By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Abdel Kechiche
Starring: Abdelhamid Aktouche | Bouraouïa Marzouk | Farida Benkhetache | Habib Boufares | Hafsia Herzi
Original language title: La Graine et le Mulet
Country: france
Year: 2009
Running time: 151
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487419/
Bruce says: “THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN won top awards (Best Film, Best Director, Best Writing) at the Césars, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards. Writer/Director Abdel Kechiche was born in Tunisia but was raised in the south of France which makes him intimately familiar with the immigrant experience which is the subject of this film. (Chlotrudis members may recall Kechiche’s riveting performance opposite Robin Wright Penn in SORRY, HATERS.) THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN is Kechiche’s third directorial and second writing effort; he does not appear in the film.
“As dock workers go, Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) is getting old and tired. His employer changes his hours in an effort to force him out. His boss tells him ‘You’re not profitable anymore.’ His children are grown; his ex-wife still wants him around; and his French mistress is understanding when he can’t get it up. Slimane’s son is an unreliable thug who cheats on his eastern European wife; his older daughter is married; and his younger daughter is smart, beautiful and single.
“At sixty Slimane feels his time is running out. He has dreams of opening his own restaurant. When he finds an abandoned boat along one of the quays, he enlists his younger daughter’s help in making his dreams come true. The two are humiliated by the loan officers and the petty bureaucrats who confront them. Family squabbles become heated. Everyone – wife, children, mistress – is in on the final push to get the restaurant opened for a gala event. Things do not go as planned. The couscous, the gastronomic centerpiece, is missing. In a madcap flurry the film hurdles towards its bittersweet ending.
“Kechiche had made some interesting choices in filming his story. The camera is never more than a few inches from its subject giving the film a Bergmanesque feeling although its subject matter is light years away from Bergman’s Scandanavian motifs. The film suffers from being too long. However, it is a loving, humorous, and insightful glimpse of a group of people fighting to find a place in a new and frequently alien culture. 4 cats
“SECRET OF THE GRAIN screened at the 2008 Woodstock Film Festival”