BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA:
Film title: Bab’Aziz: The Prince that Contemplated his Soul; Director: Nacer Khemir; Year made: 2005; Language of film: English, Persian, Hindi, Arabic, Turkish, Tunisian Arabic; Length of film: 1 hour and 38 minutes.
GENRE:
Film Drama
SYNOPSIS:
The film follows the journey of an old blind man (Bab’Aziz) and his curious young granddaughter (Ishtar), through the desert on route to a gathering of dervishes that takes place every thirty years. Their journey, however, is not a direct nor easy one. Along the way, they encounter various other characters in the desert, resulting in rich entangled stories, poetry, and music, that unfold across various languages and cultures, such as of the prince who contemplated his soul. In the end, it appears that everyone’s paths are interwoven, poignantly capturing and reflecting some of the core Sufi worldviews and knowledge, especially of love, beauty, friendship, death, and union.
BACKGROUND/CONTEXT:
Bab’Aziz: The Prince that Contemplated his Soul (2005) is part of Nacer Khemir’s desert trilogy which includes Wanderers of the Desert (1984) and The Dove’s Lost Necklace (Le Collier perdu de la colombe 1991). Khemir, a Tunisian French filmmaker, uses the landscape of the desert to explore themes of time and space. In fact, at times, it appears that the desert itself is a main protagonist in his films. Using this granular terrain, along with other techniques and stylistic choices, such as dialogue (or absence of it), pace, angles, and lighting, Khemir subtlety conveys stories of the timeless and ancient worlds that continue to resonate and teach us today. Khemir’s films draws from his Tunisian, Arabic, and Muslim milieux, but also has been influenced especially by Sufi storytelling and poetry, and its themes, metaphors and symbols.
KEYWORDS:
- Sufism
- Islamic storytelling
- desert
- contemplative
- mysticism
ACADEMIC COMMENTARY:
The film’s pace, dialogue, and landscape are rich and aesthetically striking, especially as they use and evoke Sufi themes, symbols, and traditions. It is for this reason that every element of the film is rich, from the desert to the characters and dialogue, all the details come together to convey the core messages of mystical and contemplative traditions like Sufism that ask you to slow down and take an inner and deeper look at the world around you in order to find true knowledge or gnosis.
The film itself is esoteric at its core. As one must unravel layers of meaning. Some obvious Sufi practices are of music and poetry, and rituals of zikr (remembrance of Allah). With music comes meditation and movement, which appear throughout the film. Be they of Bab’Aziz meditating quietly or to ecstatic trance movements and Qawwali singers. The relationship between the wise blind grandfather and young precocious granddaughter itself also captures another significant relationship of master-disciple (murshid-murid) in Sufism.
This layered and complex film takes viewers on a journey that is immersive and colorful. It is visually and sonically rich and dense and thus provides a stellar entry into the world of Islam and Sufism through cinematography, music, and lighting, all of which amplify the stories and poetry that inform the film. It challenges linear temporality and space in storytelling and invites viewers to pay attention and listen, not just through our usual senses but beyond them.
Shobana Xavier
References:
“An Interview with Nacer Khemir” in Spirituality & Practice. https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/features/view/17822/an-interview-with-nacer-khemir
Firoozeh, Papan-Matin. 2012. “Nacer Khemir and the Subject of Beauty in “Bab-Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated is Soul” in Cinema Journal. Vol. 52 (1) pp, 106-126.
Öztürk, Ridade. 2019. “Sufism in Cinema: The Case of Bab’Aziz: The Prince who Contemplated his Soul” in Film-Philosophy. Vol. 23. No. pp. 55-71.
