Love is...
In the autobiographical documentary Bezness as Usual, Dutch director Alex Pitstra (born Karim Alexander Ben Hassen), son to a Dutch mother and Tunisian father, tries to find his identity. The search leads him to his father’s dubious past as a playboy doing so-called ‘bezness’, a common phenomenon in popular tourist destinations where locals make a living of exploiting the desire for love and attention of wealthy Western tourists on their holiday. He investigates his parents’ failed marriage, examines his own relation to both his Swiss half-sister (from another of his dad’s European amorous adventures) and his father’s new family in Tunisia, and attempts to patch up the troubled relationship with his depressed mother who feels abandoned by Alex. These are only a few of the intriguing, intricately interwoven elements that constitute the film. Alex finds himself in the midst of clashing cultural values, such as love, family bonds, money, and loyalty, and desperately tries to reconcile them in an attempt to create some sense of unity .
Love is one such cultural value. Alex struggles to figure out his relationship to his father: does his father love him at all and if so, how is this love to be understood? He is afraid of being exploited by his father, of being nothing more than ‘bezness as usual’ to him. Rather than love and support, his father sends him requests for financial aid to support a business adventure or a visit to the dentist. However, we also come to discover that his father is equally disappointed in his son. He cannot understand why Alex is so reluctant to support him financially, because he assumes that his son is making money from the production of the documentary about him. So why wouldn’t he be entitled to at least a portion of that money?
So, we can ask, who is exploiting who? But the question somewhat misses the point. It appears to me that the expectations of both the father and the son are based on cultural assumptions about this relationship and that he signs of distrust merely indicate their mutual misunderstanding of it. Imagining Alex’s viewpoint, we could conclude that his father’s decades-long absence and sudden (predominantly financial) interest in him testifies to a cold and calculating personality and a lack of paternal love. By contrast, would we identify with the father, we would likely regard his son’s financial support as the best and most natural way of expressing and putting into practise his love for a relative.
Both are left wondering what they have done to deserve such treatment and why the other fails to love more? My best guess is that both are stuck in their own understanding of familial love and consequently fail to see the love the other tries to offer in his own culturally formed way.
The film does a compelling job in dramatically staging this culture war between father and son. Part of the appeal of the documentary is it’s honesty, the impression that it doesn’t try to hide any of the insecurities, doubts, and forms of petty self-centeredness of the son-cum-director on his path to reconciliation with his father and himself. No matter how awkward or tense the situation gets, the camera doesn’t look away and no cut to the next scene alleviates the viewer’s discomfort of having to witness these intimate family moments.
Bezness as Usual appeals to our empathic and imaginative capabilities by placing us in the midst of a familiar family tale. It enriches our understanding of the impact of cultural differences on our primary relations. As a piece of art, it gives concrete form to something abstract like cultural value. It reflects on cultural conflict by appealing to our human-being, our abilities of imagining, remembering, thinking and feeling far beyond reason and rational argument. The film couldn’t have come at a better time, as these abilities are essential for us Europeans now that we’re faced with so many cultural, religious, and ethnic others that urge us to reflect on our own identity.
