Porte Bagage ★★½

The titular baggage of Abdelkarim El-Fassi‘s first feature film, debuting in the Moroccan Panorama section of the Marrakech International Film Festival, is a double load: part the bunch of stubborn family members with whom the young protagonist ends up on a road trip, part the emotional ballast each of them carries. Noor (Ahlaam Teghadouini) is a talented chef wasting her skills in a Dutch pub and caring for her elderly father. Just as she gets a shot at her dream job in Paris, he is diagnosed with dementia. While she is crushed by the burden of filial duties, her father Musa (Mahjoub Benmoussa) carries his own bag of untold memories and buried regrets.

His time to share them with his loving daughter and much more distanced sons Hamsa (Sahil Amar Aïssa) and Farid (Mohammed Chaara) runs out, as his memory might fail him before his frail health will. As a lifelong friend of his dies, Musa decides to return to his native Morocco. Against her brothers’ wishes, Noor decides to bring him there, to be finally free to live her own life. It’s a tale told countless times on screen in varying forms: a family that is either disconnected or too closely attached or, as in the case of El-Fassi’s amiable debut, a mix of both, goes on a lengthy road trip which becomes a journey of emotional growth. 

While the simple plot makes no attempts to hide its predictable course, the underrepresented perspective of a Muslim Moroccan migrant family of first and second generation provides some fresh turns. Noor’s conflict of personal ambitions and family obligations resonates with collective dilemmas faced by many in the diaspora. This notion of reversed responsibility for an aging parent is increased by patriarchal gender dynamics that push female family members into the unpaid position of caretakers. Musa and Farid are oblivious to the seriousness of their father’s illness, and its physical and mental strain on their sister. Though the themes of conservative family structures remain a steady undercurrent to the straightforward story, they are never sufficiently explored. 

The same goes for Musa’s own past neglect towards his deceased wife and children whom he once left behind, just as Noor is about to leave her family. What appears to be emerging parallels in biographical development is in fact a juxtaposition. Musa’s past absence came from economic pressure and lack of options; Noor’s planned expatriation to Paris is full of promise and opportunity. Economic stability – or its absence – manifests as an underlying key factor that is never fully addressed. A somber scene in which Musa prays for Allah – and indirectly for his children – to forgive the past seems exemplary for the director-writer’s dramatic perspective. Simmering conflicts are literally left behind as the family moves – also literally – forward. 

Told with a confident lack of melodrama, the semi-biographical scenario thrives on El-Fassi’s own experience, professional and personal. Natural light and a color palette of saturated brown, black, and grey mirror the subtle sadness connected to the central aspect of loss. Loss of loved ones haunts all the characters through death, departure, or neurological decline. Sacrifice is inevitable and only changes its shape from family ties to personal fulfillment and vice versa. As the passing landscapes outside the car window shift, the external voyage mirrors the internal search for roots and reconciliation. The lateralized return views migration as a cyclical path, where homecoming and departure overlap across generations. The result is an occasionally bumpy road movie that carries lots of promise.