Desert is the star of a tale of Sufi mysticism

Director Nacer Khemir's film takes place on a desert journey to a Sufi dervish reunion that takes place every 30 years.

Dervishes, the mendicant sect of Sufi Muslims known to the West for their quasi-eponymous whirling, dance with one palm turned up, to receive the divine blessing, and one palm turned down, to communicate that blessing to the world. Likewise, director Nacer Khemir's new film "Bab'Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul," is divided between the transcendent and the imminent, between the desire to touch the heavens and the desire to touch the audience. Sadly, the film falls short on both counts, its potential beauty thwarted by Khemir's expressed desire to show "an Islam that is different from the one depicted by the media in the aftermath of 9/11."

The film opens with an ancient blind man (Parviz Shahinkhou) being led through endless deserts, like an Arabian King Lear, by his granddaughter Ishtar (Maryam Hamid). They are traveling to a dervish reunion that occurs every 30 years, and to pass the time the man tells Ishtar stories about a prince named Bab'Aziz, who one day sees his soul in a pool of water. It must be one heck of a soul, because Bab'Aziz gives up his kingdom to sit beside the pool and gaze into the depths, accompanied only by one loyal servant and a friendly gazelle. Naturally, Bab'Aziz and the old man are the same person, and Ishtar is listening to her grandfather's life story. As he tells it, the two pilgrims are joined by other travelers, who tell their own, equally allegorical tales.

More interesting than the stories themselves is their background - the sweeping, shifting deserts the characters traverse on their journey to the dervish reunion. "Bab'Aziz" was filmed in Iran and Tunisia, and its photography (by Mahmoud Kalari) conveys more effectively than anything else in the movie the dervish philosophy of life. Deserts force a harsh discipline on their inhabitants. They also force discipline on filmmakers: Most scenes in "Bab'Aziz" could only be filmed once, since the actors' footprints would disturb the pristine sandscape. Reshooting a sequence required moving to an entirely different location. That attention to detail helps create some of the most gorgeous desert photography committed to film, not to mention stunning glimpses of ancient palaces, mosques, and cities like Bam, the 2,000-year-old Iranian town that was destroyed by an earthquake in 2003, only a few months after Khemir finished shooting there.

Perhaps inevitably, the story and characters in "Bab'Aziz" never rival the interest of its photography. But director Khemir doesn't help matters with his well-meaning attempt to correct Western misconceptions of Islam: He portrays an idyllic civilization that feels just as one-dimensional as any fevered visions of Pat Robertson or Ann Coulter. Virtually without exception, Khemir's characters are pious, tolerant, friendly, and generous. Bab'Aziz is a fount of ancient wisdom, Ishtar an eager receptacle. The film is set in the present, but resolutely ignores current events in favor of pervasive nostalgia for the glorious past. When it comes to issues facing the contemporary Middle East - neo-colonialism, corruption, women's rights, religious and ethnic fundamentalisms - Khemir simply buries his head in the sand.

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