Food in films: In Casablanca Angels Don't Fly
The opening film in the Date Palm Film Festival in Christchurch on Thursday night was an engrossing study of Moroccan life entitled In Casablanca Angels Don’t Fly. The three main characters are economic migrants, dreaming of their home villages, as they work at a minimum wage job in a bustling Casablanca café. It is a tragic tale, although occasionally shot through with moments of humour, of the struggles faced by village men who have to leave their families to work in a big city.
Given my love of Moroccan cuisine, the food depicted in the film made an immediate impact on me. I found myself peering behind the characters as they did their marketing in a colourful souk and wanting to look into the pots that the female characters stirred in their basic mud homes. Mint tea, an the national drink of Morocco, appeared on a regular, almost fetishistic, basis. The long narrow spouts of the teapots pouring a thin stream of hot sweet fragrant liquid into small glasses. I could feel the Boyfriend beside me, longing for his own glass of the brew.
Food aside, In Casablanca Angels Don’t Fly is a haunting and engrossing story. Worth checking out at an art house cinema near you.
