IMDb user comments for
Graine et le mulet, La (2007)

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24 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
A major movie of our times, 22 December 2007

Author: jean-no from Paris

Abdellatif Kechiche did very well with his previous movie "L'Esquive". But here we have even better. The story is simple : I'd say it is mostly about dignity, sacrifice and family love. The acting is brilliant. Habib Boufares is perfect, the young Hafsia Herzi is astounding, especially for the end of the movie. The actors are mostly non-professional people but the script is very well written and the characters are well defined, so this "amateurism" does great and helps the audience's immersion. The cinematography is very special (but never disturbing), with a lot of very close close-ups. The camera is "natural" as with Casavettes, but not "drunk", it is not a pain to watch and you don't get sea sick. The whole movie reminded me the Italian neo-realism and also a little of Renoir. Some people mention Pialat. It's a quite long movie but you don't feel it while watching, you just realize it after.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Moving human drama with subtlety, 9 March 2008

Author: Paul Martin from Melbourne, Australia

I have heard this film being compared to Eat Drink Man Woman, which is fair enough, if not slightly deceptive. Sure, there's a similar veneration for the art of cooking and how this draws and binds families. But the film casts a wider net than this may suggest. For me, it strongly resembles the humanistic and naturalistic stories of Robert Guédiguian, particularly La ville est tranquille (The Town is Quiet).

The actors are largely non-professionals. The use of long takes, including long stretches of dialogue, is very impressive and suggests that some of the script may be improvisational. I liked the chit-chat, the small details of daily life (like toilet-training a child), that films normally gloss over.

The film has a documentary look and feel and parts are like a fly-on-the-wall at a family gathering. For me, the importance of this is to convey how human this family is, with a rich and warm cultural heritage. In particular, it renders as impotent, irrational fears of Muslim culture.

The film works on multiple levels because it taps into the universal everyday concerns that potentially touch us all in one form or another: prejudice against immigrants, attitudes towards Islam post 9-11, globalisation, ageism in the workforce, the effects of poverty, family breakdown and more. Yet, importantly, the film is not preachy but merely presents life in a matter-of-fact way.

The female performances in the film are particularly affecting, especially the young Hafsia Herzi playing Rym, the daughter of Slimane's lover, and Leila D'Issernio who plays his Russian daughter-in-law.

At 148 minutes, the film is quite long, though this is not apparent until the final scene, which seems to be prolonged in real-time for a particular effect. On paper, the story looks like something we've seen before, but avoids all the clichés we might expect. I loved it.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
It could have been an excellent movie, 9 March 2008

Author: andre-blecha-1 from Switzerland

Something unusual happened at the end of this movie projection. Several people not knowing each other gathered at the cinema exit and discussed the movie. It appeared that the movie was spoiled by several cinematographic tics which the director promoted to the status of the style and used all over the movie "ad nausea". He extends the lengthy sequences probably to make us share the uneasiness of the characters in the given situation (the mother scolding the child for weeing in her panties, the guests waiting for the cous-cous, the final run of Slimane and the belly dance). But this is a 0-level translation of the reality into the cinematographic language. The profusion of the very close-ups and the clip-like filming with very short shots is a minor default. It is probably one of the points which makes some people like the movie as "modern". The movie is almost twice as long as usual and I can not find any cinematographic reason to make it this long, if not just the desire to convince the spectator (and jury) that this movie has something exceptional. We spent some good moments but we hope that this gifted director will not be encouraged to belaborates more in his future creations.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
An extraordinarily different film because of its ethnicity and real-time filming, 11 April 2008

Author: Tim Johnson from Fremantle, Australia

Diane and I attended this wonderful film in Fremantle this morning and both of us left the theater at its conclusion realising that we had seen an unusual film from an unusual ethnic angle and that the director and actors had completed a superb work.

I adore our Australian films because many of them explore the mundane drama of quiet ordinary life and this film is no exception even though it is French rather than Australian. I guess Hollywood does not believe viewers are sensitive enough to pay to see domestic drama and that the subject matter must always be "bigger than Ben Hurr" but our movies as well as many European movies have proved that the examination of quiet aspects of everyday life can provide extremely compelling material for contemporary films.

IMDb commentators found it off-putting to watch long film sequences about potty training, marital squabbles and restaurant scenes; however, this is the stuff of myriad similar domestic situations that we are all familiar with. The genius being that the director can make these scenes rich enough to watch. Diane and I both believe he did this admirably as well as providing much to discuss and reflect upon later.

We both found it different and endearing that we were allowed into the lives of people and their situations that would be closed to us without this delightful film. Yes, I used the adjective "delightful"; the scenes of domesticity were enlightening and compellingly endearing because we are inundated with Western examples of the genre but few (such as in this film) of other ethnic examples.

A film that should not be missed!

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Major disappointment, 16 March 2008

Author: Felix-28 from Melbourne, Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I went to this film with high expectations and came out with them almost wholly dashed. This is a film where there are a few high spots, but far too many low ones.

There are three major defects with this film. The first is that it is ridiculously overlong, and thus ultimately very boring. Scene after scene is extended and extended and extended, with the extensions contributing exactly nothing to advancing the plot or developing or even showing the characters. The scene with the girl on the potty just went on too long. So did the scenes with the wronged wife (particularly the second one, in which the woman wailed and complained and cried for what must have been five straight minutes – it seemed like five hours – repeating word for word the same line again and again and again). So did the belly dance (although that one had its compensations). So did Slimane's run.

Second, the plot. Unfortunately I have to reveal quite a lot to make this good, so if you want to watch it fresh, don't read this. But really! First of all, a 61 year old man with nothing and no bank loan first of all decides to set up a floating restaurant in which, apparently, everyone is supposed to work for nothing, and then does so. Then, on the opening night, which is when he's supposed to show everyone how it can work, all the cooking is done at his wife's place and transported there in a car. That doesn't sound much like a restaurant to me. Then they forget to unload the car properly. Then the philandering son decides to leave with the car because he finds his mistress is at the restaurant and he fears being exposed – despite the fact that his mistress is with her husband and just as keen on keeping things quiet as he is. And then Slimane leaves his moped unattended just as he always does, and it just happens to be this time that it gets pinched. For Heaven's sake.

Third, the fake documentary style. Frankly, I could kill the person who invented the Steadicam. As a way of making the viewer feel sick it has few equals and no superiors. And the endless close-ups of people eating and talking with their mouths full may be realistic, but the scene at the beginning with the family eating the meal together was no doubt supposed to convey the warmth of the family, but it failed in its purpose because it was so repulsive to look at. We don't stare at each other's munching jaws when we eat together; it's not necessary for the camera to do so when we're watching a film.

There are good bits. For about half and hour while Rym, the spunky young girl, is helping Slimane set up his venture, the film actually moves along, and she's a convincing and engaging character. A number of individual scenes work well: Slimane getting laid off; the old musicians talking together; Rym persuading her mother to go to the opening.

But all in all, it's overlong, unbelievable and too often boring.

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Tragicomic epic of Arab immigrant life in a French port town, 10 May 2008

Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

Abdellatif Kechiche, who is also an actor, stands with Turkish-German director Faith Akim as the preeminent director dealing with diaspora experience in western Europe. He was born in Tunisia but was brought to France at the age of six and grew up in Nice. 'La graine et le mulet,' the title, refers to (mullet) fish couscous (grain) and Kechiche has said he's as stubborn as the mullet. The action is in the southern French port town of Sète. Most of the cast are non-actors.

Though marred by a jittery camera in intimate scenes, over-close closeups, and some sequences that are allowed to run too long, 'The Secret of the Grain' is nonetheless a triumph, an emotionally powerful, overwhelmingly rich, epic-feeling tragi-comedy that overflows with wonderful performances, evokes a host of masters including Jean Renoir and the Italian neorealists, and fairly bursts off the screen with its loving and complex portraits of Magreban society in France and the harsh world in which it struggles and survives. The main focus for all this is food: two grand meals, one intimate and familial, the other in a projected couscous restaurant on an old boat where friends and family and local officials are all invited to show off cuisine and entertainment in an effort to prove that an old man at the end of his tether can, with the help of his family and friends, make a go of it in a new business, against all odds. Kechiche and his cast focus not so much on any plot-line arc, though there are dramatic turns of events right up to the end, but on the way they work as an ensemble to make each moment come alive. In the somewhat stilted, over-polished and over-sophisticated and often dry world of French cinema, it's not hard to see how the rough, irresistible energy of the world Kechiche brings to the screen here would seem a welcome tonic. And, it has to be admitted, giving the same very gifted Arab director the run of the Césars twice can't help but be soothing to the consciences of the left-liberal intellectuals who tend to dominate the world of French film criticism. It doesn't hurt that 'Secret' is offered by Pathé and has the imprimatur of the prestigious producer Claude Berri.

Kechiche's previous (and second) film 'L'Esquive' ("The Avoidance"), retitled in English 'Games of Love and Chance' (after the 18th-century playwright Marivaux's work which is central to the plot) which won four Césars, including Best Director and Best Film, was about the young mixed population of children of immigrants who live in the ghetto-like suburban Paris 'banlieue.' This new story is a homage to the "fathers," the generation of Kechicne's parents, who immigrated to France forty or fifty years ago.

Hence the protagonist is the sad but determined Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), who as the movie begins is told by his boss at the port shipyard workshop that, now sixty-one, he is no longer "rentable" (profitable), his work is too slow, he doesn't keep up with the schedule on projects. Threatened with no benefits because earlier in his 35 years at the site he was off the books and now offered only half-time status, he quits. He lives in a room in a little hotel run by his lover, Latifa (Hatika Karaoui), whose daughter Rhn (Hafsia Herzi) considers Slimane her own dad and defends him against his mean sons by his ex-wife Souad (Bouraouia Marzouk). He owes her alimony, but brings fish instead. The sons say he ought to go back to the 'bled,' the old country; they want to be rid of him.

Slimane's eldest son Hamid (Abdelhamid Aktouche) is married to a Russian woman. His family evidently know about his philandering and especially his affair with the deputy mayor's wife--the need to conceal which becomes a plot pivot-point.

While Slimane is alone in his little hotel room Souad has a big fish couscous dinner with their offspring and their French husbands and children. This sequence is irritating at times for its clamorous, shifting closeups and its cacophonous talk, but at the same time the way this lively, tumultuous gathering in close quarters has been shot is a tour-de-force of complex naturalism. When the sons bring Slimane a dish of the fish couscous, he gets the idea of enlisting his ex-wife to be the cook in a restaurant he might establish in an abandoned ship. Rhm goes with him to the bank and city offices to present the project where they're politely received, but not given the green light. This is where the idea comes to give a grand dinner on the ship to convince everyone Slimane and company can make a go of it. A lot of the second half of the movie consists of this dinner.

The naturalism of the sequence may be suggested by the fact that Bouraouia Marzouk actually did a lot of the cooking for 100 people for the dinner. The theft of Slimane's Moubylette is a conscious homage to De Sica's 'Bicycle Thief' ('Ladri di biciclette'). 'La graine et le mulet' is a thrilling, amusing, moving, excruciating screen experience that takes Abdellatif Kechiche to a new level of accomplishment, but the vagaries of his methods will continue to create enemies as well as admirers as he goes along. As Jacques Mandelbaum wrote in 'Le Monde,' 'The Secret of the Grain' "mixes romance and social chronicle, melodrama and comedy, the triviality of the everyday and the grandeur of tragedy. A simple family meal becomes a classic sequence, a table of old immigrants becomes a Greek chorus, a belly dance a high point of erotic vibration and dramatic tension." For all its flaws, this movie packs a huge wallop and brings Adbellatif Kechiche to the brink of greatness.

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Hafsia Herzi steals the show, 20 April 2008

Author: wondercritic from Turkey

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.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A very pleasant surprise, 22 March 2008

Author: Catherine from Australia

It really wasn't what I expected from a French film but left me with much more. Instead of breathtaking establishing shots of the picturesque French countryside and happy-go-lucky dialogue, I was confronted with unorthodox cinematography and fresh, honest conversation. The extreme close-ups aided the film to expose raw human emotion and the dynamics of family, love, lust, legacy and betrayal.

Stunning acting (especially Hafsia Herzi) caused the film to appear more as a documentary than a fictional tale - whilst retaining intimacy. Portraying a design with care and detail; the length of each scene fully expresses the human drama occurring within it and despite the film's length the messages it expresses remained poignant.

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2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Far from being the best French film of 2007, 30 March 2008

Author: vetapublishing from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Advertised as the best French Film of 2007.Sorry to disagree. While it has some very good actors, the script is repetitive, the director does not know editing. Some scenes are overly too long. Some don't make sense, like when the father is chasing kids who stole his motorcycle by running after them round and round and round. Dialogues are far too long, repetitive monologues or discussions with little sense. One could cut the film to half the length which would improve it enormously. It displays poor people's life sympathetically, this is probably the only positive comment I can come up with. I understand that I have to write minimum 10 lines to be able to post this comment.Let me comment on this. This is one of the nonsense requirements of recent times on IMDb.It is in line with some newspaper articles comments on TV, Internet articles, where if one reads the first paragraph, the rest is simple repetition. In other words, it seems to be in line with the direction and script of this film I am commenting on. It encourages bla... bla... bla instead of commonsense comments well defined and brief,to the point where people read it and get the meaning and the essence of what is said.

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