Couscous

Cecil says: Couscous is a film about an old North African guy in southern France who loses his job repairing boats and decides to set up a couscous restaurant. It takes us through the highs and lows of this man and his family as they go through the various loops of French bureaucracy and the covert (and sometimes overt) racism of officialdom in this small coastal town; they also have to deal with their own naivety about what it means to set up a business from scratch and with the internal family affairs going on among the different siblings as well as the intricacies of keeping both his kids and ex-wife happy while not alienating his new woman and her daughter.

A complex tale, but gripping all the same. The film is produced by Claude Berry, who made Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources in the 1990s. There is something quintessentially French about a film which can observe family mannerisms and banal conversation in such detail over a long family lunch. This style drags a little for an English observer, but it does give a wonderful insight into personality and the goings on underneath the apparent harmony and intimacy of such family gatherings.

There is something ominous and scary about the small-town hierarchy, where the mayor, the bank manager, the authorising officer for business permits and the official giving out permits for berths in the port all know each other. And if you don't get on with one of them, you're in trouble. But if you can convince them of your worth, then you have a chance to get what you want. The trouble is that being North African, our protagonist can't afford to make a single mistake or everything will be lost. And there is the constant feeling through the film that something is bound to go wrong soon...

I was never a great fan of belly dancing while eating my dinner (but hey, I am from Hull), and the long, long scene of the step-daughter trying to save the evening by captivating the audience with an extended belly dance seemed never ending: surely some of the diners would have walked out in reality?? But for all that some scenes did seem inordinately long, the film overall gave me a tremendous yearning for a really good couscous...

***

Bea says: Complex is the best way to describe this film - it left me with many different emotions. The big family gatherings struck a chord with me and as they reminded me of my own family get togethers they made me feel cheerful in a nostalgic, wistful way. There was however something very tragic in the cut of the film's hero, and like Cecil I had a sense of impending doom throughout, which almost made me want to stop watching. I knew it was all going to go wrong. In many ways this seemed a story about women - the old wife, the new woman, the daughters and stepdaughters had key roles to play, indeed key roles in 'saving' the situation created by the men in the film. The final images of the film - the final image of the hero - left me feeling bereft, and made me want to phone my dad.

**1/2