This tender and sad drama should come with the opposite of a content warning: a reassuring note at the start to explain that no physical harm or public humiliation will come to the gay men whose story we are about to watch. It’s set in Morocco where homosexuality is a criminal offence, and for the first half an hour I assumed the emotional brace position, convinced it would end in arrest or worse for its lead character. But instead, the film’s director Maryam Touzani had put together a gentle, complex film: a love story between a gay man and his wife.
Ridiculously good-looking Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri’s handsome face is hidden away behind a caterpillar-like moustache to play Halim, a master tailor who makes hand-embroidered women’s caftans. Like Daniel Day-Lewis’s couturier in Phantom Thread, Halim is an obsessive artist, refusing to use a sewing machine and infuriating his rich customers by keeping them waiting for his masterpieces. His elegant wife Mina (Lubna Azabal) runs front of shop.
