Re: [Leica] steve unsworth's photos....

[Guy Bennett <gbennett@lainet.com>]

>nice job steve -- both the color and the black and white serve your
>subjects well. i'm reminded of william betsch's book "the hakima, a
>tragedy in fez: love and death in fez" -- a convoluted picture / story
>book about a photographer who, while photographing in fez, comes across
>the story of a girl who may have been murdered by her mother (some
>witnesses say the girl was pushed) or may have comitted suicide (her
>mother says she jumped) all over the fact that she may (or may not) have
>been seen talking out the window to a man who was not her fiancee -- this
>tale gets back to her intended husband who decides she's used goods if
>she's been talking to men out her window and refuses to go through with
>the wedding .... the photographer becomes obsessed with this story, which
>wraps around some remarkable pictures of a remarkable place. including a
>fantastic series of a sheep having it's throat cut shot from a balcony
>above..... if you run across it, you should pick it up.
>
>kyle


I've got the book, and I think that the issue was not Hakima's verbal
intercourse with men through the window, but the sexual intercourse she was
believed to have had with a man other than he to whom she was to be
married. She was requested by her fiancé - who suspected a betrayal - to
have a virginity test (don't ask me how it was to be done!), to prove she
was still "intact." She refused, and shortly thereafter fell through the
2nd story window of the family home to her death. It was never determined
whether she was pushed or whether she jumped, and if she jumped, whether it
was because she was no longer a virgin and was afraid to be found out or
because she felt betrayed by her fiancé who doubted her innocence.

Betsch's book is an interesting, obsessive work, a descendant of Breton's
"Nadja," to a certain extent: fascination with a woman who is unobtainable
except in memory (and what better than photographs to evoke that memory),
whose life was played out according to rules that differed from those of
the author, and the meaning of whose life escapes the author, who can only
question himself about her existence and wonder if he ever really
understood what happened to her.

The photography did not get under my skin the way the story did.

Guy