Femme écrite du cinéaste Lahcen Zinoun: corps à corps dansé de l’écrit et de l’image

Abstract

This article looks at the film Written woman (Mouchouma) by the Moroccan filmmaker and dancer Lahcen Zinoun, which was released in 2012. The work is centered on an Amazigh poet, marginalized by her profession as a prostitute, whose body is tattooed – inscription/writing of her story and of History. It is based on multiple quests – mystical, historical, cultural – through an anthropologist who travels to the Atlas Mountains to investigate the life of Mririda N’Ait Attik who passed away around 1930. Seeking an actress for the film he wishes to make to pay homage to this figure, he falls madly in love with Adjou Ait Ashaak, a prostitute who works in the same brothel as Mririda did. Through their conversations, the viewer learns about the signification of her tattoos (images/signs), the danger of erasing such a heritage, the power of the arts to which the film refers: painting, writing, literature, music, dance, which help reach other dimensions, align the individual with telluric forces, inscribe wounds to better transgress them. The migration of one art form to another brings about exile and recalls the values of many facets of Moroccan identity, and the importance of halting violence.