Keswa, Le Fil Perdu (1999)

Genres - Comedy  |   Sub-Genres - Family Drama, Romantic Comedy  |   Run Time - 96 min.  |   Countries - France, Morocco, Tunisia  |  
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Synopsis by Mark Deming

Arab cultural traditions and free-spirited Western thinking clash head on in this gently satiric comedy. Nozha (Rim Turki) is a young Tunisian woman who has defied her parents' wishes for an arranged marriage and moved away to strike out on her own. However, she agrees to return home to participate in her brother's wedding, and to placate her mother wears a silver keswa, an extremely heavy jeweled garment. However, Nozha gets left behind when the family leaves for the wedding, and she enlists the services of a love-struck cab driver (Ali Mosbah) to scour the Tunisian suburbs, hoping to find the bridal party. To complicate matters, the keswa starts to come apart along the way, and Nozha discovers a good-looking young man, also in search of the party, is following close behind. Director Kalthoum Bornaz here pokes fun at the idiosyncrasies of Tunisian life, including a gag involving the Muslim call to prayer.