Philippe Grenier | Muscat / 2023

the punishment of silence

by Douglas Messerli

 

Philippe Grenier (screenwriter and director) Muscat / 2023 [16 minutes]

 

Canadian director Philippe Grenier’s short film Muscat is a stunningly visually beautiful work that tells a sad story based a personal family story told by his grandmother about her distant cousin who was the victim, as he puts it, of “incommunicability in an emergency situation abroad.” Language clearly means everything concerning comprehension. And for the visiting French/Canadian couple on their trip to Morocco it means death and arrestment.

    Yet, Grenier embeds this sad story in an equally unhappy narrative of a young 16-year-old fisherman, Samir (Ilyes Tarmasti), who is clearly attempting to escape the confines of his small village life by learning English. What he can’t even yet describe to himself is that he is also different in another way, being a young homosexual who is immediately attracted to the hirsute Louis (Alexandre Bergeron) who with his wife Marie (Aline Winant) visits their fish stand.

     Samir’s brother, Nassim (Mahmoud Zabennej) is clearly a hot-head who when the foreigner notes his prices are higher that nearby other stands refuses to even serve the would-be customer, despite the quite attempts of Samir to intervene. As Samir later puts it, his brother seems almost always angry.

      Later in the evening Samir brings a bag of fish to the Canadians to Louis’ delight, realizing that the boy can speak some English, awarding the boy the full price.

     The next day as Samir spies on the couple swimming in the ocean as he hides behind a rock, Nassim catches him and is enraged, not only for his brother’s obvious voyeurism but because he has discovered Samir has borrowed his tape recorder to study the English language, both clearly taboo activities in the closed world of Nassim’s Arabic conservatism.

      When, soon after, Marie drowns after hitting her head on a rock while swimming, Louis drags her body in to shore pleading for a doctor. Although it’s clear that Samir comprehends what he is saying, the other locals simply call the police who take Louis away for questioning, particularly since Nassim attests that the two had been fighting the day before.

      Despite his desires to intervene and Louis’ pleas that the boy help explain the situation through translation, to protect himself from the accusations of not only his brother but the entire community of having been attracted to the man, Samir must remain quiet, deny any involvement, and knowledge of having learned even a few words of another language, closing himself off from all possible outside communication.

       The punishment of silence, of remaining in the closet not only sexually by culturally is so painful that it is clear that either Samir must soon escape his world or suffer the eternal anger that characterizes his brother.

       As Grenier himself describes it “Muscat is a film about incommunicability, resilience, taboos and sexual awakening. Samir must lie to himself and to others to survive. The meeting between Samir and Louis is decisive: like a storm in his heart and body, Samir experiences strong feelings that are impossible to ignore. His attraction to Louis will push Samir to reveal a truth that has been deeply repressed until now.”

      Grenier’s camera wanders over the handsome actor Tarmasti’s face with adoration and wonderment. This is certainly one of the finest short films I have seen this year, 2023.

 

Los Angeles, November 22, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2024).