Santa Fe Reporter / Pasatiempo
Reviewed by: Paul Weideman

Bab’Aziz takes the viewer into the magical dunescapes of Tunisia and Iran, where a blind sage travels with his young granddaughter, Ishtar. On the surface, Bab’Aziz is searching for a gathering of dervishes that takes place every three decades. But the film, directed by Nacer Khemir, is really about what happens along the path. Strangers are encountered, and their stories unfold like apparently disparate segments in a long poem. The entire film is a poetic vision, cradled in gorgeous original music by Armand Amar and the stunning cinematography of Mahmoud Kalari. The screenplay is by Khemir and Tonino Guerra (collaborator with Federico Fellini on Amarcord and with Michelangelo Antonioni on Blowup).

Where is this gathering of dervishes, asks the precocious but respectful Ishtar (Maryam Hamid). “I don’t know,” replies Bab’Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou). “It suffices to walk, just walk. Those who are invited will find the way.” He gives the girl dates to munch as they trudge up and down the dunes, apparently in the middle of nowhere.

To relieve Ishtar’s boredom, Bab’Aziz begins telling her a long story, which turns into a tale paralleling their own. It’s about a young prince who is lost after following a gazelle into the desert. In one of Khemir’s amazing scenes, distant figures bearing lanterns move away from a settlement into the twilight desert to search for the prince.

One day a horseman arrives at the searchers’ camp. “We found the prince, but he’s not the same as he was,” he declares. We see that the prince has abandoned himself to another dimension. He sits, unmoving, gazing into a pool. His situation may exemplify a conundrum for the spiritual seeker: the difference between contemplation and mere self-absorption. (Sufi ideas surface in this film in quote from the mystic poets Rumi, Attar, Ibn Arabi, and Ibn al-Farid, according to the film credits.)

One of the people the old man and his granddaughter run across is Zaid (Nessim Khaloul), a poet with a beautiful singing voice. The old man looks wise, so Zaid asks how to find the dervish conclave. “Everyone uses his most precious gift to find his way,” Bab’Aziz answers him. “For you, it’s your voice. Sing, my son, and the way will be shown to you.” They will meet again.

Another side story involves a man named Osman (Mohamed Graïaa). People at the settlement think Osman is nuts after he jumps into a well. Bab’Aziz encourages him to tell his story.

In a flashback, Osman is working, like his father before him, as a sand carrier. (Does such a thing make sense in a land with almost nothing but sand?) Osman has decided to end the family tradition and go to a place where there is no sand. One of his customers, a scribe, gives him a letter, which Osman takes to a beautiful woman. She asks him to read it to her. The words are slightly erotic. Osman (who looks a bit like Harpo Marx) runs off when the woman’s husband comes home, and he falls into a well. Osman finds himself in a palace filled with women. One tells him to go investigate a fire out in the desert. He sees it’s only a burning palm tree, and when he turns around the palace is gone. He’s trying to rediscover the palace full of women by jumping into wells.

Bab’Aziz and Ishtar eventually come to a remarkable place: a subterranean, multiroomed mosque filled with dervishes moving to music. Ishtar finds a row of cloaked figures. She lifts the hood of one and reveals the face of a beautiful woman, who sings a sacred song. Ishtar closes her eyes and rocks her head in bliss. After more adventures, Ishtar must part company with Bab’Aziz. She attends the gathering with Zaid, who searches for his love, a female dervish.

This is a movie of peace, beauty, and intriguing psychological proposals.