Islamic women's sex and power
The Source (M) Director: Radu Mihaileanu. Starring: Leïla Bekhti, Hafsia Herzi, Biyouna, Saleh Bakri. 131 minutes
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In an early scene, liberal leaning schoolteacher Sami (Bakri) presents his beautiful young wife Leila (Bekhti) with a copy of The Thousand and One Nights.
It's a knowingly symbolic gesture. The couple belongs to a patriarchal Islamic community in a remote North African village, where Leila has recently instigated a kind of feminist stand against the local men. Given the Nights' framing narrative about a bride who gains power over her ruthless husband through storytelling, the gift represents a nod from Sami to Leila's own act of self-empowerment.
It is also a perhaps hopeful wink from director and co-writer Mihaileanu that his film can be seen as a modern day Arabian fable, to be read in the context of the Arabian Spring movement for democracy and modernity. To this end The Source is inspirited by folk songs and dance sequences featuring 'girl power' protest lyrics, which bat against other folk songs celebrating a more subservient feminine role.
The key issue, as far as the women are concerned, is water. The region is experiencing drought, and the village is yet to be plumbed for running water. The women are expected by tradition to fetch water from a source outside the village, which is a genuinely perilous task: Leila's outrage is sparked by what is the latest of many miscarriages suffered on the craggy incline by the village's women.
Led by Leila and feisty widow Old Rifle (Biyouna) — who, having been married off at 14 and raped by her husband on their wedding night, bears long-held disdain for the patriarchy — the women declare a love strike: to withhold sex from their husbands until they pipe water to the village.
This is an act of self-empowerment for the women, but it has its hardships. One woman is raped by her husband and, when she adopts non-violent strategies to repel his forceful advances, she is beaten for her recalcitrance. Even Leila's marriage to the sympathetic Sami is tested by the social and family pressures that come to bear on him as the husband of the ringleader.
The strike is certainly disruptive. But for the women it's the only way they can see to earn the respect and consideration that their