The Season of Men

A very beautiful film, but its bleached desert colors and flatter perspectives are less inviting, and the back-and-forth between present and past can occasionally be confusing.

The movie isn't entirely despairing. Near the end, it suggests that contemporary Tunisian women with enough fighting spirit can achieve a measure of autonomy, although the personal cost may be bitter. And the movie's sun-drenched views of life on the southern Tunisian island of Jerba are beautiful.

Visually unimpressive and laden with awkward dialogue; its primary interest doesn't lie in its storytelling but in its sociology -- in the window it opens onto a Muslim Middle Eastern society in transition.