UNDER THE FIG TREES
Directed by Erige Sehiri
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆☆

THIS French-Tunisian film is a delightful trip into rural north Africa. We meet a group of workers who are the beginning of a production line that sends figs to market.

The younger workers clamber up trees to reach the ripe figs as they flirt, gossip and discuss their futures. Older workers take the harvest and lay them out in crates.

Though not a film where leads stand out, a key character is Fide (Fide Fdhili), who portrays a woman with clear views and values. She is given a seat in the front of a pick-up that collects the labourers – prompting gossip about her relationship with the manager.

But Fide is too savvy to be conned by the attentions of the boss, and the undertones of male harassment are marked and offer a comment on the oppression of women in Tunisia.

Love plays a large role, and the societal pressures on young people is writ large. We watch as one girl arranges an illicit meeting – in the dairy section of a supermarket, so tightly is her social life policed.

The fig crop is an economic lifeline for the area, and the workers stand below the figs in terms of importance to the boss.

The film was made through improvisation and ad libbing, with a non-professional cast. This creates a naturalistic feel to the proceedings and frankly if the film was made any other way it would fall flat. What works is the to and fro between the cast, and the easy hand of the director is almost invisible – quite a trick to pull off.

Added to that, there is a lovely atmosphere captured – rural workers under a summer sun, the dust of an arid landscape that still nurtures a fine crop of figs.

The nobility of hard graft in the fields rings true here: it offers a glimpse of a pastoral life that while exploitative is also seen as an accepted way of life.

With the rough semblance of a plot – it is a story of summer loving, the role of women in an Arabic state, growing up, young people’s hope and ambitions, and opportunities – or lack of them, Under The Fig Trees offers a mediative, and insightful original drama where Tunisian women tell their stories in a way we don’t often get to see on UK big screens.