La graine et le mulet (2007)

Director:

Abdel Kechiche

Writer:

Abdel Kechiche (writer)

Release Date:

12 December 2007 (Belgium)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

It takes will, courage and determination to realise a dream. But most of all it takes family

Plot:

At the port of Sète Mr. Slimani, a tired sixty year old, drags himself towards a shipyard job which...

Plot Keywords:

Shipyard | Bank Loan | Rejected Loan Request | Foreman | Cooking

Awards:

18 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Habib Boufares	...	Slimane Beiji
Hafsia Herzi	...	Rym
Farida Benkhetache	...	Karima
Abdelhamid Aktouche	...	Hamid
Bouraouïa Marzouk	...	Souad
Alice Houri	...	Julia
Leila D'Issernio	...	Lilia
Abelkader Djeloulli	...	Kader
Olivier Loustau	...	José
Sabrina Ouazani	...	Olfa
Mohamed Benabdeslem	...	Riadh
Bruno Lochet	...	Mario
Cyril Favre	...	Serguei
Sami Zitouni	...	Majid
Mohamed Karaoui	...	Lafita

Also Known As:

The Secret of the Grain (Australia) (Canada: English title) (festival title) (USA)
Couscous (International: English title) (UK)

Runtime:

France:151 min | USA:151 min | Argentina:151 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | Arabic | Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS

Certification:

Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | France:U | Netherlands:12 | Australia:M | Brazil:14 | Sweden:7 | USA:Unrated | Argentina:13 | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

Chantier naval, Sète, Hérault, France

Company:

Pathé Renn Productions

Trivia:

Filming was supposed to start in summer of 2005 but one of the leading actors was ill, resulting in a major delay. Thus, filming actually started on 5 September 2005 and was still running by 16 January 2006. The set was on a boat in the port of Sète for a least 6 weeks from October to December, 2006. Outside temperatures were very low, as opposed to what they should have been if schedule could have been held. This led the production to set up large tents near the set (boat) with heating systems for the actors and extras to remain comfortable between takes.

Movie Connections:

References Finding Nemo (2003)

Hafsia Herzi steals the show

This is the story of French-speaking Arabs somewhere in a port city on France's Mediterranean coast. The main character, Slimane, an Arab immigrant, works as a repairman on boats, and his immediate boss is always on his case about how slow he is. When Slimane confronts him, the boss simply says the work is no longer profitable and that his hours must be cut. Slimane is in despair. He has missed two alimony payments to his ex-wife, and as he brings large amounts of fresh fish around to her, he discovers that the freezer is full of frozen fish, the stuff he brought previously that hasn't been eaten. She tells him fish doesn't pay the bills, and now he has to think of something.

Slimane feels like a failure, but thanks to the aggressive nature of Rym, his daughter by his girlfriend, he succeeds in obtaining a loan from the bank to open a boat restaurant that specializes in the fish couscous that his ex-wife makes so wonderfully. No one in the local community believes he can pull it off, but he schedules an opening night and invites all the local grandees. There is live music and drink is flowing. His ex-wife cooks a huge quantity of couscous and everything is ready.

To say more would be to spoil the film. Suffice to say, the big night could not go off smoothly and still qualify as drama. But the star attraction is the young actress who plays Rym, Hafsia Herzi. She cannot be past her teens but shows tremendous depth and range—in addition to an extra talent that viewers will have to wait to see. She is easily the funniest character as well, since the rest are rather sad types that depict the dysfunction inherent in Muslim immigrant communities in the West.

The style of this movie is pure realism. The acting is superb all around, so much so that it almost feels like a documentary at times, a kind of "day in the life" where some documentary filmmaker follows these people around for a few days to see how they live. What augments this sense is that the camera is almost always hand-held, and the image is moving around all the time in a method pioneered by NYPD Blue. I found this slightly irritating, actually, since it does not give much room for spectacular cinematography. My ideal movie is a visually mesmerizing spectacle, and this film is not one — at least in terms of the photographic quality. There are some scenes where the movements of the actors—particularly Hafsia Herzi—compensate for this shortcoming. But on the whole it is unremarkable visually.