The Secret of the Grain (2007)

Not even bad in a good way

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

So how much do diapers cost? And what will be the cost of diapers for say a 2 year period till a child gets potty trained? And do the diaper manufacturers not ill serve mothers by making them so dry and absorbent that the kids refuse to start appreciating the alternative?And yes they serve as great shock absorbers when kids take a tumble.Calculators are pulled out and the math is done, 7200 Euros for one year, it emerges, a small fortune for struggling immigrants. All this detailed discussion is just one tiny piece from this big film directed by the emerging French auteur Abdellatif Kechiche.The discussion is happening at a Sunday family lunch in the home of a Tunisian immigrant family in a small port city in southern France.Everybody is there, the three daughters, their husbands,children,two brothers and the formidable mother who has prepared her signature dish, fish couscous, except for the father. In a world becoming stubbornly cosmopolitan and westernized the scene of the family eating the couscous noisily, messily and with great relish is heartening. We see the father a little later as his two sons arrive at his squalid hotel room to give him a take away portion.He eats this with a quiet satisfaction. Rym(Hafsia Herzi),who is the young vivacious daughter of the beautiful middle-aged owner of the hotel with whom the father Slimane(Habib Boufares ) is having a relationship, which perhaps divided his family, shares the meal.The film centers around the efforts of an old and out of work Slimane to convert a rusty decrepit boat into a speciality couscous restaurant.In his efforts he will receive extraordinary support from both his families and many friends.At he heart of the moral dialogue in the film is the profound decency of Slimane, his doggedness, his complete understanding of the compromises involved in being a struggling immigrant and his steadfast adherence to his duty.He knows his limitations and makes his life useful to his family at an old age, in ways that they acknowledge, when the easy thing for them would have been to sideline him from their lives.His daughters adore him and rally around him in his hard times.They clearly have theirs hearts in the right place.We see his first wife walking quite a distance to give a plate of the couscous to a homeless man.It reminded me of the custom in many Indian homes to reserve the first chapatti (indian Bread) for a cow and the last one for stray dogs. As a kid I was terrified of this chore of taking the chapattis to the stray animals but looking back I see it as a custom which built in compassion for animals in our daily life.The acting which is uniformly superb by the leads Habib Boufares and Hafsia Herzi, as well as the supporting cast, is a collage of neorealist, formalist and melodramatic elements. Rym played the sensational Hefsia Herzi is the real surprise in the film.Her devotion to her mothers old companion, whom she treats with love and respect, and the lengths to which both her character and Ms Herzi go, bring immense joy to the film.Perhaps its her love which provides Slimane with the strength to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant on a boat.In the extraordinarily detailed final sequence we see a performance of very sensuous belly dancing by the nubile Rym, as she tries desperately to hold the attention of the irritated restaurant guests who are tired of waiting for the main dish of couscous.As she performs the musicians who are mostly old men who stay at her mothers hotel, play for her as they would for a professional. This is also an interesting take on how old men look at young women who are obviously sexually attractive, this scene provides a very civilized and dignified answer.The film has many long and fully fleshed out scenes, all of which are spectacular in themselves but when they are strung together in a film of this length, it begins to wear us down a bit.The film is raw – in content , tone, texture, performances, dialogue,locations and its use of a fluid hand-held digital camera format.Inside its rawness it hides pleasures as wholesome and nutritious as the fish couscous that lends the film its title, but I am afraid this film will end up dividing the audiences into those who completely immerse themselves in its voluptuousness and those who wish for a more economical and smooth treatment of this fertile material.Surely the director is aware of the perils of his strategy of not holding back, of showing us exactly what he wants to, and this makes this a very brave film.The film is set in Sete, a slightly rundown but beautiful port city in southern France, that I used to make business trips to. Watching this film brought back pleasant memories of the Mediterranean sea that provides a constant backdrop to the film.The sea is what both separates and links Europe and Africa, historically the oppressor and the oppressed.Does Mr Kechiche want to convey this group of immigrants as being the representative samples of the North African immigrants? We do not know. But as an intimate case study it will serve as an important artistic marker in Frances struggle to come to terms with its colonial past and the needs of a modern French society, in a post 9/11 world, to banish symbols of conservative Islamic beliefs such as the headscarf.Cinema cannot offer solutions, just mirrors, and this film is a finely embellished one.First published on my blog mostlycinema.com

About half an hour in i was saying to myself: This is why i watch foreign films; they drop me into ordinary small bits of life all over the world. How people genuinely live, how they actually (have to) work, all those real to life messy relationships. And here we have all this close-up claustrophobic intimacy, the mix and mess of family and friends, of a close-knit community of people living around one another, eating together, making music, dancing, arguing, bantering, laughing. I was enjoying it.I was still enjoying it an hour in. Especially as Hafsia Herzi (as Rym) was coming more into the story; what a lively, sexy, feisty, firecracker she is. And old Slimane was reminding me of my quiet old granddad (with his budgie in the cage by the open window facing out to the harbour) I liked being in this salty Mediterranean "reality".But the second half of the film slowly slid my interest away. I'm becoming aware of how overly extended scenes are getting (do we have to see every pot being carried out of that car?) Dialogues are running repetitively into one another, with much shouting and wailing. Crude melodrama is starting to become the predominant driver of the narrative.Disappointingly, the film has felt like it's lost its way – and I've lost sympathy with both the characters and the plot they're in. The boat restaurant scenes at the end – Ryms belly dancing for example – and sad Slimane running around and around in hopeless circles after the jeering kids on his stolen bike – have become far too farcical.Its a real let down when a film, especially a long film like this, fails to deliver what it was promising. All that couscous, just slopped wastefully out onto the floor.(For the first hour about a 7; and the other hour and a half is about a 4)

One that likes generalizations may say that French movies often get trapped in what one may call "a presumptuous way of looking at life". Always that unadjusted narrative, and of course the mysterious/pseudo-philosophical ending. Well, this one is a French contemporary movie that is not attached formulas. The contemplative look is sure french, however the measure is precise. It provides an unbelievable and unexpected intimacy with the characters, which is only recognized by the viewer as the movie comes to the end. Offering a particular time frame that values a constant and naturalistic look at the sequences, this movie conducts you through the beauty of simple things in life as if it was the greatest conquests of human kind.

In the grand tradition of film dealing with food as a central centerpiece,'La Graine Et Le Mulet' (released in the U.S.& other English speaking countries as 'The Secret Of The Grain') can easily be placed with other films such as 'Eat,Drink,Man,Woman','Big Night' & 'Babbette's Feast'. Slimane,a sixty something ship yard worker is being pressured by his boss to step down,due to the fact that he's not as fast as the younger men who are working the docks. All of this,plus the pressures of dealing with an ex-wife,who scolds him for non payment of alimony,plus his sons & daughters,who are constantly arguing with each other,as well as their own families is having an effect on his life. Slimane's dream is to refurbish a boat & turn it into a floating restaurant that serves up traditional North African cuisine (with CousCous,the star attraction). After procuring the funds,not to mention going through the bureaucratic b.s. that's necessary for an undertaking of this sort, Slimane is on to realizing his dream. Abdel Kechiche writes & directs a fine story of family bonds & over coming hurdles (or at least trying to over come hurdles). Habib Boufares plays a weary looking Slimane. The rest of the cast is made up of various folk from Tunesia,France & other places. The camera work (by Lubomir Bakchev) opts for a documentary look that really works for this film (as the documentary look also worked fine for 'The Class',earlier this year). If I have any quirk with this film, at two & a half hours,plus,it's a wee bit long in the tooth (several scenes could have been either trimmed,or even cut out,which would not have hurt the films integrity in the least). Make sure you enjoy a full meal before you undertake this film (as you'll be really hungry after wards). Spoken mostly in French & Arabic with English subtitles. Not rated,but contains raunchy language,brief flashes of nudity & some muted sexual content