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Bab’aziz: The Prince who Contemplated his Soul

A clumsy fairy tale

By GERALD PEARY | April 23, 2008

2.0 Stars

BabAziz_inside

Bab’aziz: The Prince who Contemplated his Soul

In Nacer Khemir’s modern-day fairy tale from Tunisia, a blind, Santa-bearded whirling dervish named Bab’aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou) stumbles through the desert with Ishtar (Maryam Hamid), his chirpy granddaughter. They are seeking a place of holy celebration, where dervishes young and old gather and whirl about once every 30 years. As they travel, Bab’aziz tells Ishtar magical tales, like the one about the mighty prince who chases a gazelle and ends up, like Narcissus, staring at his image in an oasis pool. But as the stories clumsily pile up in a Sheherazade-like overload, audiences will wish to escape the sand. Arabic + Persian | 96 minutes | Kendall Square

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