Filming sex, language, and alienation in Morocco: the lens of Nabil Ayouch

Abstract

Nabil Ayouch’s cinematic corpus has always been subject to vivid debates as his works target the sexual and linguistic status quo in Morocco, among other ideological patterns. The filmmaker’s distrust towards the hegemonic order is palpable in his corpus, as illustrated by Much Loved (2015) and Razzia (2017). Ayouch’s films offer an opaque questioning of the structural intersections between sex, socioeconomics, language, religion, and alienation. It could be argued that, in terms of opacity, Much Loved blurs the lines of identity and intimacy instead of simply pushing and widening cultural/ideological barriers. A few years later, Ayouch released Razzia , which not only escaped censorship, but was also a great success. However, the film fits well in the lineage of Ayouch’s productions as the director continued his momentum of subtle artistic subversion questioning of the foundations of morality in Morocco.