"Morocco" - Film Review

Let’s set aside the fact that Morocco is filled fairly abundantly with Orientalism. Besides that though, what does the film offer us? Well, for starters it’s an entertaining, if a little lightweight and jumbled, story that tells a semi-atypical romance and stars a fantastic performance from Marlene Dietrich. 

Yes, this is some pretty blatant orientalism that constructs at times an exotic or backwards other in the natives of Morocco. Even the music that accompanies the shots of daily life is broaching on the offensive.

I hate to be an apologist for a film that features orientalism, but we have to take films in context and by 1930’s standards Morocco is pretty progressive. 

It’s an example of the themes pre-code Hollywood could get away with. The film at times has a rather sophisticated and nuanced exploration of gender and sexuality. The long sequence where we’re first introduced to Dietrich’s Amy Jolly is surprisingly provocative. She steps out centered staged, cross-dressed in a suit, and she gleefully looks out at the audience as they begin to jeer; but she soon wins over the crowd, singing a flirtatious French tune. By the end of the number, the crowd's taken such a liking to her that she’s able to kiss a female audience member and it causes raucous cheers. The female bears a bemused grin at Jolly, and both men and women whoop and holler. It’s an incredibly sexually charged scene that Dietrich carries with superb confidence and charisma.   

Dietrich is simply awesome. And I don’t mean in the conflated sense that the word has gained in recent years. I mean in the literal sense of the definition: she inspires awe and reverence. This is a strong female character who knows what she wants and who’s in control of her sexuality and her identity. 

Gary Cooper stars as Tom Brown, a legionnaire in the French Foreign Legion who’s a womanizer and who Jolly falls for despite herself. Cooper is probably a bit ill-suited for the part, almost too gruff with his deep mid-western drawl.

Thankfully the film makes this slightly more complicated than the average rom-com. The two are uncertain of their feelings, and Brown’s womanizing and Jolly’s desire for independence aren’t helping matters. 

Though the film's plot is a bit one-note, and it isn’t very well paced and the editing leaves something to be desired, it’s worth it for scenes like Dietrich’s tuxedo-garbed kiss which was scandalous back in 1930 and still as memorable today.

Grade: B-