#689: EL MAÂNOUNI, Ahmed: Trances (1981)
MARTIN SCORSESE'S WORLD CINEMA PROJECT {Spine #684}
Commentary
None.
Introduction
To the film by Martin Scorsese.
Program
Featuring interviews with director Maânouni, producer Izza Génini, musician Omar Sayed, and Scorsese.
Extras Rating (0-40):
EL MAÂNOUNI, Ahmed (Morocco)
Trances [1981]
Spine #689
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
The beloved Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the dynamic subject of this captivating musical documentary. Storytellers through song, with connections to political theater, the band became an international sensation (Western music critics have often referred to them as "the Rolling Stones of North Africa") thanks to their political lyrics and sublime, fully acoustic sound, which draws on the Moroccan trance music tradition. Both a concert movie and a free-form audiovisual experiment, Ahmed El Maânouni's Trances is cinematic poetry.
88 minutes
Color
Color
Monaural
in Arabic
1:60:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2013
Director
Screenplay by Ahmed El Maânouni.
Maânouni was 37 when he directed Trances.
The Film
The Film
The first restoration of Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, this film captures performances by the amazing Moroccan group Nass El Ghiwane. This “trance” music is entirely acoustic, consisting only of different drums, a guembri, and a fretless banjo — and, of course, their voices singing in passionate Arabic.
The band members (Omar Sayed, Larbi Batma, Abderrahman “Paco” Kirouche, and Allal Yaâla) are interviewed in several different settings.
Two memorable scenes:
- Many krakeb players accompany the guembri;
- Yaâla discussing a microtonal scale.
Film Rating (0-60):
“In spearheading the project to film Nass El Ghiwane, Génini and El Maânouni made an inestimable contribution not just to Moroccan and world musical patrimony — Nass El Ghiwane were in the vanguard of what is now popularly called ‘world music,’ and their influence extends to such Western musicians as Peter Gabriel — but also to human rights. The well-known Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun understood this when he saw Nass El Ghiwane perform in Paris in 1978. The audience, he tells us, was made up primarily of immigrant workers and their families, enraptured by the group’s ‘singing of the earth and dreaming of “a generation where there will be neither master or slave.”’ Today, a Western audience can easily grasp that Nass El Ghiwane were an early augur of the recent Arab Spring. As Marcel Duchamp once famously said, ‘it’s spectators who make a work of art.’ And the revolution.”
Commentary
None.
Introduction
To the film by Martin Scorsese.
Program
Featuring interviews with director Maânouni, producer Izza Génini, musician Omar Sayed, and Scorsese.
Extras Rating (0-40):
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