Une histoire d'amour et de désir is a French-language film by the Tunisian director and screenwriter Leyla Bouzid. The film follows Ahmed, a Frenchman born to Algerian immigrants in Paris' working-class suburbs, to the Sorbonne, where he is beginning his studies of literature on a scholarship. There he meets Farah, a young Tunisian woman who is in several classes with him, including one on Arabic erotic literature.

A mutual attraction quickly develops between Ahmed and Farah, but the blossoming relationship runs into the obstacle of their differing personalities and cultural values. Ahmed is shy and traditional, sufficiently scandalized by the erotic literature whose existence he was hitherto unaware of to look into changing classes. Farah is outgoing and fun-loving, easily mixing with the other students at the Sorbonne while Ahmed struggles to fit in. She directly pursues her interest in Ahmed, but he hesitates, held back by his timidity, lack of experience, and reluctance to violate the rules around romance maintained by the relatively traditional Muslim community that he grew up in.

Leyla Bouzid does an especially effective job of capturing Ahmed's nervous discomfort around the less-inhibited Farah, who openly discusses men and sex with a girlfriend and indulges the French boys who chat her up in cafés or on street corners. Bouzid's direction is confident and skillful, featuring lots of striking shots and sequences along with a soundtrack that fits the film perfectly, and Zbeida Belhajamor's performance as Farah captivates in a way that makes it easy to understand Ahmed's attraction to her.

The film deftly examines Ahmed's struggle to deal with the conflict between the traditional values he grew up with and the cosmopolitan and liberal university environment he has entered, as well as the fraught experience of overcoming one's inhibitions to find love. (And as a bonus, the romantic scenes take on an extra charge difficult to find in other modern films thanks to their transgression of the traditional norms that have thus far governed Ahmed's life.) Une histoire d'amour et de désir is an intelligent and touching film that takes on complex subjects with nuance and empathy.

The Scheherazade stream of Arab love themes pervades this piece; a Tunisian girl in Paris meets a French Arab boy who like many from his background is stuck between two cultures unable to fully commit to either add to that the fact that he does not know Arabic but still has all the values of rural Algeria although he has never been been there and carries that in him like a secondhand culture his parents brought him up in

The two meet at The Sorbonne to study Erotic and Courting Literature from Medieval Arab Lands and Lore and develop a very strong attraction for one another

The struggle here ironically is the young bilingual and REALLY bilingual; her French is better than 90% of Native French and flawless in her speech; bicultural young student woman who tries to awaken the boy from 93 the ghetto Eastern part of suburban Paris where the French "garrisoned" the Moghrebi workers in the 1960s; places which have become synonymous with unrest ghettoization and total lack of opportunity and almost zero chance of integration all the way to 2022

He is stiff and reluctant and steeped in the culture of the "bled" the villages back home; although back home for him is/should be Paris; 93 Paris

It shows a lot of the themes which trouble that section of the French population; a population which could be termed as "The New French" many of them rudderless; in search of an identity that is not the bled and not Native French; they are seeking new hybrid forms

The theme of Arab lit from the 13th century replete with sensuality and wine is one of the elements here too; the side of Arab culture which Islam does not condone and at times spurns and vilifies

It is an extremely well-handled piece; very balanced the two main actors are truly excellent as is the supporting cast. The director here shows real maturity. Will want to see more from her in the future.