For her second feature film, Touzani continues with minimalism and confinement, a formula that proved successful in her first film (Adam), to tackle a taboo subject in her country and the Arab world in general. In the gradually unfolding love triangle, love becomes the driving force for all the characters, particularly Mina, the wife, who accepts the earthquake that disrupts the balance of her previously preserved relationship, sustained by mutual affection and an unspoken agreement.
As her illness eats away at her, Mina strives to prepare her partner's future love life, to protect him as she always has. And that entails a form of letting go, accepting a suppressed and fought-against sexual orientation under social pressure. In Touzani's films, the protagonists barely speak when they have important things to say. Everything happens in the gaze. The viewer ends up immersed in Halim's blue-gray eyes, mirrors of his frustrated loves. The camera also lingers on the hands and those small gestures that betray emotions.
In turn, Maryam Touzani pays tribute to an ancient art, to her mother, and to the caftan she wore at the film's world premiere presented in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes Film Festival, but above all to the myriad faces of selfless love. The theme, its treatment, and the sincerity conveyed by the actors - whose intensity lies in the economy of their performances - make "Le Caftan Bleu" a sensitive and courageous film.
