19/08/2024 - With his third feature, the Tunisian director expands on the political themes of liberation and resistance through animal dreams

(© Locarno Film Festival/Ti-Press)

Part of this year’s competition line-up at the Locarno Film Festival, Ala Eddine Slim’s newest feature, Agora [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ala Eddine Slim
film profile], addresses themes important to the Tunisian filmmaker, both social and political. In a nameless town, three missing people return, much to the dismay of the locals, prompting a hushed reaction from officials. But what is most interesting about the narrative of Agora is that all of this takes place within the dream of a dog and a crow. Cineuropa sat down with the director to discuss why that was an important part of the premise and whether there is a future for mankind.

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Cineuropa: Could you tell us about the way you portray the animals talking to each other within the dream? It’s the same visual device as the one you used in your previous film, Tlamess [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ala Eddine Slim
film profile].
Ala Eddine Slim: The animals in the film function as witnesses of the fall of mankind that is taking place. I didn’t want to use voices or sounds to portray them, so I turned to this experiment that I had already tried in my previous film in order to insist on the visual aspect of it. It’s a tool that I can still use again and improve. I’m also really fascinated by Arabic calligraphy, and for me, it is important to feature this visual aspect that I’ve been researching.

What about the role of the dream? The animals dreaming as witnesses to the fall of humanity? What’s a nightmare for the humans is a dream for the animals.
I think it is a nightmare for the animals, too, because they see their fellows being massacred by humans. A dream can be a good or a bad thing, in a way. Maybe this story does not exist at all – you see very few people living there, and it looks kind of abandoned – and you could say that everything is taking place entirely in their imagination. Whether it’s a nightmare or a dream, to me, it’s not all that different, actually. Animals are here to sound the alarm, to tell us about what [bad things] could be happening.

The three missing people who return are based on events that actually happened, is that right?
Yes, the question of missing persons is also present in my previous film: there was this black man from Sub-Saharan Africa who was trying to cross over to North Africa. At some stage, he disappeared, and he became a sort of mutant. You have to know that in Tunisia and, more specifically, where I come from, it’s something that happens very often, for example, to people who are crossing the sea, like the woman who disappeared at sea in the film. There was also a shepherd with a slashed throat; he’s based on something that happened in 2012-2013, when a guy was taken by a group of terrorists in the mountains near the Algerian border. What was found of him was only his head. You also have many cases of workers who disappear.

And are they representative of a larger political theme in Agora?
In the film, I use them as examples of the failure of the state itself. They’re not going to investigate in order to find the real explanation; no one is looking for justice, and I think that the past will come back to bite us, in a dramatic way. So, yes, the people who come back are a metaphor for the failure of the government, and this failure becomes clearer and clearer as a failure of mankind altogether. I wouldn’t say it’s a curse, exactly, but it’s a form of revenge. It’s like they’re saying: “You never really cared about us, and now we are coming back to teach you a lesson.”

It’s poignant that animals see these things more clearly than humans do. Do you remain optimistic about humankind in that sense?
I think I’m realistic when it comes to human nature. We live in a world of madness and absurdity: if you look at what’s taking place in Palestine, in Sudan, or in our own countries and personal lives, it’s obvious that we need to put up strong resistance. There are men and women who are already fighting for a better world, it’s true, but at the same time, there are too many people in power who are imposing their own order on the rest of us. Again, what we need is resistance.

If you take borders, for example, and this policy of having higher and higher walls, you see it’s not going to work in the long term, because the tide [of resistance] will always be stronger. I think the world is divided into two categories, actually, the oppressors and the oppressed, and if there is justice, it will certainly act like a boomerang and come back and strike those who were responsible for this situation in the first place.