You know you’re in cheerful, cheeky company when ROCK THE CASBAH eschews the song of the same name by The Clash in favour of the theme song to The Road to Morocco by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby to open proceedings over the film’s titles.
With its nostalgic soundtrack and picture postcard shots of the Atlantic/Mediterranean coast presented in home movie style, it’s a sly bit of ironic counterpoint by writer/director Laila Marrakchi.
We are introduced to the narrative by the ghost of Moulay Hassan played with trademark debonair raffishness by Omar Sharif. It is Moulay’s funeral that has prompted a family reunion, specifically between his widow, Aicha and three daughters.
Aicha is played by the deliciously incomparable Hiam Abbass, a woman devoted to her husband despite his philandering flings and flirtations.
As Hassan presides over the narrative as a speculative spectral spectator, it is Aicha that must hold court to her offspring, including the prodigal, Sofia, who has returned from many years in America where she has carved out a career in movies.
Sofia’s self-imposed exile has was spurred by a misunderstanding with her father over a fourth sister who committed suicide due to a thwarted love affair.
This is one of the many revelations that unravel in this beautifully spun story of restoration and reconciliation.
Sophia’s surviving siblings, Miriam, who has had a mammaries makeover thinking it a must to keep her bespectacled teacher husband Kenza, who is trying to live a more traditional life, keep the comedy and drama bubbling as their similarities simmer on the hotplate of their differences.
The film has subtle shadings of comparing and contrasting cultural and societal change, as tradition is bolstered and battered against the ebb and flow of Western influence, something that has been a part of the North African region for quite some time.
Telling though, that Sofia’s stardom in Hollywood is based on playing terrorists, an unfortunate typecasting tyranny that is justly lampooned within the film and totally demolished in the universality of the narrative’s themes and concerns.
Casablancan thesp, Morjana Alaoui plays Sofia, while Miriam is played by Nadine Labaki, the Lebanese writer/director/star of Where Do We Go Now? , and Belgian born Lubna Azabal, star of the devastating Incendies, is the earnest Kenza.
Amid this first-rate ensemble, Raouia, as Yacout, the faithful family retainer and nanny, is a standout of stolid stoicism and striking expressions. Her face and grace proving a picture is worth a thousand words.
ROCK THE CASBAH is a movie that is both entertaining and engaging, embracing the joys and sorrows of life, a mixture of the familiar and the exotic.