The origins of Moroccan narrative film: Mohamed Osfour’s films of the early post-colonial period

Abstract

ABSTRACT New Film historians purport that the historical progression of world cinema has fundamentally been shaped by the transition from the ‘cinema of attractions’ to the ‘cinema of narrative integration.’ From a historical perspective, these two concepts reflected not only two visions of the cinema’s functions, but they also related to two crucial moments of the development of worldwide filmmaking. This development has often been associated with the shift from ‘non-narrativity’ (incorporated in films of early cinema) to narrativity (exemplified in the rise of Hollywood). From an aesthetic-based standpoint, the two definitions indicated two opposing modes of visualization and two stylistic choices: Showing and telling. In a similar way to the evolution of world cinema, Mohamed Osfour’s film practice developed alongside its transition from ‘attraction’ to ‘narration.’ This shift reflected Osfour’s intellectual commitment and his understanding of the cinematic apparatus’ social functions. The present article argues that Osfour’s films of the early postcolonial period – Al-Ibn Al-a’k (The Damned Child, 1956), Al-Yatim (The Orphan Boy, 1957), and Al-Harib (Fugitive, 1962) – represented the rise of Moroccan narrative film and instigated the move to a film practice that capitalized on the narrator system. It seemed that the liberating context of post-colonial Morocco implicitly played a part in this shift, allowing Osfour to look for narrative spaces where he could manipulate the pro-filmic to tell and write (his)story. Based on the concept of ‘cinema of narrative integration’ – as theorized by Tom Gunning (1994) – this article demonstrates how these cinematic works developed film stylistics that aligned with the dominant features of narrative cinema.