Sofia is a young girl who is discovered just as she is about to give birth to a child out of wedlock, which is prohibited by Moroccan law.
After a denial of pregnancy, we follow her ordeal through Casablanca: rejection by her family, cynicism of the administrative authorities.
But is Sofia telling the truth? A scathing portrait of a society governed by conformity and money.
This first feature film by Meryem Benm’Barek was one of the most pleasant surprises of the last Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard section). And a few months later, this portrait of a city, of a society reproduced within the family bubble, still remains striking.
A harsh and direct film that, under the guise of focusing on the status of women in Morocco, primarily draws a portrait of a country grappling with severe social divides. Sofia impresses with the skill with which the intimate event it portrays reveals society as a whole to itself.
Thrilling from start to finish, vibrant, sometimes harrowing, “Sofia” is watched like a thriller. But the film also subtly tells the story of the trap in which young women find themselves due to the law or family issues that sometimes prove even more violent.
It is with this irreducible opacity that Meryem Benm’Barek escapes from conventional discourse or predictable dramaturgy, creating good cinema and shattering the overly naive representations commonly seen on screen in Moroccan cinema.
For a first attempt, it is virtuoso. Most notably, what “Sofia” remarkably offers is the direction that combines power and subtlety, reminiscent of the best feature films by Asghar Farhadi, a master of narrative intricacy.
