Jamie passion and passionfruit!

This scene is from the French film Exils (Un viaje inolvidable) which was released this week.  The director Tony Gatlif is a part-Algerian French film maker who has made a career out of shooting pictures with minority interest groups like the gypsies.  This film won him Best Director at Cannes in 2004 and yet it has not been a great commercial success and many people would probably say, "Who?", "Which film?".  Reviewers here, at least from themainstream papers have been lukewarm in their praise and one or two downright negative.  I think that is probably fine.  After all the readers of their reviews are unlikely to respond very well to this movie.  But I liked it a lot and can see why he was lauded at Cannes.

Exils is a sort of road movie in which two young people with Algerian blood and a hard upbringing leave their rather futureless and dull life in Paris to travel overland to Algeria and discover their roots.  The first half of the movie has its moments but suggests little special as they travel down through France and Spain, catching 'free' rides on trains and sleeping rough.  They meet gypsies and Arabs heading noth to Paris to seek their fortune - incedulous that anyone would want to actually go to Algeria by choice.  They pick fruit for a bit of money, smuggle themselves on board a ferry and then cross the Morocco-Algeria border illegally.  The main features of all this journey are the cameraworrk which is extremely natural and makes the audience feel part of the trip, the emphasis on the effect of the journey on the physical bodies - lots of close ups of skin, sweat, etc and the way the soundtrack heralds the approach to North Africa with increasingly Arabic music passing through the falmenco of Andalucia on the way.

Algeria is another thing entirely.  There are no picture post card frills here.  The dirt, dust and run down nature of the towns is clearly seen as is the poverty, the crowded uncomfortable trains and the humble families.  Both characters, come face to face with their past and with the need to examine their identity and this is handled in a subtle and authentic way as they partake in typical local moments like a tea ceremony and a Sufi trance dance.  The trance scene is one of the boldest moves I've seen for a while in cinema, at least ten minutes of rhythm and blurry movement as the camera acts as a pair of eyes on the dancers who whirl and shake themselves into an altered state and into complete exhaustion.   is a brilliantly cathartic climax to the movie and although we don't know how the future lies for our two main characters, nothing will be the same after this and at least some things have been shaken into shape and they are probably back on the rails much more than before.

This film is not everyone's cup of mint tea but the themes and the North African countryside interested me greatly, reminded me of my own times in Morocco and provided a meaningful setting for the story.

¶    ¶  ¶    ¶