Young Noura is taken frequently to the public baths by his mother. Growing interested in women’s bodies, he is ejected from the feminine milieu in which he has felt comfortable, into the unaccustomed realities of a man’s world. Surprisingly frank in its depiction of sexuality (eavesdropping on a group of women as they make ribald jokes about cucumbers), the film offers a stylish, attractive take on the rigid sexual divide of Arab society, and was a considerable hit in Tunisia.

Tunisia 1990/Dir Férid Boughedir.
With Selim Boughedir, Rabia Ben Abdallah.
98 mins.