Plucking figs is a delicate process. The lean and fragile branches need to be bent gently using a twig, ensuring that they don’t break. Once picked from the trees, they have to be carefully placed in the basket lined with leaves. Much like the fig harvesters in her film, director Erige Sehiri too treats her debut feature Under the Fig Trees with the same kind of sensitivity and care. Set in rural Tunisia, the slice-of-life film tracks a sunny day in the lives of a group of harvesters — consisting of old-timers as well as teenagers taking up the job during their summer break from school — working at an orchard.
The fig farm turns into the theatre of emotions, displaying the inner lives and conflicts between the people working there. The coy glances between partners, cadenes, and the elegant smiles exchanged by the teenagers are delectably sweet. At the same time, we also get a deeper look into the internal conflicts and thoughts of the central characters. Fidé’s easy going persona, progressive notions, and her subdued rebellion, Sana’s determination to marry Firas (who is also a co-worker) and Melek’s yearning to be reunited with her ex-boyfriend Abdou, can all be felt by viewers through fleeting moments in time. Meanwhile, Abdou, who has shown up for the seasonal work at the farm after an unannounced hiatus, and Firas locking horns with the foreman also help in understanding the northwest Tunisian milieu better.
Like the figs the teenagers pluck, some of the conversations between them are ripe with discovery and brimming with possibilities. Some, on the other hand, shine light on the sour spots in the relationships, especially between couples. The ensemble cast bringing the characters to life consists mostly of non-professional actors. The easy flowing body language and dynamics between the actors give away the fact that a lot of the scenes and dialogues were borne out of improvisation (as confirmed by the makers in their media interactions).
Except for the wide-angle shots seen in the introductory and end sequences, the rest of Under the Fig Trees unravels at the orchard. We see the characters and their personalities offering an intimate view into their lives, thanks to the deft camera work consisting mostly of mid and close up shots. It was perhaps Sehiri’s way of pointing to how the understated film seamlessly weaves together personal tales of the fig harvesters with the larger socio-cultural context they are set in. The peppering background score, folk music, and soundscape featuring low murmurs, dogs barking in the distance, birdsongs, and sound of footsteps add to the immersive experience.
The teenagers squabbling over their aspirations and beliefs, sharing their experiences, and chattering about their relationships over lunch are juxtaposed with the conversations between the older women. Tired from years of toil, their conversations are limited to their health and everyday lives, or marked by burgeoning silence. Matters of grave concern like sexual harassment, resentments, and mourning the loss of their unlived lives are brought to the fore too. But they also bring out the underlying sisterhood and camaraderie between the women.
Filmmaker Erige Sehiri’s background in documentary filmmaking — she helmed the 2018 documentary Railway Men based on the lives of railway workers managing Tunisia’s crumbling railway network — greatly lends to the observational gaze through which the film unravels, but it also limits the director from escalating the story further. Some sequences, especially towards the end of the film, seem a bit stretched.
The coming-of-age film, a co-production involving France, Tunisia, Qatar, Switzerland, and Germany, was selected as Tunisia’s official entry to Oscars 2023 under the category of ‘Best International Feature Film’. It was screened at Chennai International Film Festival on Tuesday, December 20 this year.
Watch the trailer of Under the Fig Trees here:
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film's producers or any other members of its cast and crew.