‘Strawberries’ Review: A Potent but Flawed Moroccan Migrant Drama

Stories about exploited migrant workers have become something of a mainstay in international cinema, rightly so given the tenacious hold this form of indenture — or worse — continues to have on the Global North. They also make for good cinema: who doesn’t want to root for people oppressed by the henchmen of rampant capitalism? Laïla Marrakchi’s “Strawberries” seeks to shake up the formula by making her protagonist a more flawed, at times even unlikable character who generates ambivalent feelings in the viewer, yet the script doesn’t delve deep enough into her bad choices. Subtlety is good, but a drop more insight wouldn’t go amiss. In addition, the extreme naïveté of the Spanish do-gooder lawyer is an out-of-place cliché in a film whose cinematic potency and multifaceted performances testify to Marrakchi’s strengths.

The excellent opening successfully crams in a lot of information without feeling artificial: close-ups of a succession of inspected hands shot from above convey the idea that these women are interchangeable labor, nothing more. €35 a day to pick strawberries in the Spanish province of Huelva is tantamount to slave wages, but for these Moroccan women, it means earning enough to send money back home. Tense, uptight Hasna (Nisrin Erradi, “Everybody Loves Touda”) is especially determined to start work, driven by a need she’s not willing to share. With her on the crossing is quiet, hijab-wearing Meriem (Hajar Graigaa), with whom she’ll be sharing cramped living quarters in a prefab container with giggly Zineb (Hind Braik) and older Khadija (Fatima Attif). Next to her bunk, Hasna sticks up a newspaper article about her winning a gold medal in taekwondo, alongside a photo of a boy: these are the only clues to her life before.

Conditions at “Fresa del Carmen” are arduous but the women keep their heads down since protesting would jeopardize their meagre earnings. Besides, no one speaks Arabic, including the useless union rep Antonio (Nando Pérez), who’s clearly a tool of the owner. Days are spent in back-breaking labor picking strawberries in long plastic-covered greenhouses, while off hours are limited by language barriers, lack of money and the control exerted by the camp foremen. With only themselves to support each other, a sense of camaraderie prevails, but that’s broken when owner Iván (Paco Mora) comes into the shower room and orders Hasna to leave, clearly intent on raping Meriem.

It’s a bold narrative choice, one which immediately alienates Hasna from our sympathies even as we seek to comprehend why she’d abandon her coworker to an unambiguously violent scenario. We can understand Hasna’s dilemma, since protecting Meriem would likely mean losing her ability to earn much-needed cash, and the consequences of using her taekwondo skills on Iván could be severe. Yet the script needs to offer a little more clarity to Hasna’s backstory at this point, because by the time more is revealed, we’re unable to shake the very negative feelings generated by her betrayal. Equally problematic is the way all the other women basically abandon Meriem, who’s clearly traumatized even though she doesn’t reveal what happened. Adding insult to injury, Hasna accuses Meriem of using her body to get a cushier, better paying job as maid inside the boss’ luxurious home.

It’s not the sexual assault that finally gets Hasna riled up but the sudden lack of work – only then does she start to complain. Shortly after, Meriem is denied medical attention when she miscarries, leading Hasna to finally approach young human rights lawyer Pilar (Itsaso Arana), who she contacts through sympathetic local shop worker and organizer Ali (Mohamed Larbi Ajbar). From here “Strawberries” starts to become very predictable, with Pilar utterly clueless about conservative Moroccan society and local authorities treating the migrant workers with disdain. Of course these attitudes not only exist but are rampant, yet putting them into a film requires a rejection of one-dimensionality in the same way that Marrakchi (“Marock,” “Rock the Casbah”) goes to great lengths to ensure Hasna’s character isn’t simply an important social issue on which to suspend a plot.

More successful is the overall atmosphere of the workers’ camp and farm, conveying a sense of oppression even without visible fencing. It’s not only the coercion within the circumscribed spaces where the women work and live, which chips away at their initial solidarity, but the disregard of the world outside, where even those wanting to be their champions are so blinded by their first world conceptions that they’re incapable of being the advocates these women desperately need. Hasna’s problematic actions are meant to be seen through this lens, alongside the gradual revelation of her life back in Morocco, yet our interest in sticking with her comes more from Erradi’s compellingly flinty performance than the flawed character development.

Equally grabbing our attention is the overall mise-en-scène, with DP Tristan Galand (“Souleymane’s Story”) wielding a camera that roves along the endless rows of greenhouses, settling alongside the women with slightly nervous movements that help manifest their instability in this environment. The sudden shift of vision inside Iván’s house, with its more neutral lighting and fixed frame, acts as a necessary contrast, also conveyed through perceptive editing.