Mirage

Another Sky (1954) - Lambert











A comely English Governess Rose (Victoria Grayson) arrives in bustling Marrakech, Morocco. She is hired by aging socialite Selena to keep her company and do house chores. She is escorted by Ahmed, a stoic Arab who shows her around the town. Even though she doesn't speak much French or Arabic, Rose gets by with the help of Ahmed, who seems to understand everything. One day at the party, thrown by a flamboyant American Bancroft at a former Sultan's palace, Rose lays her eyes on a young Arab musician, Tayeb. After several rendezvous arranged by Ahmed, Rose is head over heels for Tayeb. His sudden disappearance makes Rose to abandon everything and go on a whirlwind journey into the foreign desert landscape.

Writer Gavin Lambert, a friend of writer Paul Bowles (Shetering Sky, Up Above the World) perfectly captures the melancholy and loneliness of the desert in his only film. Elegantly photographed and with great local music, Another Sky is a beautiful film about magnetic force of the desert landscapes, being lost while searching for something unattainable, a mirage.

Melancholic Landscapes

Une femme en Afrique (1985) - Depardon



Photographer/director Raymond Depardon equates his unfulfilled desire with the vast, empty desert. The whole film is told by an unseen narrator observing a young, androgynous French woman/traveling companion (Françoise Prenant) as she mumbles back sweet nothing to the camera in various stages of undress. The main draw of the film is not the Woody Allenesque neurosis of the narrator. It's the scenery from Djibouti to Alexandria, seen from the balcony, train, boat and plane, mostly over the young woman's shoulders. Depardon captures the melancholy of the desert landscape like no other.