COUS COUS (France 2007)Wednesday, 14th January 2009Evening Performance starts at 7.30 p.m.
COUSCOUS
(LA GRAINE ET LE MULET)
France, 2007. Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche from his own
screenplay. Photography (Colour): Lubomir Bakchev.
Certificate: “15”. Length: 154 minutes. Leading Players:
HABIB BOUFARES (Slimane), HAFSIA HERZI (Rym), MARZOUK
BOURAOUÏA (Souad), HATIKA KARAOUI (Latifa), SAMI ZITOUNI
(Majid), ALICE HOURI (Julia), ABDELHAMID AKTOUCHE (Hamid),
LEÏLA D’ISSERNIO (Lilia), FARIDAH BENKHETACHE (Karima),
CYRIL FAVRE (Sergueï), SABRINA OUAZANI (Olfa), NADIA TAOUIL
(Sarah), MOHAMED BENABDESLEM (Riadh), ABDELKADER
DJELOULLI (Kader).
Set in the south of France and filmed on the coast in the port of Sète, Couscous is the third feature by Abdellatif Kechiche and one of the most acclaimed of recent films from France. It was the talk of the festival when it premiered in Venice and won the Special Jury Prize for Best Actress for Hafsia Herzi. But, although Kechiche is also an actor who has appeared on screen for some twenty years and had previously directed Blame It On Voltaire in 2001 and L’Esquive in 2003, it took this film to bring him to our attention here.
Kechiche is writer as well as director, and it was his intention to tell a tale about a Franco-Arabic family that would capture the interest of audiences while yet coming across as a slice of life rather than as an obviously fictional story. The nationality of the main characters may be different but, by dealing with a working class family in France, Kechiche was creating a work that would echo other distinguished films. The so-called Pagnol trilogy of Marius, Fanny and César is part of the classic heritage that is the French cinema of the thirties, while in more recent times Robert Guédiguian has set several films in his native Marseille including La Vie Est Tranquille which we screened in 2002. In Couscous Lubomir Bakchev’s colour photography is splendidly atmospheric and therefore well suited to the film’s quest for realism. At times one is also reminded of the work of the Italian director Ermanno Olmi who made The Tree of Wooden Clogs.
After a brief introduction set on a tourist boat going round the harbour, the film introduces us to the central character. He is Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) an immigrant from North Africa who is sixty years of age and has been employed in the docks for some twenty five years. Now he finds that newer and younger migrant workers are being favoured and he is laid off. Rather than mope, Slimane soon makes plans with which he is anxious to proceed and the audience is with him every step of the way. What he has in mind is to refurbish a boat that can be acquired cheaply and then to convert it into a floating restaurant that will be moored by the quayside. The project is, of course, far from easy to realise. That’s partly because Slimane has very little back-up to offer in support of his application for the loan that will be required, but it’s also down to the fact that the plan needs approval from the local authorities who are openly sceptical and largely unco-operative. These scenes carry a comment on bureaucracy not far removed from comparable episodes in Kurosawa’s Japanese masterpiece Living revived and shown by us in 2003. In Slimane’s case success or failure will turn on the amount of support that he can get from his family, Their efforts are required not only for the renewal work to the boat but to help with the home-made cooking which is to be a feature of the new restaurant. An ethnic element will be present in the music and dance that will be featured while a central dish on the menu will be fish couscous. But will Slimane’s efforts be crowned with success despite that being against the odds, or will disaster overtake his enterprise?
Compellingly acted and with characters and a plot-line that enable Kechiche to carry off a running length of just over two and a half hours, this is a film in which one comes to feel very involved. For that reason I am pleased that the Eastbourne Film Society is screening Couscous but, even so, I would mention that, much as I admire the film, which is undoubtedly brilliant when at its best, I do regard it as a seriously flawed work. My main reservation is concerned with the difficulty I have in identifying all of the characters clearly, and it’s only fair to say that in all of the reviews I read I found nobody raising this issue. It’s also the case that my weakness as a film viewer is that I don’t have a good memory for faces, and here we are dealing with a large cast none of whom is known to me. In some respects not being precisely clear as to who is who in Couscous doesn’t matter. When it comes to Slimane’s cronies sharing a chat and a drink - people like his old friend Kader (Adbdelkader Djeloulli) – we hardly need to know their individual names, and so too with the various officials and advisors who have to be approached if the restaurant project is to get the necessary stamp of approval. But when it comes to Slimane’s family I think that it does matter. Writer/directors can be too close to their material, too familiar with it, and I find it irritating when names are long withheld and you have to guess at relationships.
There are no real problems over recognising that Slimane’s former wife who lives locally is Souad (Marzouk Bouraouïa) and that his partner now is Latifa (Hatika Karaoui) whose daughter Rym (that’s the role that won Hafsia Herzi her acting prize) very much approves of her mother’s new relationship and is supportive of Slimane in the most helpful way. It’s when we consider Slimane’s children and their families that, for me at least, confusion sets in (and it would have been so easy to have a scene in which Slimane’s friends talk about which of these people could help him in his project thereby clarifying things). Certainly Slimane has two adult sons, one being the philanderer Majid (Sami Zatouni) whose behaviour distresses his wife Julia (Alice Houri). The other son is Hamid (Abdelhamid Aktouche) who is married to Lilia (Leïla D’Issernio). Slimane’s other children are daughters (even to have established that would have helped) and there are three of them, all married. They are Karima (Faridah Benkhetache), Olfa (Sabrina Ouazani) and, I think, Sarah (Nadia Taouil). At a weekend family gathering all of the children turn up with their own partners and offspring and the scene shows the film’s sense of atmosphere at its strongest but it’s also an occasion when I hope that the details set out above will help you to keep your bearings.
Once you decide not to worry too much about who is who in the family and concentrate instead on the main plot-line, everything falls into place and Couscous is revealed as a totally believable portrait of a family, of a city, of a community and not least of a sixty year old man determined not to vegetate but to live his life to the full.
WINNER of 4 CESARS including BEST FRENCH FILM and of
4 AWARDS at the Venice Film Festival 2007.
“A warm and fascinating mosaic of contemporary characters whose fate
we very much care about”- Sight & Sound.
“**** A triumphant portrait of ordinary people, it is put on the screen with care, humanity and a total lack of forced sentimentality” –Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard.
“The best French film to cross the Channel this past year. This movie about exile, loneliness, the nature of families, self-respect and the pursuit of dreams encompasses comedy and tragedy with understanding, compassion and a total absence of sentimentality” – Philip French, The Observer.
Programme Note by Mansel Stimpson.
