Chants et vies de femmes dans Les Silences du palais de Moufida Tlatli

Abstract

In her film, Les Silences du palais Moufida Tlatli depicts a young woman, following her steps of a forgotten past. When the character Alia returns to the palace where she spent her childhood and adolescence, we discover, through her memories, the daily life of the domestic servants in the service of the beys. The film-maker takes her viewers back to the pre-independence era, suggesting an unbroken legacy of women as their masters' slaves since time immemorial. This article explores the different types of violence and suffering that Tlatli evokes as she brings to light this forgotten feminine past, and as she captures Alia's stolen past on camera. This study examines the way in which the eye of the camera displays a feminine history and creates a metalanguage to project onto the screen the silent suffering of these women. It is with the help of the songs and the gaze, which take over the silence, a golden rule in the palace, that the camera unveils what it meant to be a domestic servant. It is this silence that becomes a mode of resistance that Tlatli captures, because between silence and resistance a bond is created allowing women to be reborn.