In 1966 Italian film maker Pasolini came to a small Moroccan village to shoot his Oedipus Rex. Today, the village elders still remember it as a great money-making opportunity: acting as extras, houses were built, marriages were brokered off the money the production crew spent on them. Thami, one of the villagers, became friends (and maybe more) with Pasolini and when the news arrives that an Italian crew will make another film in their town, he tells everyone Pasolini is coming back, even though he knows full well Pasolini is long dead.
At first it's not quite clear why he lies: perhaps because it improves his standing among the villagers as friend of the Great Director, able to procure work, put in a good word for people initially rejected by the casting director, or perhaps he just feels a nostalgic need to relive a period from his youth. Gradually though, the film hints at something deeper: Thami and his friends are extras, not just in the cheap Italian peplum being shot, but in the world at large. Living in a dusty Moroccan town far removed from the centres of power and culture, they are skipped over, their lives are not reflected in pop-songs or commercial cinema, in an increasingly globalised economy they have been driven to the margins. And yet, for a few glorious months in 1966, they were the centre, they became important people, making an important film for an important director. That's why Thami feels the need to will Pasolini back to life.
But as the film ends with Thami installing a satellite dish on his roof so his family can watch more American films and TV-shows, it becomes painfully clear that time is never coming back.
At first it's not quite clear why he lies: perhaps because it improves his standing among the villagers as friend of the Great Director, able to procure work, put in a good word for people initially rejected by the casting director, or perhaps he just feels a nostalgic need to relive a period from his youth. Gradually though, the film hints at something deeper: Thami and his friends are extras, not just in the cheap Italian peplum being shot, but in the world at large. Living in a dusty Moroccan town far removed from the centres of power and culture, they are skipped over, their lives are not reflected in pop-songs or commercial cinema, in an increasingly globalised economy they have been driven to the margins. And yet, for a few glorious months in 1966, they were the centre, they became important people, making an important film for an important director. That's why Thami feels the need to will Pasolini back to life.
But as the film ends with Thami installing a satellite dish on his roof so his family can watch more American films and TV-shows, it becomes painfully clear that time is never coming back.
