J’ai tant aimé…

“My girl, don’t believe in this worldly existence. Old age is quick to arrive and transforms us beyond recognition.” In front of the mirror, Fadma contemplates her wrinkled face, her scrawny worn-out body. The mirror is cruel and flaunts her fatigue, her poverty, her solitude and her situation as a beggar. The price of love. “I’m a victim of love. I was used to a life of plenty, I cried so hard the first day I went begging.” The mirror is also generous and reflects youth’s beauty and health, the happy moments of abundance, times when love’s victim was the high priestess of French army brothels in Indochina, where the monies paid by the Moroccan fusiliers did not preclude the favours of French officers. Morocco at Hoa Binh. (Yann Lardeau)