This article aims to analyze the representation of work in Moroccan cinema, particularly that of the director Hakim Belabbes. While the Moroccan filmmaker is known for his strong commitment to capturing the various sociocultural and psychological aspects of his hometown, Béjaâd, and particularly for showcasing the misery and simplicity of its inhabitants, the article seeks to examine the extent to which work is also represented as suffering and pain within the framework of a «Cinema of the Poor.».
The study focuses on the thematic analysis of certain films by Belabbes; a diverse corpus in terms of film genres, including documentaries, short films, and feature films, as well as the nature of the corpus, which encompasses text, sound, and image.
This article sets out to study the role that art can play in preserving memory. In this regard, a good example to serve the purpose would be the cinema of the Moroccan director Hakim BELABBES who tries to mobilize his cinematographic works as a ‘weapon’ to preserve the collective memory of his hometown Bejaad. To this end, the Moroccan filmmaker tries to represent several realistic themes that always allow a revisiting of the past and memory. In his cinema, both in its subjective and realistic dimensions, BELABBES tries to capture time through places, rituals, the testimony of the inhabitants, art and trades, etc. It is a great challenge to resist disappearance, oblivion and death. The article also sheds light on the relationship between the subjectivity of the author of cinema and the success of a work on memory.
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