Dark. Blinding. Sterile. Scrub. Repeat. This is the life of Badia in Leïla Kilani’s 2012 movie Sur La Planche (On the Edge). Badia is a young woman in her 20’s who spends her days shucking shrimp by the kilo and falls into a life of illicit behavior at night. With the help of another shrimp girl, Imane, and two textile workers, Asma and Nawal, they begin a network of stealing and selling. Badia and Imane dream of working in the “Free Zone” and this extra money is their way there. Badia initially tries to hide her true identity from her accomplices, but the stench of the shrimp seeps “into her bones,” so deep that no amount of obsessive cleaning offers any reprieve, which eventually leads to her downfall in a very distressing final scene.
Badia’s life is far from glamorous and at one point in the movie she mentions to a taxi driver that she only makes 12.66 dirham for her work (roughly $1.30 USD). In “Working-Class Women Revolt: Gendered Political Economy in Morocco,” Samia Errazzouki claims the working-class women who were falling into dissent at this time seemed to exist only as a subversive force. The authoritarian regime that is so deeply ingrained into Moroccan society has maintained a positive effect on the upper-class, women included. The working-class women of Morocco, on the other hand, seem to be continuously slighted by rights and by wages, as they are excluded from the capital and power upper-class citizens benefit from1. I feel like this reflects on why there are so many women on the streets of Rabat. Without support of her family or husband, it can be very difficult for a woman to make it on her own in Morocco, especially if these structures are playing out as Errazzouki describes them. On the night before the February 20th movement in 2011, single mother Fadoua Laroui publicly set herself on fire “to place her struggle and dissent on full display,” showing how bad things are for working-class women. In a similar fashion, Badia disregards that the building they are in has become ablaze, and chooses to frantically scrub herself, while Imane is pictured staring speechlessly.
Imane stands there slack-jawed for almost three full minutes before a single tear falls down her face, followed by her slowly shutting the bathroom door on Badia. Police sirens are heard in the background as the movie fades out, leaving the viewer at almost the same scene where the movie began. Kelani’s use of such a long close up is powerful and moving because “the closer the camera is to the subject, the more emotional weight the subject gains.”2 Ed Sikov defines a close up as “a shot that isolates an object in the image, making it appear relatively large,” in Film Studies:An Introduction. Kelani basically forces the viewer to feel all of Imane’s emotions and inner turmoil at leaving her friend behind.
Sur La Planche shows a significant amount of the dark side of life of a poor Moroccan and carefully treads around what is called the “red line.” Valerie Orlando describes the “red line” as fluid yet respected, explaining that filmmakers know not to focus heavily on or criticize the state, religion, relationships between men and women, pornography, or the monarchy in her book Screening Morocco: Contemporary Film in a Changing Society3. The Ministry of Culture in Morocco (or CCM) “has never maintained a state censor,” so as long as filmmakers follow these rough guidelines their film will be approved for screening and publication. The entire point of Badia and Imane’s late night activities is they strive for better and want to get out, but Leïla Kilani is careful with her dialogue and cinematic choices. As much as Badia and Imane complain and are shown working in harsh conditions for menial pay, they never once criticize the government for allowing those structures that are in place.
1Errazzouki, Samia. “Working-Class Women Revolt: Gendered Political Economy in Morocco.” In The Journal of North African Studies, 2014, 265. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2013.858033.
2 Sikov, Ed. “Chapter 1: Mise-En-Scene: Within the Image.” In Film Studies: An Introduction, 10. Chichester, West Sussex, NY: Columbia University Press, 2010.
3Orlando Valérie. “Introduction: Moroccan National Cinema, The Making of an Industry.” In Screening Morocco: Contemporary Film in a Changing Society, 10–11. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011.
Where the sun sets 