Bab'Aziz

The fortunate thing for me today is that I did not give up on the ending of “One Night” in vain. Nacer Khemir’s “The Prince Contemplating His Soul (Bab’Aziz)” is no doubt the most moving film I have seen these two weeks. Khemir weaved together past, present and future and told a brilliant fable. One of the things that makes this fable successful is the complete absence of the characters’ back-stories. People appears in the middle of the dessert without coming from anywhere. Some of them eventually tell us their stories but reveal nothing about their psychologies. Unencumbered by characterization, Khemir focuses on the purpose of fable—to teach without teaching and to explain what is impossible to explain fully. Weaving the stories together, a Sufis understanding of love and life is slowly revealed to us. In the end, love is found, fear is let go and death is welcomed. Through it all beauty is abound. The result is nothing less than transcendent.