A Death in the Family: Bouzid Explores the Tolls of Open Secrets
What’s most expertly encapsulated in Tunisian filmmaker Leyla Bouzid’s third feature In a Whisper (À voix basse) is the quiet cruelty of the closet, the apparently immortal mechanism which continues to define the global experience of queer identities. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick expertly explored over thirty years ago with The Epistemology of the Closet (1990), the public suppression of queerness is a specifically calibrated performance of silence, and something that maintains an intergenerational chokehold across even the most progressively defined of contemporary cultures. Bouzid takes us to her native country, where homosexuality is still archaically penalized as an illegal ‘activity,’ though, as if often the case, it’s a law mainly applied to homosexual men, as women who are same sex lovers aren’t considered to be real, or, at the very least, not a serious ‘threat.’ But for one particular family, the closet door is about to be wedged open wide, perhaps indefinitely.
Lilia (Eya Bouteraa) has returned home to Tunisia for the funeral of her recently deceased uncle, Dayal. Having lived in Paris with her girlfriend Alice (Marion Barbeau) for several years, Lilia’s extended family remains suspicious about why, at the age of thirty-two, she remains unmarried and childless. Immediately, it becomes apparent her uncle died suddenly under mysterious circumstances, his body discovered naked, suggesting a heart attack during sexual intercourse. Her grandmother and aunt adamantly opposed an autopsy, which yielded no signs of foul play. Yet the police remain suspicious, prolonging an investigation. Finding love letters from her uncle to a male partner, Lilia delves into her uncle’s past, discovering her mother Wahida (Hiam Abbass) was sympathetic towards her dead brother’s reality as a closeted gay man in a country which deems such an existence illegal.
In several ways, In a Whisper plays like the less drastic version of Georgian director Elene Naveriani’s 2021 drama Wet Sand, which similarly details the discovery of queerness when a granddaughter goes home to wade through the communal dysfunction in which her gay grandad presumably hung himself. Significant vitriol hangs over Naveriani’s village like a dark cloud and distress defines nearly every moment of exploration. Bouzid’s confidently inquisitive film feels a bit more hopeful, if perhaps because Lilia is forced to confront her own resentful placement in the closet. While there’s not ever really a moment of palpable danger, Lilia’s sudden spurt of rebelliousness when confronted with the secretive whispers about her uncle leads to a compromised reckoning.
Eya Bouterra’s performance deftly centers the film, though, as Bouzid’s title suggests, this is not a narrative aiming for explosive confrontation. At moments, she even becomes an amateur sleuth, questioning several of her dead uncle’s comrades who she speaks with at a clandestine queer space. Likewise, Lilia acts as an agent of closure for her uncle’s ex, conveying undelivered love letters exploring sentiments that he couldn’t express in person. Perhaps unwisely, her partner Alice inserts herself in the mourning rituals, forcing the couple to contend with dimensions of their life they’d been avoiding. A sense of catharsis evolves between Lilia and her mother, played by the exceptional Hiam Abbass, perhaps the only family member who feels remorse about Dayal’s oppression. But theirs is a reconciliation dependent upon a continued subtlety, and while a hard won understanding might be on their horizon, Bouzid doesn’t offer easy solutions, only small steps towards progress for those struggling to embrace their authentic selves while also committed to familial relationships demanding their reality remain invisible.
Reviewed on February 13th at the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival (76th edition) – Main Competition. 113 mins.
★★★/☆☆☆☆☆