two hours of the most boring piece of trash in the world. After this film, it's just a tremendous and appropriately brilliant finale.