São Paulo – Movie "La Graine et le Mulet" (Couscous in the UK), a long film by Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, tells the story of an Arab worker at the port of Sete, in France. In the movie, playing in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro since last Friday (11), the main character, Slimane Beiji , aged 60, gets divorced after having been married for many years. Unemployed and with no salary, he is obliged to continue close to his family, always asking for help. Slimane would greatly like to retire, but it is not at all possible. He depends on his salary to live and support his second wife, Latifa (Katika Karaoui), and his step daughter, Rym (Hafsia Herzi).
His great project is to open a restaurant, which seems to be a very distant dream. But, little by little, the family comes together around the project, and it becomes a symbol in the search for a better life. The target of the whole group is to redo an old boat and make it into a floating restaurant. Thanks to their sense of “getting by” and to their efforts, their dream will soon come true. Or almost.
The production, filmed in France in 2007, has already won 12 awards in European festivals. In the Venice Film Festival, in 2007, it won the Special Jury Award and the Marcello Mastroianni Award, for best emerging actress, for Hafsia Herzi. In the César 2008, another four awards were won: Best Director (Abdel Kechiche), Best French Film, Best Original Writing and Best Promising Actress, also for Hafsia Herzi. In the Lumière 2008, the film won another two awards, Best Director (Abdel Kechiche) and Most Promising Young Actress (Hafsia Herzi). In the Étoiles d’Or 2008, in turn, it won the Best Director Award (Abdel Kechiche), Best Female Newcomer (Hafsia Herzi), Best Film and Best Writer.
“I started off from a popular fantasy, the kind of story that is told in projects, the myth of those who ‘did it’, or, in other words, those who escaped the modern slavery represented by a precarious profession, establishing their own business. And I wanted to deal with the matter with a certain irony, telling the story through a narrative that is typical of tales. It is an adventure story, where the human dimension of the characters, even when in group or in great activity, as takes place in the second part of the movie, is the main theme. Even when I was concentrating on keeping the focus on the action, whose symbolic and euphoric dimensions are very important for me, paradoxically, I tried to keep open any route of digression that could arise in the narrative, like the simple pleasure of contemplating the everyday family drama,” said the director, in a press statement.
"In the end, it is this dimension that is most interesting. Coming close to the characters that I love so much and showing little things of their daily life. That is why I had to adopt a singular narrative rhythm. Generally, action does not make it possible to remain on one thing for too long, but a true family meal or the start of emotion demonstrated on anyone’s face needs time to happen,” says the Tunisian.
"Marriage between the soap-opera dimension and the faithful depiction of the characters and their environment is crucial to me. Partly as I belong to the means and am involved emotionally. But, more important, I would like to show all the complexities of this French-Arab family, in which everybody is deeply involved in the opening of the family restaurant and, therefore, looking at the future without denying their identity. For me, it was important to frankly and energetically defend the right to be different, without falling in the stigmatised and reducing trap of exotic representation. A fine and essential line to which I am inclined, due to my emotionally invested eye,” finishes off Abdellatif Kechiche, in a press statement published by the distributor of the film in Brazil.
Technical information
Original title: La Graine et le Mulet
2007, France, 151 minutes
Genre: Dramatic Comedy
Director: Abdel Kechiche
Writer: Abdel Kechiche
Production: Claude Berri
Photography: Lubomir Bakchev
Editing: Ghalia Lacroix
Distribution in Brazil: Imovision
Cast
Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi,
Faridah Benkhetache, Abdelhamid Aktouche,
Bouraouia Marzouk
*Translated by Mark Ament
