Leyla Bouzid’s debut feature film, As I Open My Eyes, adeptly weaves the experience of one young woman into the events leading up to the Jasmine Revolution in 2011 which helped spawn the Arab Spring. The film shows how widespread state repression filtered into people’s daily lives, particularly those of a group of young rock musicians in whose band the protagonist, eighteen-year-old Farah, sings. Despite some refreshingly positive images of male masculinity offered by the film, it also raises issues of gender inequality and the continuing exclusion of women in Tunisia despite their active struggle for equal rights and the country’s relatively progressive laws.

Tunisia has a rich history of women fighting for independence and gaining rights in the independence era, and women have also have made great advances in Tunisian cinema, in which several important films by and about women have emerged. Two of the most notable of these focus, like Bouzid’s film, on mother–daughter relationships: Moufida Tlatli’s Silences of the Palace (1994), which examines the women working and living in the household of a powerful bey (local governor) on the eve of independence in the 1950s; and Raja Amari’s Satin Rouge (2007), which looks at the life of a middle-aged widow who breaks out of the monotony of her everyday life by taking up belly-dancing and taking on a younger lover.

In this film Farah is played by Baya Medhaffer, a young Tunisian actress who gives an outstanding performance as the charismatic, attractive, and outgoing lead singer in a local underground rock band. Her boyfriend, Borhène, played by the musician Montassar Ayari, is a lute player in the band. The opening scene, with a close-up of the pair intimately kissing, is unusually bold for Tunisian cinema, as is the tender and playful relationship between the two and the later scenes of lovemaking, which is portrayed sensually and without the typical coarseness of the so-called male gaze. The band rehearses in bars, which are predominantly male enclaves where Farah, with her colorful dresses and red lipstick, would probably be vulnerable without the presence of Borhène. Farah lives in an apartment with her mother, Hayet (Gallia Bengali). Her father, Mahmoud (Lassaad Jamoussi), has been posted away from Tunis at the Gafsa phosphate mines, apparently because he refused to join the governing party. This is the first hint in the film of the subject of political repression, and the mines themselves are a significant location, since this was one of the areas where workers rose up in 2011. Mahmoud also presents a positive model of masculinity and is more understanding toward his daughter’s desires than her mother and grandmother, who both want Farah to go to medical school. But she wants to follow a singing career and is determined to do so, in defiance of her female relatives.

For their upcoming live performance both Farah and Borden want to add song lyrics that are critical of the political corruption of the Tunisian state. But the youthful rebellious energy of the band is gradually destroyed by fear and repression as the police state and its heavy surveillance close in, slowly tearing it apart as one member of the band is revealed as an informant. Even this character, however, is portrayed with sympathy and subtlety, not as a straightforward villain but as someone who does not share the class privileges of the other band members and therefore is more fearful of the political direction the band is taking. Challenging the state is more deadly to those who have no connections, especially in a corrupt state such as Ben Ali’s.

The film’s plot is accompanied by a powerful soundtrack produced by the Syrian-born British composer Khyam Allami, who blended traditional Tunisian music with Arab lyrics (written by Ghassen Amami) into a rock fusion. Baya Medhaffer is an impressive actor and singer, and she delivers a captivating performance of the politically charged song My Country, first accompanied by Borhène on lute in the bar and then, to much applause, in their first club performance. The musical performances were filmed live, which gives them a slightly unpolished but wonderfully compelling feeling of immediacy, helped by Sébastien Goepfert’s superb cinematography and lighting.

The director has stressed in interviews that she intended to focus in the film on the repressive state and the fear it generates (see http://www.indiewire.com/2016/04/tribeca-2016-women-directors-meet-leyla-bouzid-as-i-open-my-eyes-202552/), although the film also reveals layers of gender inequality as Farah is gradually brought down by the system. One scene that stands out—and that is very uncomfortable to watch—occurs when Farah’s mother enters the bar frequented by the band. She is the only woman present, and the men fall silent as she walks among the crowded tables, transgressing the implicit segregation of this male domain and becoming reduced to the status of a gendered object. The scenes in which Farah is arrested and interrogated are similarly unsettling.

Another impressive scene—though it is brief—is the one in which Hayet, without giving prior warning, fires her domestic worker, Ahlam (Najoua Mathlouth). Here the film raises issues of race as well as class, showing the vulnerably of domestic workers who are nearly always subject to the whims and anger of employers. In an interview with Oliver Bartlet (“‘Coming to Terms with the Past Will Allow One to Continue’: Interview with Leyla Bouzid about As I Open My Eyes,” Black Camera 8 [1], 2016), Bouzid said that she wanted to show the friendship between Ahlam and Farah, although the film, as Bartlet suggests, fails to dig deep enough into the tenuous nature of such relationships within the restrictions and power imbalances of class and race. Interestingly, Najoua Mathlouth is a real-life domestic worker in the home of Baya Medhaffer.

Hayet herself is a complex and sympathetic character, despite her behavior toward her daughter and domestic servant. Although she tries to stifle Farah’s ambition, she is motivated by maternal protectiveness and clearly identifies with her daughter’s rebelliousness. The details of her past are blurry, but it seems that she had had some kind of relationship with a man now working in the Ministry of the Interior. Hayet uses this connection to free Farah from jail, and one is left to wonder what would have happened without this intervention.

Despite the oppressive atmosphere of the film, the demise of the band, and the destruction of Farah’s vibrance and naiveté, viewers are made aware throughout of the role played by youth in the huge upheaval that exploded into the Jasmine Revolution the following year. The film captures the far-reaching tentacles of the police state and the growing restlessness of youth and workers, which eventually led to the end of Ben Ali’s corrupt and brutal regime. As I Open My Eyes is a valuable contribution to Tunisian cinema and to the literature and film of the Arab Spring.