Facing the Unexpected: Lessons From Androman

Part 1:

1. There is a stark contrast between the lush, vibrant landscapes shown – cliffs, dense forests, flowing rivers – and the poverty and lack of development seen in the Amazigh village. The landscapes reflect the natural beauty of the land and environment the Amazigh have inhabited for centuries. However, the mud-brick homes and lack of economic opportunities are different from the richness of the landscapes surrounding them. This highlights the paradox that despite living on such lands for so long, the Amazigh still need to benefit from or leverage the assets around them entirely.
2. The fqih (religious leader) met with the tribal leaders to discuss the critical issue that Oushen has bearing only daughters. This threatens the passing down of his land, as property can only be passed to sons in this patriarchal context. The tribesmen suggest Oushen take a second wife, hoping she can bear him a son and heir. However, the FQIH disagrees with polygamy being the answer. He recommends that Oushen accept his fate with his family.
3. The shepherd Mhand gifts Androman a spinning top with fused carved male and female figures. This symbolizes the combination and fluidity between genders. The top’s dancing motifs foreshadow Androman’s gender-nonconforming behavior and identification. Throughout the film, she binds her chest, wears male clothing, and ultimately races the other boys – further blending gender boundaries. The dual male and female art shows such fluidity has always existed, though repressed and predicts Androman channeling that ancestral duality.
4. Oushen is constantly anxious, shouting, and emotionally volatile because he desperately wishes for a son to prevent losing his landholding. Sons exclusively inherit property in this Amazigh village. His economic desperation culminates in stealing sacks of charcoal from the shared government depot. This theft risks severe punishment, emphasizing his spiral into poverty and powerlessness from having only daughters (Who Are the Amazigh of North Africa? n.d.).
5. Androman’s silence as the main protagonist highlights her inner anguish over her complex gender identity contrasting with her sex assigned at birth. Though perceived as female, she cannot voice her feelings of being male. Her silence symbolizes the inability to externally manifest or explain her internal gender conflict to those around her. It also allows the audience to project their reactions onto her journey.
6. Androman tries to fit the outer female gender presentation into her internal male identity during the film. That is putting her into a tight corset, dressing in loose male shirts, and eventually outrunning the local boys–pretending to be one of them. Each act of escaping in pursuing her authentic gender self amidst others’ external pressures to be “feminine.” Nonetheless, such instances starkly contrast the internal struggles portrayed via her silence and gaze.
7. On the one hand, Androman’s youngest sister, Rqia, stands for innocence, purity, and an absence of societal dictates that force girls to behave stiffly. Rqia is a free-spirited girl who loves to play with boys without limits – opposite to the veiled Androman’s cloistered teenage years when she disguised herself as a man, hiding all that made up her inner self. It means a childhood wherein gender diversity and expression are not compelled but accepted instead. Nevertheless, she could quickly suffer a similar fate as her sister.
8. The men are shocked as an official from the government brings a camera to photograph them for their ID cards. Others shrink, others leap about, and some just hide. The fear they display acts as the metaphor for conflict that their native culture and traditional way of life is being replaced by state bureaucracy and record keeping. The story also demonstrates their powerlessness before external interstate power, just like they dominate the women in the village.

Part 2:

1. Yes, and calling the main character ‘Androman’ after the hardy amazigh tree growing through and on top of the ‘Atlas’ mountains expressly denotes how she bravely sprouted her inner masculinity notwithstanding society’s restrictions upon her. Like the hardy trees that can survive challenging situations, Androman persists in showing his male identity even if it is forbidden. It follows the broader resilience of Amazigh society in the face of outside coercion but still retaining its cultural traits in years of occupation.
2. This peddler turns to the beautiful woman and points out to her how bad she appears before he leaves. These village women stopped buying beauty products in their protests. Patriarchy leads to jealousy between female individuals, measured by attractiveness. The value of their existence lies in their appearance, which determines a man’s choice. It demonstrates brutal norms of beauty determining value through formation. However, the women get together and dance, affirming their feminism without having to compete for attractiveness in the male’s sight.
3. The son’s preference is linked with the village’s inheritance custom, where only the son can get the ancestral piece of land. Having a son also passes down the family name and lineage – integral in a patriarchy where men continue the family tree. Lack of inheritance access concentrates land wealth among male heirs over generations. Women become increasingly impoverished without property rights, as seen among village widows. Denying women’s economic access reinforces the overall poverty and stagnation.
4. When Androman is tattooing her chin (a marker of masculinity), the young girl questions why she would want to try becoming a girl. This reveals the assumption in their binary gender framework that Androman must be a girl who is trying to transition towards being female rather than the actual case of a girl identifying as male. It relates to societal insistence on categorical, rigid definitions of male vs female with no fluidity between or beyond.
5. the film draws upon imagery of Mhand’s noble character coming to the rescue to portray him as almost a mythological hero. His mysterious backstory, closeness to nature (bees respond to him), and ethical sense of justice in protecting the vulnerable Androman enhance his special aura. However, unlike a genuinely supernatural mythic savior, Mhand disappears by the end, apparently after dying from disease. His mortality makes the closure bittersweet.
6. By showing Androman defiantly facing the village’s fastest boys and ultimately winning, the film suggests that through enough courageous persistence, prevailing over patriarchal limitations is possible, though difficult. Nevertheless, long-term transformation could only be achieved through addressing deeply ingrained socio-economic problems such as women’s rights. This is called an open-ended ending because even though just one girl wins an unlikely victory, it doesn’t mean all girls now have the opportunity or the power – as such, this contradicts the whole idea of the movie.
7. It shows intersecting oppression against Androman’s multiple identities as an “other.” She is a young Amazigh girl who suffers from ethnic discrimination. She does not have any right to inheritance because, as a girl in a highly patriarchal society. She is born as a girl but has male traits and can be described as a gender-fluid –a masculine-inclined child who suffers due to these restrictive binary gender roles. This leaves her even more vulnerable, powerless against all these aspects. She is a girl from an underprivileged background whose father was in the Charcoal caste.

References

Crossing Confessional Boundaries: Exemplary Lives in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Traditions 9780520962903. (n.d.). Dokumen.pub. Retrieved December 7, 2023, from https://dokumen.pub/crossing-confessional-boundaries-exemplary-lives-in-jewish-christian-and-islamic-traditions-9780520962903.html

El Hamel, C. (Ed.). (2012). Black Morocco: The Internal African Diaspora. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/black-morocco/black-morocco-the-internal-african-diaspora/1E615E5ECC2BD433601FEECC9742A94A

The Amazigh language: between the risk of extinction and the hope of victory. (2021, August 10). Minority Rights Group. https://minorityrights.org/2021/08/10/amazigh-documentary-en/

Who is the Amazigh of North Africa? (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved December 7, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swh8898LBps&feature=youtu.be