The disregarded wishes of the elderly are the subject of a new film from writer-director Maryam Touzani, director of The Blue Caftan, who is making her Spanish language debut with a film that was Morocco’s entrant for best international feature at the 2025 Oscars. Calle Malaga was not shortlisted, but this is another triumph for Touzani, who has made her name as a cinematic curator of intimate human experiences.

In a film she dedicates to her own grandmother, Touzani looks at that awkward period that arrives in the lives of some families, when a beloved piece of property must be sold for the financial stability of multiple generations, irrespective of whether there may still be someone living in it. That someone is Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura), who has been living in Tangier, in a family home most of her family has subsequently abandoned as they’ve migrated to Madrid. The home is certainly larger than a single septuagenarian needs, and will fetch enough money to help Maria and her daughter Clara (Marta Etura), part of the Madrid family, pay the bills.

Clara is a good example of the type of adult child who means well and has good intentions, but has let her desperate situation run roughshod over her senses of tact and finesse. She’s offered to have Maria come live with them in Madrid – believing Maria’s only possible connection to Tangier could be her best friend, nun Josefa (Maria Alfonsa Rosso) – but she’s also dropped the idea of an assisted living facility in Tangier, one with an opening and not an exorbitant cost.

Maria is out to prove that she needs no assistance in the endeavour of living. Although she agrees to stay in Tangier via the assisted living facility, which entails clearing out her house and selling the furniture to local shops, she sneaks back in after her daughter returns to Spain, quietly reassembling a facsimile of what was there before through barters with local shop owners. In fact she takes it one step further, developing a new relationship with one shop owner (Ahmed Boulane) and even turning her living room into a lively venue for neighbourhood locals to watch a beloved football team. It may not be a sustainable strategy, but as a last hurrah, she also hopes that it’s more than just a symbolic stand.

It isn’t entirely clear what Maria’s strategy is when she first checks herself out of the predictably dispiriting assisted living facility. Touzani allows us to steadily understand her protagonist’s intentions, however short-sighted they may be, through her actions. But Touzani’s also got a keen eye for setting the stage of this neighbourhood, which shows us why Maria is so comfortable here, and so reluctant to leave. (Calle Malaga, translated to English, is “Malaga Street,” the location of her home.)

Clara’s assumption is that because Maria is Spanish by birth and not culturally Moroccan, she would lift right out of a place where she has always been, essentially, a foreigner. But we can see just how much things like the local market are part of her fulfilling daily rituals, and that home is not necessarily where you were born, but where you thrived.

The portrayal by Carmen Moura in the lead role is quietly dignified, never resorting to cheaper plays for our sentiment. Maria won’t be an emotional beggar. Even though the power has shifted such that her daughter is now the one calling the shots, Maria won’t turn herself into a child dependant on the clemency of her own daughter. She states her piece about her living preferences, but when it becomes clear Clara has other plans, Maria’s wheels start turning on alternatives.

The sophistication of Calle Malaga extends to its portrayal of Clara. A less nuanced filmmaker would make Clara more monstrous in the packing up and shipping out of her mother, but Calle Malaga allows us to ultimately see the toll this has on Clara, in a very moving scene. For the plot to proceed as intended, Clara must remain ignorant of her mother’s movements for most of the movie, but we also know that can’t last forever. Seeing what this desperate situation has cost her, emotionally, is one of the ways Calle Malaga delivers home its themes in potent ways.

Neither is the film purely ponderous. There’s some wicked humour in here as well, some of it of a sexual nature, both in terms of Maria’s new relationship, and in terms of others she catches with their pants down. The fact that she relates all this stuff to Josefa, who has taken a vow of silence and can only react with her facial expressions, is a priceless bit that Touzani might not have needed, but serves as a grace note on top of the more serious underlying plot elements.

This is not just a story of ageing and of fighting against the dying of the light. It’s a story of people compelled to make difficult decisions under unfavourable economies, an evergreen theme that has particular relevance at the moment. That it also functions as a guide for the septuagenarians in its audience, who still have a few last chances to live life to its fullest, is just a bonus.

 

Calle Malaga opens tomorrow in Australian cinemas.