Mimosas | Little White Lies

Mimosas

25 Aug 2017 / Released: 25 Aug 2017

Words by David Jenkins

Directed by Oliver Laxe

Starring Ahmed Hammoud, Said Aagli, and Shakib Ben Omar

Four people on horseback in a grassy field, with snow-capped mountains in the background.
Four people on horseback in a grassy field, with snow-capped mountains in the background.
3

Anticipation.

Oliver Laxe’s follow-up to 2010’s You Are All Captains, which was pretty good.

3

Enjoyment.

Certainly unique, but perhaps a little too obscure to really hit home.

3

In Retrospect.

Packed with breathtaking moments, but will likely be lost on all but the most observant viewers.

A per­ilous reli­gious cru­sade through the Moroc­can coun­try­side is the sto­ry which pow­ers this chal­leng­ing exis­ten­tial drama.

In 2015 the British artist and film­mak­er Ben Rivers released the (excel­lent) fea­ture, The Sky Trem­bles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Broth­ers, loose­ly based on a nov­el by Paul Bowles. In it, he began by film­ing the mak­ing of anoth­er movie being shot in and around Morocco’s Atlas moun­tain range, and his impres­sion­is­tic doo­dle lat­er mutates into a sur­re­al fic­tion as it nar­rows its focus­es to a sin­gle char­ac­ter, played by direc­tor Oliv­er Laxe.

The film that Rivers sub­sumed into his own was Laxe’s Mimosas which final­ly lands on the stream­ing plat­form MUBI after hav­ing pre­miered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

Men pass car keys out to eager work­ers as they each jos­tle for a paid gig as a taxi dri­ver. Out in the desert, where fares are like­ly few and far between. When the name Shak­ib Ben Omar is called, no-one steps for­ward, but the men say it’s okay as he can’t dri­ve. But Shak­ib is giv­en a spe­cial job, and as he begins to mono­logue about a clash between God and the Dev­il, the film segues into an extend­ed rever­ie (or is it?) he is tasked with trav­el­ling a treach­er­ous route with a nomadic reli­gious sect.

When the sheik pass­es away, he and two oth­er men must then trans­port his wrapped corpse to a Saha­ran trad­ing out­post. Along the way they men bick­er about the true nature of their quest, and Laxe cap­tures these minus­cule fig­ures trans­posed against the ver­tig­i­nous grandeur of the dusty moun­tain landscape.

There’s a touch of the Her­zogs to this gor­geous and opaque film if you’re will­ing to read it as a para­ble about the lit­er­al trans­port­ing of reli­gious fer­vour to far flung com­mu­ni­ties. There’s also an exis­ten­tial ele­ment to this jour­ney, as the char­ac­ters bat­tle against ruth­less ele­ments which remain utter­ly blind to their spir­i­tu­al cause. This becomes a test of faith for the men as events take a turn for the awk­ward, and it also becomes a test of faith for the view­er as the film seems to float freely into a more poet­i­cal­ly obscure terrain.

Mimosas is a lan­guid, light­ly exper­i­men­tal affair whose cen­tral con­ceit remains root­ed in myth and folk­lore. Visu­al­ly, it’s often breath­tak­ing, and Laxe has clear­ly plunged much time and effort into mak­ing sure the cul­tur­al details are spot on – the shawls, the pipes, the dia­logue, the mat­ted facial hair. Yet, it’s some­times a lit­tle tough to com­pre­hend what’s going on, and to what end this excit­ing, idio­syn­crat­ic film­mak­er is dri­ving towards.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.