Exit Marrakech (2013)

Seventeen-year-old Ben is the son of divorced parents. On the last day of school before summer vacation, he is called to the headmaster of his boarding school, who thinks highly of him but is also worried that he is bored and not using his mind. He gives Ben Anna Karenina to read and urges him to make the most of his upcoming trip to Morocco and have some experiences. While Ben’s schoolmates are being picked up by their parents, he says goodbye to his mother only over the phone; she is at the airport, about to leave on a short concert tour in Paris. Ben flies to Morocco without much enthusiasm, to spend the summer vacation and celebrate his upcoming birthday in Marrakesh with his remarried father, Heinrich, who works there as a theater director. Heinrich has Ben picked up from the airport and brought to the theater, where he greets him with only moderate interest, surrounded by his theater colleagues. Ben and his father now live in a hotel, and it is clear that they have grown very distant from each other. Because he has diabetes, Ben has to check his blood sugar regularly and inject insulin. He sees the contradiction between the European culture being exported and the lives of the poor local population. Two local artists from the theater company’s circle take him on an evening outing in Marrakesh, which seems wild and strange to him, and he becomes infatuated with Karima, a prostitute. He spends the night with her, but tells her to sleep and declines to have sex, which both perplexes and attracts her. Karima asks him to sing to her in German. Somewhat awkwardly, he sings her the evening song. The conversation with Heinrich the next day, after Ben returns, goes badly for him. Heinrich has read Ben’s short stories, and does not like them very much: he finds them too sentimental and too American, and thinks that in the first story Ben has portrayed him inaccurately. Ben criticizes Heinrich for not taking an interest in the real Morocco, for just sitting in the hotel while reading (the American) Paul Bowles. Heinrich defends himself by saying that he has seen everything that interests him, that it is not as great as it used to be, and that imagination is often more exciting than reality. Ben then grabs his skateboard, packs a supply of insulin, rides into the city crowds and looks for Karima again. She has completely shed her appearance as a prostitute, has just packed her things, and is on her way to visit her family in the mountains. She asks Ben if he will take her to the bus. But, against her wishes, he does not get off the bus and spontaneously goes with her to her poor family in the countryside near Asni. Karima’s mother receives him very coolly. To avoid bringing further shame on the family, he is sent to sleep at the grandmother’s house. The next day, when no one else is there, Karima surprises him there while he is checking his blood sugar. She gives him a henna tattoo on his chest and sleeps with him. When Karima’s father and brother return to the village, their uncle tells them as soon as they arrive that Karima has brought a European man with her. Her brother goes for her and hits her. She fights back, hitting him in return, and makes it clear that she, not her brother, supports the family with her money. Her father throws her out of the house. Ben and Karima set off together and cross the Atlas using various rides from passing drivers; Ben wants to go to the desert. In Tinghir, Heinrich reaches Ben by phone and says he wants to come there. Ben ends the call in an argument. Karima finds shelter with an acquaintance in the prostitution scene and leaves Ben in the middle of the night, explaining that he cannot stay there overnight. When he asks if she will come with him to the desert, she asks rhetorically whether he would take her to Germany afterward. She has to stay here; her family needs the money. They lose each other. Ben leaves and finds a place to sleep on his own. There he notices that his phone is nearly out of charge, injures himself while checking his blood sugar, and angrily throws the testing device against the wall. The next day he hitchhikes farther toward the desert, where a local man offers to act as his guide and translator and take him into the desert. That evening, however, the man sees a photograph of Ben in a newspaper, in an appeal to find him. Ben reaches the desert, with its tourist infrastructure, and rides a sandboard down a dune. At the bottom, he is met by the police, whom his guide has called, and they take him with them. Meanwhile, Ben’s father has followed him and, with the help of the police and the search notice with Ben’s photo that he had arranged to have published in all the newspapers, finds him. On the several-day drive that follows, from the desert to the coast to meet Ben’s four-year-old half-sister Paula, they stay in isolated hotels and keep eating chicken. The two grow closer, not least through smoking pot together in the evenings, even though the father is more inclined toward alcohol. On a desert track, Heinrich lets Ben drive. After a wild ride, Ben suddenly stops because he feels sick and has to vomit. He spends the rest of the drive lying across the back seats, struggling with his nausea. That night, Heinrich, who keeps turning around to check on Ben, veers off the road, and their car tumbles down a slope over loose rocks. Ben climbs back up to the road, his strength fading, to get help for his father, who is trapped in the car. By now his blood sugar has fallen considerably, and Ben faints in front of an approaching car. Ben and Heinrich are rescued and taken to the town hospital the next day, where Ben’s mother picks him up. His father realizes that he owes his rescue to his son, and the two embrace. Finally, Ben does visit his father’s new family at the beach to meet his half-sister.