A Thousand Months (2003)

Three friends strive to preserve their loyalty to each other in spite of a corrupt society. These young men live in Tétouan, an impoverished Moroccan city. Soufiane, the youngest, spends his days pilfering. Allal, the oldest, is trying to gain a foothold as a drug dealer. Malik falls in love with Dounia who works as a prostitute in a night club. The three friends part to make their own way in life, but before long it looks as though their futures will founder in a maelstrom of violence, greed, jealousy and betrayal. Seeing no other way out, they decide to get together and raid a jeweller’s shop. The film opens with Malik walking towards Dounia, silently laughing. Behind her, knots of video tape float up from a rubbish dump like paper dragons. Faouzi Bensaïdi gives his relaxed young actors plenty of room to manoeuvre. His work casts a spell on account of a visual style that is both laconic and pow- erful and demonstrates how each friend’s dream of happiness only serves to drive a wedge between them. Beneath permanently leaden city clouds they nonetheless find a way to treat each other with gen- erosity and trust.