Salvation Army

Abdellah Taa, a native of Morocco who now lives and works in Paris, reportedly drew from his own life for his novel "Salvation Army." Now that novel is a film, adapted and directed by Taa.

It's a film sure to raise hackles in the Arab world -- perhaps among certain elements of the Western world, also. The gay protagonist, also named Abdellah (Sad Mrini), is an adolescent when he's first introduced to the audience. He's sexually hungry, and both initiates and submits to sexual encounters with older men in his neighborhood. He also crushes big time on his older brother, a straight guy named Slimane (Amine Ennaji).

Abdellah's family is large -- he has eight siblings in all, including a younger brother named Mustapha (Hamza Slaoui) -- and its dynamics are complicated, sometimes shocking: His father (Abdelhak Swilah) beats his mother (Malika El Hamaoui); his mother resorts to superstition, using a talisman, to prevent Slimane from getting too interested in women. When the three brothers all go on a holiday, their mother warns Abdellah not to let his older brother go off with any prostitutes, but what she says next -- to the effect that, "He belongs to us, he must remain with us" -- suggests that what she's really worried about is that he'll find a wife someday and start a family of his own. It's a dread that Abdellah shares, for reasons of his own.

Given such a sexually repressed environment, it's no wonder Abdellah yearns to escape. The most promising avenue out? Prostitution. The film doesn't rub our faces in the subject at too great a length, but it's obvious, when we jump ahead ten years to find Abdellah (now played by Karim Ait M'hand) being kept by a Swiss academic, that he's decided it's worth selling his body in order to free his spirit.

But only so far, and only so long. If selling his companionship is a means to escape, it's not an end unto itself; once he's on the streets of Geneva, the older Abdellah has a choice as to how he will make his way from here on out.

Taa's lens observes Morocco, and its youthful protagonist's family, without illusion, but also preserves a sense of affection. The older Abdellah demonstrates a hardened shell, but it's for self-preservation during a difficult passage; when he comes face to face with the truths an angry ex-lover hurls at him, he's well on his way to winning his own inner battle.

Light years ahead of the typical coming out / rent boy tale, this is a story of how sexual minorities -- their true selves submerged even in the midst of their own people -- struggled to carve out a sense of identity, dignity, and self-direction.