As I Open My Eyes

A headstrong singer in an underground band pushes back against the strictures in her life in As I Open My Eyes, Layla Bouzid’s impressive first feature. Set in Tunisia the summer before that country’s 2011 Jasmine Revolution, the drama follows 18-year-old Farah (Baya Medhaffer) as she chafes at her mother’s attempts to control her curfew, her academic future and the time she spends with her group. Farah lives for secret moments with her boyfriend, Borhéne, and their forays into the nightlife of Tunis. Stringing together images of quiet cobblestone alleyways, rowdy “men’s bars” and daily domestic routines, Bouzid’s depiction of Farah’s awakening and her mom’s mounting anxiety feels deeply rooted in female experience under a repressive regime. Newcomer Medhaffer sparkles as Farah, who is radiant onstage and at one point complains, “I’m sick of always having to be careful.” Simultaneously intelligent, rebellious and naive, she’s articulate in the face of oppression without full awareness that the stakes are high—and that government-sanctioned cultural policing is real. Part mother-daughter relationship drama and part political statement, As I Open My Eyes offers a nuanced record of the simmering unrest that propelled Tunisians to overthrow their corrupt government and spark the Arab Spring. —Erin Klenow