Hinde Boujemaa directs a very strong female character (actress Hend Sabri) confronted with violent patriarchy, a striking depiction of everyday life, a sense of fatality.
With two leading Tunisian figures and a provocative subject, adultery, “Noura’s Dream,” the third feature film by Belgian-Tunisian director Hinde Boujemaa, portrays the life of a woman locked in by Tunisian law condemning adultery*.
Noura, in her forties, works in a hotel where she takes care of the laundry. She raises her three children alone while her husband, Jamel (Lofti Abdelli), a good-for-nothing, is still in prison. But she has her secret garden, a lover she is very much in love with, the tender and impatient Lassad (Hakim Boumsaoudi). The divorce proceedings she initiated are about to be finalized, she has just moved, and is starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. It is then that her husband is prematurely released due to a presidential pardon. Panicked, Noura sees her plan fall apart. Of course, the children’s father soon understands the situation…
It is at this point that the filmmaker presents the most interesting part of the story: indeed, the revenge plotted by the husband highlights the hypocrisy of Tunisian society, which is more tolerant of extramarital affairs when they are committed by men.
Sometimes very determined, or downright frantic, Hend Sabri gets into the skin of this somewhat vulgar, combative, and free woman who claims her right to happiness. Opposite her, her lover, Lassad, perhaps put off by the husband’s scheming, appears somewhat vague compared to the flamboyant heroine.
