The Tunisian cinematheque has resumed its activities in a beautiful way, with the projection of the Spanish documentary “Les Bâtisseurs de l’Alhambra”, a hybrid film doubled with a reflection on living together.
Can a documentary be poignant to the point where it keeps you in suspense for two hours? Because the tour de force of Isabel Fernández, the director of the film “The builders of the Alhambra” will have been to arouse the ideal alloy and discover the exact confluence which makes this work, an exceptional cinematographic work.
Isabel Fernández opens his film by posing an issue, that of an early rebirth that would have had mythical Andalusia as their theater. She then introduces a palace whose initiators will dream of excess. For this she presents her utopian characters or overwhelmed by their destiny and makes them gravitate around the Alhambra.
Visionary, master of words and court, Ibn Al Khatib is the central character of this epic, represented by the birth of a palace. In the expectation, between mystical crisis and personal cracks, Ibn Al Khatib is also tapped by the political context of Granada and the succession of Sultan Youssef.
Through this character, Isabel Fernández weaves a metaphor for this Andalusia sure of herself but flickering and in the process of disintegrating. Everything is in the way: the film is advancing while the Alhambra site announces an exceptional building. It is the characters and their matrix Diwan Al incha who give the tempo.
Director Isabel Fernández
Consequently, the film takes a double fabric, enters unexpected adventures and reveals fragile beings, struggling with their dreams of eternity. We can only think of the Ibn Rochd staged by Youssef Chahine in “Fate”. Moreover, the iconography of the two works is close and underlines the concern of Isabel Fernández: obtain a perfect and precise image and establish a dialectic between the characters and the palace.
The film succeeds with eloquence and poetry. We enter the mysteries of the Grenadin palace as well as in the interior demons which stir up its builders. Finally, the use of many historians gives this work, the historical depth which doubles the human texture of the characters.
Isabel Fernández is not a newcomer to the world of documentary, a genre that she has been walking for fifteen years, collecting distinctions and audience success. With “Les Bâtisseurs de l’Alhambra”, it sets up a hybridization device which gives this film, the character of a story that is both historical and biographical. Working on this work for seven years, the director can be satisfied with the result. As for the public, he warmly applauded, praised the cast based on Arab actors, essentially Moroccan and radiating around the masterful composition of the Egyptian Amr Wakad.
Faced with the public success of this screening which took place Tuesday, September 19, a second meeting was announced for Monday, September 25. Note that this film was screened as part of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, in partnership with the Spanish Embassy in Tunisia and the Cervantes Institute. At the Tunisian Cinematheque, we could not dream of a better recovery combining film quality, cultural dialogues, exciting debates and closed counters as the public was numerous.
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