“Who Do I Belong To” tells the story of Aicha, who lives in the isolated north of Tunisia with her husband and youngest son. The family lives in fear after eldest sons Mehdi and Amine leave for the violent embrace of war. When Mehdi unexpectedly returns home with a mysterious pregnant woman, a darkness emerges that threatens to consume the entire village. Aicha stands between her mother’s love and her search for the truth.
In the opening scene of the film we see a sturdy tree full of branches and leaves, which is clearly deeply rooted in the ground. Somewhere on the trunk of the tree, a white cloth is tied like a bandage to protect a deep wound. In this opening scene, the director metaphorically compares Aicha and Brahim’s family to this sturdy tree with deep roots. The white cloth tied to the tree as a bandage metaphorically shows that this family is suffering from a deep wound; A wound so deep that it may never heal and could threaten and tear apart the deep roots and originality of this family.
The film places a lot of emphasis on close-ups of the characters; these shots characterize and create a feeling of suffocation. This kind of framing blurs the background. Given the subject matter of the film, this suggests that the truth and the past are suppressed in these shots, or that the characters avoid facing them.
The characters lack the ability to face the truth; and they try to deceive themselves or lie to others to avoid facing the truth; simply because accepting the truth has serious consequences. In one scene of the film, Aicha tells Fatma, “The truth lies only in the hands of God.”
The themes of choice and victimhood are intertwined like a key in a lock and serve as a central motif in the film. Mehdi and Amin choose to become jihadists and join ISIS, sacrificing their family in the process. Mehdi decides to leave his brother Amin behind and sacrifice him to save himself. Aicha decides to embrace her son after he becomes a jihadist and support him and her wife. With this choice, she sacrifices her family life and her relationship with her husband. It seems like all the characters in the movie, with the choices they make, end up sacrificing someone else.
Each of the characters in the film represents a value in the small rural community. Aicha represents responsibility, Brahim represents conscience, Adam represents innocence, Bilal represents righteousness, Mehdi represents sin, and Reem represents atonement for a sin. The film’s writer and director, Meryam Joobeur, handles the characterization deftly.
Ultimately, the characters in the film come face to face with the truth, confront it, and lay it to rest. Aicha carries the heavy burden of the truth, but the truth she tried to deny and avoid by accepting it leads to the healing of the deep wound on her hand.
Meryam Joobeur’s first feature features a powerful screenplay with strong characterization, captivating cinematography and brilliant music that blends seamlessly with the texture of the film.
“Who Do I Belong To” had its world premiere in the main competition section of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale 2024) on February 22.
